Elusive N.Z. identity

Press, 22 July 1989, Page 23

Elusive N.Z. identity

Culture and Identity in New Zealand. Edited by David Novitz and Bill Willmot. G.P. Books, 1989. $29.95. (Reviewed by Dave Welch) "Culture and Identity in New Zealand” consists of a series of 16 essays on a subject potentially close to the heart of most New Zealanders. Essays, it could be argued, work best when they connect the reader to the author’s personal perspective, or when they capture succinctly the seminal element of some broader subject. Few essays in "Culture and Identity” admit the personal or offer any special illumination. The editors, sensibly, disallow the concept of a single national spirit — the volksgeist of Hitler’s disastrously shared fantasy — and offer instead a range of overviews, many of them almost defensively academic and too carefully all-inclusive, and yet for all that far too brief to allow colour and detail or do their subjects justice. The set of cultural mixtures uniquely kiwi is approached from a variety of angles — including race, feminism, speech, sport, war, media, education and religion. What emerges, however, is not a multi-faceted living picture of culture in New Zealand, but, for the most part, a set of uninspired descriptions of social structures and their evolution.

The exceptions make this book worth reading. Rob Steven, in reexamining the socio-economic basis of European settlement, offers a

stimulating, fresh insight into the potential motive force behind New Zealanders’ egalitarian attitude, and the economic foundation of malefemale, and Maori-pakeha relations, Geoff Fougere’s essay on rugby, and Nick Perry analysing Telethon, also

come closer to touching the heart of the matter. The human element is more strongly felt in the narrower focus of Elizabeth Gordon’s essay on the “colonial twang” in New Zealand speech, and Lawrence Jones’s interesting essay on literature has the advantage of being rich with the expressions of quoted writers. Ranginui Walker produces the most succinct description yet seen of Maori identity, skilfully blending spiritual values with a history of the Maori social situation. Greg Newbold’s essay on the criminal subculture is also precise, and interesting for finding meaningful order in an area usually seen by the community only as chaotic and threatening. By and large, though, there is little in most essays that has not been said before in wider, more accessible form; or that does not echo fashionable sentiment. (Where are climate, geography, age group affinity, child rearing patterns, and even basic psychology in these cultural determinants, so heavily orientated to race, class and gender?) Culture and identity are essentially the shared and largely unconscious assumptions from which we view the world. Only the unconscious can truly express the unconscious, but these

essays, by over-valuing reasoning, empirical evidence and mechanical abstraction, leave little room for the spirit to speak.

Ironically, several essays highlight the cultural dominance of white male attitudes in New Zealand — even as they stylistically perpetuate the same imbalance. Something as wholistic as culture surely will elude anything but a wholistic approach.