Are We... Insular? Uncritical? Intolerant? Too Modest?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 209, 25 June 1943, Page 5

Are We... Insular? Uncritical? Intolerant? Too Modest?

"] SHALL try to be impertinent in order to be amusing. In any case, my listeners can always discount any statement they don’t like on the ground that I am a South African," said Dr. J. N. Findlay, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Otago, when opening a radio discussion with his wife (who is a New Zealander), on the subject of "The New Zealanders" in the Winter Course Series from 4YA tecently. Here is a condensation of the discussion: R. FINDLAY: The first thing that struck me about the New Zealanders was, of course, the obvious thing-their isolation and insularity. Coming to live down here in Dunedin in the south of the South Island, in a city strangely placed in a setting of high mountains at the end of a long harbour where very few ships seemed to penetrate, and looking out on a wholly untenanted sea, I had at first the sensation of a man who has fallen down a high cliff on to a narrow ledge, where he must feed his gaze on an endless prospect of emptiness. The place I had come to seemed to connect with nothing and to be nowhere. Mrs. Findlay: But couldn’t you feel oriented by looking at a map, where everything is only a stone’s throw away? Dr. F: No, for the map always chilled me by presenting Antarctica as a closely neighbouring land-mass. . . . And it didn’t at all suffice to blot out my memory of an infinity of boats, trains and ferries which would have to be dealt with before one could resume contact with familiar continents and territories. Mrs. F: But the people? Surely they seemed ordinary and familiar? Dr. F: By no means. The people seemed in some respects to share the qualities of their physical setting. They lived in a realm of their own, and were occupied with affairs of their own. They had queer hours for meals and many queer names for things, and many extraordinary customs. And quite naturally they didn’t seem to be sufficiently aware of their remoteness or their isolation or their strangeness. All these, I may say, were impressions that have now worn off completely. Mrs. F: I’m rather inclined to challenge your picture of the New Zealanders as a race of desert islanders. Surely there are few places on earth in which world affairs are regarded with greater interest? And surely there are few parts of the world where Imperial sentiment is stronger. Following a Lead Dr. F: I entirely grant what you say. It is simply the other side of the picture. Being remote, the New Zealanders compensate by being overwhelmingly interested in happenings on the other side of the globe. .. . But being remote, their success in following the lead of far-away fashions in thought and action is necessarily very imperfect. And there is also inevitably a considerable timelag in it. So the impression persists that the New Zealanders are very isolated. .

Mrs. F: You think, no doubt, that the insularity of the New Zealanders is a very hopeless defect. Dr. F: I am very far from thinking that. A certain amount of insularity is, id fact, essential to the formation of a true culture. Great cultures are invariably selective: they are not indiscriminately affected by everything that goes on around them, but only by such things as they can readily absorb into themselves. Both England and France are selective in this manner, Their attitude has even seemed to some to involve a wilful ignorance of many important and interesting things. Mrs. F: Surely you don’t suggest that New Zealand preserves its culture in this remarkable manner. Dr. F: No. But physical distance and slender lines of communication act in a selective manner, and permit the formation of a peculiar culture. North Versus South Mrs. F: I find what you say rather absurd. If there were anything in_ your

view, New Zealanders should become more and more civilised the farther south one goes. Dr. F: And can you doubt that this is actually the case? Life undoubtedly becomes less crass, more steaped in civilised values, the farther south one goes. People have a semblance of an ordered pattern in their lives. They are not so much at the mercy of whatever happens to be new or whatever happens to pay. They have standards, and they judge by them. They have traditions and are influenced by them. Surely these are the marks of a true culture? It is impossible at present to return from the North to the South Island without a deep sense of spiritual relief. But no doubt the war situation also contributes to disturb the judgments and conduct of the North Islanders. "Great Deal of Narrow-Mindedness" Mrs. F: I find what you say rather preposterous. Surely the isolation you extol must help to build up narrow and reactionary attitudes of mind? Dr. F: That, I am afraid, is the other side of the picture, I should be the last to deny it. Undoubtedly the isolation of New Zealand does produce a great deal of narrow-mindedness. Undoubtedly in our various small communities the most fantastic judgments come to prevail, and the most extraordinary. valuations come to be put on things and people. There is even a danger that, in abnormal circumstances New Zealand might readily be swept by some wave of mass-hysteria, which only long-term overseas influence would suffice to correct....One of the worst effects of our isolation is its influence on our intellectual leaders. The longer they remain in this country without renewing their contact with overseas springs of thought, the more their ideas become stereotyped and fixed. But the longer they stay here the more dogmatic and oracular they also tend to become, since hardly anyone ventures to contradict them. In the end, they know almost nothing, and are prepared to make pronouncements on practically everything. I hope you don’t think that I myself fall entirely into this category. However, if our intellectual leaders are unsatisfactory, our public figures are *requently worse. Mrs. F: You are saying some very unpalatable things. Do you really think New Zealand has nothing origina] and valuable to offer? Dr. F: I am very far from thinking that. It seems to me that original and valuable things are springing up everywhere in New Zealand. I don’t wish to mention names, but I think we may be developing a literature full of the authentic flavour of New Zealand experience. I also think that many of the paintings of the younger New Zealand painters represent a real extensidn of vision. And I can see no reason why there should not ultimately be an authentic New Zealand contribution in architecture or music or drama or philosophy. The Biggest Obstacle Mrs. F: You don't imagine that the smallness of New Zealand will prevent it from bringing off important political and cultural achievements? _ Dr. F; I don’t for a moment imagine it. Throughout history we have instances (Continued on next page)

AS ANOTHER SEES US

| South African Discusses The New Zealanders

(Continued from previous page) of communities that were small and poor but nevertheless fruitful in the things of the spirit. Mrs. F; But don’t you think travel difficulties will limit the scope of our experience unduly? Dr. F: I used to think I should be horribly restricted when I couldn’t rush about the country in a car. Now I am glad I haven’t got one, I find that I appreciate the spirit of individual places much better and more intimately than I used to. It seems to me that we might do this with our country. We might know it more completely and more intimately. We might demolish our present expensive luxury hotels and replace them with a series of inexpensive youthhostels. It is more important to widen the experience of our own people than to cater for the tiresome type of tourist. Mrs. F: What obstacles would you say stand in the way of New Zealand’s achieving the desirable destiny you are sketching? Dr. F: Apart from the war, I should say that the only important obstacle is lack of confidence. The New Zealander’s modesty often leads him to be unneces" sarily cautious. He tries to model himself only on the best patterns, He tries to be up in everything that is current and well received. He wants to be correct at all costs, No Time for Minorities? Mrs. F:; Do you think the New Zealander’s lack of self-confidence leads him to adopt too uncritical an attitude to many things? Dr. F: Certainly I think so. The New Zealander tends to think that a person who complains and criticises is invariably a nuisance. Whereas a critic or complainer is frequently a great social benefactor. Mrs, F; You wouldn’t say that there is much place for originality and eccentricity in the New Zealand way of life? Dr. F: For originality there may be a small place. For eccentricity there is practically none at all. Which is unfortunate. We haven’t even that tolerance of harmless Bohemianism which one finds in older countries, A woman who doesn’t kill herself with housework and die before her gas-stove baking her last scone, is morally frowned upon, A man who fails to keep his garden in order is regarded as a dangerous character. And keeping one’s garden doesn’t merely mean surrounding oneself with an agreeable profusion of herbs and shrubs and trees. It means plastering the paths with | concrete and torturing the earth into heart-shaped beds. It is certainly not the case in New Zealand that a man can do as he likes on his own acre. And if laxity in this sphere is not tolerated, it follows that there is absolutely no tolerance of more serious irregularities of conduct and manners. I don’t think these features admirable, because I very much like seeing a diversity of creatures. Mrs. F: Do you also think that New Zealanders have insufficient patience with unorthodox views in various fields? . Dr, F; They certainly haven’t enough patience, They think diversity of opinion

somewhat unnecessary, and are inclined to attribute it to perversity of spirit. And if anyone defends the right of some unorthodox group to peculiar opinions and practices, everyone imagines that the defender must necessarily be sympathetic to their particular brand of unorthodoxy. I am afraid I regard this whole matter very seriously. I sometimes think that any body of opinion could at any moment be arbitrarily snuffed out in New Zealand and hardly anyone would care, Mrs. F: Surely you would admit, however, that there is much criticism of any government which is in office and of: its general policy? Dr. F: Certainly there is much criticism. But it is seldom reasoned criticism. And it seldom offers constructive alternatives. I listen gladly to any view, whether radical or conservative, that tries to take account of physical and moral actualities. But Iam not interested ift abuse. It does not. throw light on any problem. And I can’t think that a man is unfit to rule the country merely because, he wasn’t born in Remuera or Maori Hill, any more than I can believe that he is necessarily stupid and reactionary because he happens. to live there. "The Most Hopeful Thing" Mrs. F: You have been very Olympian, Dr. Findlay. You have rapped everyone over the knuckles very sharply. As a New Zealander, I have thought you rather hard in places and much too airy in others.. But tell me before we finish, what you would regard as the best and most hopeful thing in this country? Dr. F: The only answer I can give to that question sounds rather trite and somewhat sentimental. I regard the youth in this country as its most hopeful feature. I am speaking sincerely when I say that I find them very admirable, They have minds that are pleasantly free from fog, and definitely unreceptive to various types of propaganda that seem to me nonsensical; ‘they are liberalminded, their patriotism is of a reason‘able rather than a tribal order, they are interested in the best things, they wish above all to base their policies on knowledge. One doesn’t need to influence them, but merely furnish them with the tools and information that they want, in order to see them arriving at very good solutions of the problems that confront them. The present is rather a painful interim period when the best brains and energies in the country are engaged in stamping out a number of particularly undesirable and evil persons and policies; when that is over, and the young are in our midst again, there is nothing excellent that I do not venture to hope for.

R. J. N. FINDLAY who conducted this discussion from 4YA_ with his wife, is a former South African Rhodes Scholar who took up the chair of Philosophy at the University of Otago about nine years ago. He has therefore had time to get to know a good deal about us. He took his M.A. at Oxford, his Ph.D. at Graz in Austria, and for some time was lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. In 1939 he made a world tour to s#udy philosophical problems in the U.S.A., Germany, Scandinavia, and Great Britain.