I want to go to this so much...

[pezzae]

Melbourne Uni is holding a bunch of free seminars next week on how Australia might adapt to climate change, and the cultural changes required. This is exactly the sort of thing I want to work on

Comments

[originaluddite]

More generally speaking I wonder how experts and other interested persons can facilitate something as big as cultural change. Still it has happened in the past. I wonder - for instance - how much 'multicultural policy' from the Fraser Government onwards has contributed to the vitality and resilience of multiculturalism on-the-ground.

[foxe]

Yes, I wonder this as well, given that so much of what we do is supposedly aimed at achieving policy and cultural change...

[pezzae]

Obviously universities/experts and policy can't change a culture by themselves, but I think it certainly helps. I do find it really encouraging as someone who is trying to 'be the change' in my own life to have some backup from people who know what they are talking about!
Of course what's really required for cultural change is for everyday folks to start living differently. But a lot of daily living behaviours are constrained by policy; you can't give up your car if you live in a low-density cheap housing area with no public transport. Land zoning and availability of public transport are both affected by government policy, so to have university profs pointing out 'if we want X outcome we need to change Y policy' is useful thing. Let's just hope the people who make the policy decisions are listening...

[originaluddite]

You are saying the things I like on that PT and other infrastructure front. Course it has to be considered - some small towns for instance may just be too small to justify it. We do have plenty of suburbs in need of it however.

Another thing I think is proposing changes that are truly free of cultural or classist assumptions. I have noticed that plasma TVs cop a lot more flack than (say) walls full of books. I wonder what an objective analysis of the resource usage would say.

[pezzae]

Possibly that's to do with the available alternatives? Plasma TVs are a status item, because you could just get a normal TV. Walls of books, not so much... or am I just showing my cultural assumptions?

[originaluddite]

Hmmm... I think a plasma TV is a personal pleasure thing foremost. It is just more fun to watch. But I suppose it also grants esteem if one shares it with friends over for a video night.

But I think effects are more important than assumed motives. A small normal telly is a lesser resource than a plasma TV. Likewise sharing ones books with many others via ones local library is a much lesser consumption of finite resources than owning ones own private library.

As for cultural assumptions - I guess we are all captive to them. The culture of my family was to regularly visit the local library and to value it as an institution that had freed past generations from illiteracy and class immobility. Oh that and the fact that we like free stuff. (-8}

[pezzae]

The culture of my family is the visit and value the local library for what it can provide, and have walls of books for the special interests that the library didn't fulfil. My parents' bookcases are almost a library too as they frequently loan books to friends and family, so I've learnt to check the local library, check my friend's collections, and only then buy a book I want to read!