Last night, I caught an interview on TV with Dr Cathy Foley, the Deputy Chief of Science at the CSIRO (Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization) in Australia.
She believes that Australia needs to promote science more vigorously.
The bulk of the interview focused on the vast majority of Australian Nobel Prize winners in science winning their awards for work performed outside of Australia.
In defense, Dr Foley did point out the case of one Australian scientist who had earned a Nobel Prize for work within Australia, but went on to outline a number of reasons why, in her view, Australian scientists at home are mostly not recognized. She mentioned that we “do not play the game” as is done overseas. Notably though, she ended her list of reasons by saying that Australians do not like to promote themselves (in science!!) due to the Tall Poppy Syndrome[1].
It was not, I think, Dr Foley’s intention to link this Australian “tall poppy syndrome” with “brain drain” from Australia, (the latter further, (better?), explaining why Australians win the Nobel Prize almost only overseas), but the implication is difficult to overlook.
So why do Australians exhibit a tall poppy syndrome? (It is not unique to Australians: the Japanese do it although the reason in that case is due to Confucianism, as far as I understand.)
Many Australians would say it is due to a strong spirit of egalitarianism in Australia[2]. (But some of them, wary of negative connotations, might say Australians don’t exhibit the syndrome at all!)
A clue about this is given by the way Australians regard Americans, (in stereotype). Australians generally like Americans but Australian affection never precludes friendly abuse, (“teasing”, you might say). In fact, it requires it[3]. Significantly, Australians “rubbish” Yanks over their tendency to “big-note themselves”.
And so there it is. To be passionately involved in your own pursuits/exploits, and to speak of them, is to “big-note yourself”. To do that, it is thought, is perhaps to seek admiration from others — but, in any case, at their expense. It is to find yourself superior to others. And thereby to cut yourself out of the herd and to earn whispered condemnation and repudiation. So it is thought.
One does better by finding more neutral or reticent topics. It may take longer to get to know people — less as well — but it’s safer.
Yet Australians are extremely competitive in the most sportsmanlike fashion. Indeed, there are no better sportsmen than Australians, as any Ocker in any English pub would be happy to most unwelcomely expound[4]. But competitive: only about sport. All else is verboten[5].
So why are tall poppies slashed in Australia??
I, of course, do not know the answer for sure. Nor do I think asking an Australian would likely yield an accurate insight[6]. But I will venture two suggestions.
After many years overseas, spent very close to completely out of contact with the Australian culture, I moved to Japan and eventually to a cosmopolitan city within Japan, (the home, among other things, of KEK, the national, high-energy physics institute), and began to mix once again within an Australian expatriate community.[7]
With fresh eyes, I observed old and familiar traits and behaviors.
Suggestion number one is that Australians are culturally quite socially-inclined, (like the Irish, perhaps, but not as much so). They hanker for acceptance within a group, to be well-liked, to bathe in “mate-ship”, to deal in witty repartee, to affectionately “put the boot into” one’s mates, (i.e. rib or drub them)[8], to give as good as one gets, and, ultimately, to behave compatibly and predictably. Here is Australian egalitarianism in its finery: subjugation of self to group?
Suggestion number two is the obvious but no doubt hotly-disputed claim that Australia, former prison colony, still possesses a passive-aggressive culture. “You can ask us to work, but be careful how much you expect.” (Recently, I watched a colleague ride the clutch of a vehicle all the way back to depot from a job in an attempt to burn it out or anyway shorten its life, in order to exact retribution from his employer for some secret grievance.) In Australian group-think, anyone working hard or trying to excel, is putting the rest to shame and/or under pressure to work harder.[9] There is a code of silence in the Australian workplace.
How would I like to change Australians? Truthfully: not at all. Australians are as they wish to be.
For those few who will not or cannot fit in, go ahead and leave.
[1]
Aristotle uses Herodotus’ story in his Politics, (Book 5, Chapter 10) referring to Thrasybulus’ advice to Periander to “take off the tallest stalks, hinting thereby, that it was necessary to make away with the eminent citizens”. In Livy’s account, the tyrannical Roman King, Tarquin the Proud, received a messenger from his son Sextus Tarquinius asking what he should do next in Gabii, since he had become all-powerful there. Rather than answering the messenger verbally, Tarquin went into his garden, took a stick, and symbolically swept it across his garden, thus cutting off the heads of the tallest poppies that were growing there. The messenger, tired of waiting for an answer, returned to Gabii and told Sextus what he had seen. Sextus realised that his father wished him to put to death all of the most eminent people of Gabii, which he then did.“The phrase has been in current use since Jack Lang, Premier of New South Wales, described his egalitarian policies as “cutting the heads off tall poppies” in 1931. Prior to becoming British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher explained her philosophy to an American audience as “let your poppies grow tall”.
[2] and there is most definitely a strong spirit of egalitarianism in Australia. And a gleeful readiness to cut men down to size.
[3] I learned a hard lesson about this in the US, when I lost a good friend, (an American), because of this cultural difference.
[4] my uncle still brags about being thrown out of an English pub for complaining loudly, long and with venom about the warm temperature of English beer
[5] but note that drinking is considered a sport in Australia:
His academic achievements were complemented by setting a new world speed record for beer drinking: a yard glass (approximately 3 imperial pints or 1.7 litres) in eleven seconds. In his memoirs, Hawke suggested that this single feat may have contributed to his political success more than any other, by endearing him to a voting population with a strong beer culture.
[6] since self-contemplation is such a subjective exercise.
[7] and once again soon finding myself an outsider.
[8] some tellingly link this to the level of homophobia in classical Australian society, (though now significantly eased off). You chase women, but you love your mates. But you have to be ever-so-careful in the expression of that affection. You may verbally bash your mate in front of your friends, (and get some back), to make it clear that you are not “poofters”.
[9] and I readily admit that, now upon my return to Australia after 25 years and some considerable mellowing in my own understanding of wage slavery, I see some logic in the view that the nowadays employer is no friend of the worker.
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People walking on their right-hand side of the sidewalk (they don't any more) and arranging their shopping carts accordion-style in supermarket check-out queues so as not to block other shoppers. Receiving pleasant greetings from strangers.
