The very success of ‘mateship’ in Australia eroded individualism. In a sense mateship was a protection against individualism…it is probably one of the most characteristic folk beliefs of Australia. There is concern for the ordinariness in Australians. Consider Anzac Day again – men in their ordinary clothes, marching through the streets out of step, unpretentious; and then getting drunk in the most ordinary manner imaginable. It is a celebration of the essential ordinariness and the common human-ness of man.
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