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Keywords: Myth

There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.

  • AUSTRALIA

    Zen and the art of wealth amassment

    • Ellena Savage
    • 17 July 2015
    4 Comments

    There is a suburban myth about migrant families. The first generation toil, the second become professionals, and the third artists. Like all dynasties, the Rineharts are destined to one day represent the crusty relics of former glory. That's fine. I mean, why would the beneficiaries of other people's obsessive toils and struggle work, if they didn't have to?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Foreign fighter with the 'Anzac spirit'

    • Tim Robertson
    • 13 July 2015
    7 Comments

    It's hard not to admire Reece Harding, whose sense of social justice, idealism and internationalism led him to take up arms against an organisation he seemingly believed lived up to Tony Abbott's characterisation as a 'death cult'. The Federal Government has warned Australians against travelling to the Middle East to fight on any side. But these calls are drowned out by decades of contradictory rhetoric that has seen the Anzac legend placed at the fore of our history and culture.

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  • Overcoming polarised attitudes to sexual orientation

    • Thomas O'Brien
    • 08 July 2015
    5 Comments

    Since the 1950s, the Western World has been experiencing an upheaval regarding the place of society's values in sexual relations. The response of many conservatives has been to act as if nothing has changed and that the social mores and social fabric of the 1950s remain.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    There's hope for mediocre women

    • Ellena Savage
    • 19 June 2015
    13 Comments

    I have a friend who tells me she loves seeing what she terms 'mediocre women' at the top of their fields, especially in public, because it shows that feminism is working. Some women have made a success of themselves as men have always done, through acquiring privilege and seizing opportunities with a sense of entitlement, rather than by the myths of brilliance and sacrifice. I like this perspective. 

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  • Reclaiming faith from the props of belief

    • David Tacey
    • 05 June 2015
    32 Comments

    'We were told to 'believe' that God could perform miracles, but this was a false lead in terms of what we now know about sacred discourse in the holy lands. This literalism was used against other religions to prove the supremacy of Christianity, but ironically it is what turned the majority of Europeans and Australians off religion as education has swept through Western nations in recent times.' David Tacey reflects on faith and belief. Andrew Hamilton replies.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Is faith more than metaphor?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 May 2015
    50 Comments

    Australian writer David Tacey argues that the Christian story, like all religious beliefs, should be seen as metaphor. He argues that in turning from a literal understanding, we recapture the original Christian message. But for me, adopting his reading would mean the loss of a personal God to whom I can pray, of a Christ who is a living presence among his followers, and of a community in living continuity with Jesus' disciples.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The exploitation of Anzac and other myths

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 07 May 2015
    13 Comments

    To describe events as mythical is always open to misunderstanding, because in common speech myth is opposed to reality. When mythical stories are seen as unreal, the deep significance they have for individuals and groups also comes into question. So a hostile response is to be expected.  

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  • Anzac Day centenary homily at Harvard Memorial Church

    • Frank Brennan
    • 26 April 2015
    5 Comments

    This Memorial Church here at Harvard was dedicated on Armistice Day 1932 in memory of those who died in World War I. It is fitting that we, Australians, New Zealanders, Turks and Americans should gather in this place to mark the centenary of Anzac Day, the day on which Australians and New Zealanders landed in the stillness of the early dawn on the Turkish shoreline wanting to assist with the Allies’ advance on Constantinople, now Istanbul, the day on which the Turks commenced a successful, eight month campaign to defend their homeland against the assault.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Turning the Anzac Myth to society's good

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 23 April 2015
    15 Comments

    Anzac Day is special but limited in its depiction of Australian virtues. A deeper manifestation lies in the housing cooperative members of former Pay Corps members who used their military schooling in planning and organisation to launch a housing cooperative north of Melbourne. It was open to everyone, regardless of religion or race, and reflected the veterans' determination to make Australia a better place free from the class divide and unfairness of the Depression.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    As politicians evoke conflict a century past

    • Various
    • 21 April 2015
    4 Comments

    In airport lounges, off to foreign hells... They come and go like fatigued FIFO workers day and night; partners waiting for their safe return, might be the only show. No protest march, no ticker tape parade.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Anzac Day a jarring experience for migrant Australians

    • Fatima Measham
    • 20 April 2015
    65 Comments

    Since John Howard promoted the memory of 25 April 2015 in the years after 9/11, it has become entrenched in the public imagination as the definitive Australian moment. I look upon it from a distance, in awe, and as the deification of the white male soldier continues apace, with a deeper sense of alienation. As a non-white Australian who migrated to this country from the Philippines, I did try to make it relevant for myself for a while.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The other side of religious zealotry

    • Earl Livings
    • 07 April 2015
    3 Comments

    The addled cultures of exclusivity clash, and clash again, as have all zealots, all purgers of scapegoats, all crusading armies, to the same breathless end. We can only stand before each, Torah, Gospel, Qu’ran, as if before an opening star, and know them as incarnations of that lush silence that inspires believer and non-believer to Truth, Beauty, Good.

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