Ideal Society? Fairburn Questions the Founding Myth of New Zealand
When revisionist historians directly challenge the mythology
of a nation, they can expect to be assailed by both fellow scholars and the
public at large. Sometimes the revisionist history is weighed, found wanting,
and discarded. Sometimes it moves the mythology into a new channel. Most
often it brings about a correction of the myth and is synthesized into it,
becoming part of the mainstream.
Few revisionists provoke so much
controversy in their own spheres as did Miles Fairburn with the publication
in 1989 of The Ideal Society and Its Enemies: The Foundations of Modern New Zealand
Society, 1850-1900.
Arcadia: New Zealand's Founding Myth
"Over the 19th century the most prominent image of New Zealand was as an ideal society for
European settlers . . . a peculiar kind of ideal society, Arcadia." Idealisation
of New Zealand
comprised four themes:
1. Natural
abundance
2. Opportunities
for labourers to win an independency
3. A
high level of order, naturally created
4. Freedom
from status anxiety
Alternative Theses
Those who have questioned the Arcadian ideal have advanced
an "insider's view" based on the assumption that the essential
characteristics of New
Zealand society came about through careful
social organization, not natural abundance. These three theses are examined
and rejected:
1. A
hierarchical society from the outset
2. Close
local associations leading to class consciousness
3. Close
local communities producing conformism and status anxiety
Problem revealed: All these theses rely on the assumption
"that New Zealand
was a tightly organised society."
Atomisation: Fairburn's Thesis
The Wakefield
settlements "were untypical of colonial society." The dominant
condition was "frontier chaos," or "atomisation"
of society. Characteristics of such society were loneliness, transience,
dispersed population, poor communications, material independence,
drunkenness, violence, litigation.
This required repressive
government, as well as self-repression—regimentation and conformism. Not a
pretty picture!
The Arcadian idealists were right
in that early New Zealand
society unfolded naturally, was not a planned or
organized entity. They were wrong, however, in that the results of such
natural development were distressing.
A view as to the philosophy of
the author: "There is no good life to look forward to, no possibility of
heaven on earth. For every desirable social feature, there is always an
unintended bad consequence."
The Critique of Fairburn
[this section under development]
Question for American Students
Can you relate Fairburn's atomisation
thesis to the Turner thesis
in U.S.
history? How is it the same, and how different? (Note that the great Turnerian, Walter P. Webb, also described the
"atomization" of society on the frontier.)
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