Cultural Elites and the New Generationalism
Updated Second Edition
Panics over the culture wars, political correctness and victim feminism, rap music, ecstasy and body piercings . . . our cultural landscape is currently peppered with examples of a desperately backward-looking stasis and a fearful hanging-on.
In 'Gangland' Mark Davis analyses the dated ideals and assumptions of Australia's cultural establishment, and their near monopoly on cultural debate. Who are these people? What do they do? How is their influence affecting public forums and the media? Where does that leave the young people of today?
Davis's irreverent prose cuts across the moral panics and anxieties that characterise Australian culture to detect a deep-seated fear of change - a fear that is often expressed as hostility towards youth. 'Gangland' names names and maps networks, laying bare the discrepancies between reality and the images peddled by some of Australia's most popular thinkers, questioning the ideas that have characterised Australia in the nineties.
