I’m reading Kirsten Power’s Substack on how life in the USA is not normal, whilst visiting the USA, and I can not only agree, but say that many parts of the thesis apply also to Australia in a uniquely Australian way.

Kirsten:

I began to notice a learned helplessness in the United States, where people don’t revolt at the notion of a college education costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. I wondered why so many people treat it as completely normal that we have GoFundMe campaigns to help people pay for life-saving medical care that their health insurance won’t cover.

I watched as people on social media claimed it was “pro-labor” to tip a person for ringing up your order at a food or coffee chain rather than demanding the multi-millionaire (or billionaire) owner of that company pay their employees a living wage (as is the norm in Europe, where tipping is not expected and the owners of the restaurants and stores are typically not among the uber-wealthy).

I realized there are other places in the world (not just Italy) where life isn’t about conspicuous consumption and “crushing” and “killing” your life goals, where people aren’t drowning in debt just to pay for basic life necessities. There are places where people have free time and where that free time is used to do things they love — not to start a side hustle.

I started to have a dawning awareness that we don’t have to live this way.

Australia might have a semblance of public health care, and tipping was not the norm (how tf is tipping becoming normalized in Australia is beyond me), but Australian society automatically assumes that everyone wants to be in a race to the bottom where we’re overloaded with debt and ambition whilst setting our children up for a life of therapy.

We don’t have to live this way.