New Zealand society in a post-modern light

I used to be proud of my country, but now . . . .

Morning rush-hour traffic going into Auckland. It is much too early. One of my Kiwi friends is talking about her country. I wonder what could lead anyone to speak of New Zealand this way (glancing around). All looks well to me . . . .

It's politics, of course. The Southern Hemisphere has not escaped the right-wing revolution, that mad celebratory dance of capitalism's hegemonious "victory" over the forces of a semi-chimeric evil. By drifting right, New Zealand officially asserts its place in the middle-class universe of relatively affluent nations. Cheap and efficient health care and government services as Kiwis knew them are things of the past.

You expect to be disillusioned living in a large country, but in a small place it used to be things could be decent . . . we had something. First real welfare system in the world, first place women could vote and it's all . . . I don't know.

Listening to my friend talk, there is soul-searching of a touching kind. Different from the political griping I am used to (here as in the U.S.), and also from mass media campaigns highlighting our issue of the month (no, no, no, poor kids was March. Get with it, people. On to breast cancer).

Strangely, it almost sounds like caring. Or conscience-qualms. Things we've forgotten about in fealty to the dollar and its gang of fetishized commodities. My skull resonates with a sense of loss, my mind with those in both hemispheres without doctors, those whose houses are sold to pay for little Bobby's surgery. It's a wonderful world.

Governing is about priorities; my friend sees a New Zealand in dire need of them. Her words unfold –the rich getting richer, a crumbling infrastructure, the open secret of an alcoholic government leader. She wonders what happened to the state she grew up in.

Some people thought New Zealand First coming into the coalition would stem the tide, but they're just after power . . . I am quiet in the passenger seat, ideas forming and reforming in my head. (If you balance the budget, cut taxes and everybody becomes illiterate and dies, have you governed well? I guess yes, if there are still machines and businesses for the CEOs – I mean survivors – to operate.)

Our discussion is an issue of standards, of course, and point of view. New Zealanders are in many ways doing quite well. The judgment Americans pass on them has, in a sense, only the therapeutic value of stroking our egos. We apply the standards of our upbringings, priorities and political slants to dissect two cultures. Easy and arbitrary, for certain, but also necessary.

In this postmodern world, all value judgements are arbitrarily constructed. Everything is, really. New Zealand is "Down Under," as though the Universe fits neatly inside our understanding, a "This Side Up" sign taped to its side. My name is near the end of an unquestioned (and senseless) worldwide list – all my life I've been alphabetized, discriminated against on a last-name basis (I'm not complaining . . . things might be more frustrating if I were an Alvarez). Knowing this, understanding the contingency of all (my) viewpoints, does not mean to stop thinking or caring.

We are human, and this influences our critique, but it is fools like us in small automobiles who must reprioritize the world. I write that last sentence ironically, cynically and with complete belief. For some reason, even so far from home, I believe in the power of words. My standards are the only ones I know, and I hope it means something to type compassion over economics, individual over business and state.

Living as I now do in a high-rise is interesting. Perspective is changed. Saying "I like elevators" becomes both daily reality and metaphysical statement. Elevators are nice, they take you up, take you down. It's good to be along for the ride. Only thing is, you can't see out and, if someone else controls the obscured buttons, you don't know where you're going. Sometimes you even get stuck and then it's like you're going to suffocate and smother and die and my that's an attractive lady you're trapped with but let's move on.

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Point is, stuck in the highway going into Auckland we are trying to stay calm, to decide who's in control of this elevator ride and why it isn't all that comfortable. Searching without answers. Nothing very exciting or typically Kiwi about this trip, except perhaps the deconstruction of some of my ideas about my vacationland.

When I arrive in town, I part ways with my friend, and realize that no utopia can stand the scrutiny of being lived in.