I wanted to take time out from novels and non-fiction to extol the virtues of the Griffith Review. This is a quarterly of "writing and ideas" edited by journalist and lecturer Julianne Schultz.
The Review used to be available only by subscription, but a new publishing deal with Text should see greater accessibility.
The issues over the last year have dealt with Money, Sex and Power as major themes in culture and society; an issue on Essentially Creative, including a contribution from Cate Blanchett,; and an interesting collection themed on Participation Society examining community, volunteering and democracy.
The latest issue is called After the Crisis, putting the Global Financial Crisis and recovery under the microscope. As well as essays from Gideon Haigh and Margot Saville, there is photography, poetry, memoir, an on-line essay, and new fiction from Booker-finalist Lloyd Jones, and Catherine Harris.
My favourite essay is titled Material or Post material? Renewing the search for meaning by Paul D. Williams. He says that in hard times people turn to the 3Cs: cans (simple food), condoms (no more mouths to feed), and conservatism (return to family values).
Williams also suggests that Australia could emerge from the crisis transformed by a return to valuing community:
"[T]his economic downturn may also remind people of the need to look out for our neighbours. This may translate into, for example, increased church attendances."
There is much to ponder, as well as prose to praise, inside the Review.
In the lead essay by business journalist Gideon Haigh, called Stupid Money, he says:
"Surprisingly little is understood about human behaviour with credit. Investors behaved as though risk had simply become normalised and induced not caution but recklessness."
I actually think there is a lot of insight into human behaviour with credit. It's just not found in economic textbooks, but in the Bible:
"The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is the servant of the lender." (Proverbs 22:7)
"Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle." (Proverbs 23:5)
In my local shopping centre there are large ads for a new banking product proclaiming that risk is out of fashion, security is sexy, assuring us that our money is safe with them, smaller returns but more guarantees. Is this a sign of lasting change, or just a phase we are going through? How long will we be able to control our greed?
