>>211677418I don't understand what you people think an intellectual culture looks like.
The average person in any country isn't reading philosophy and spending their weekends doing civilian science.
In terms of university attainment, R&D, academic rankings and whatnot, our country doesn't just do fine but punches well above its weight.
We have our famous novelists, we have at least one pretty famous philosopher, we have our Nobel prize winners.
In the cities there are book clubs, public talks at universities, theaters, art galleries with paintings by some of the European masters.
This gold standard you're comparing us to actually doesn't exist. You have the oldest Australian trait of all and that's permanent insecurity that we'll never be European.