Secondly, Soutphommasane says that progressives must avoid intellectual complacency about national discourses and instead engage in such conversations in order to explain how Australia is today and to challenge the Australian right's dominance in this area.
Chapter 2 explores whether left liberal values of universalism and compassion for all human beings are compatible with patriotism, which feels a higher level of connection with people of the same country.
Soutphommasane writes that "A distinctive brand of egalitarianism, a robust democracy supported by an Anzac myth – these are the foundations of an Australian patriotism".
He also argues that progressive criticisms of Australia and its history are compatible with patriotism as a more sophisticated love of one's country involves acknowledging its faults as well as celebrating its virtues.
According to Soutphommasane (who is himself of Chinese and Laotian extraction), "while I am unable to claim direct lineage back to Anzac, the whole legend can still resonate for me because I can relate to the mateship and the egalitarianism".
Soutphommasane advocates a ‘liberal middle ground on diversity’ which values expressions of cultural identity insofar as they contribute to individual autonomy or social cohesion.
Nevertheless, Soutphommasane praises Kevin Rudd's use of the term and outlines how progressive politics involves a more activist government which builds bridges, roads, rails, high speed broadband and other public works.
Writes Rundle: Soutphommasane has his own complex history, which suggests various reason why such a curiously contentless and lifeless alternative to real countrylove and social solidarity might appeal to him — the aspiring dreamer amid the dreaming spires of Oxford has simply reprised the act of Petrach and the first nationalists — the Renaissance thinkers who invented nationalism from their student clubs ("the nations") and then projected them back onto the regions they came from.
[4] Mark Bahnisch, agreeing with Rundle, made the following comment on his blog Larvatus Prodeo: it doesn’t represent a viable political strategy for the left, for a whole range of reasons, including the basic failure whereby a project which transforms the social and the cultural cannot be substituted for by a fairly empty civics.