tall poppy syndrome

Amy Stein and Stacy Mehrfar have just published a collection of photos which explores tall poppy syndrome in Australia. As Amy states in a recent interview with Benjamin Starr, “Stacy was visiting NYC from Sydney and... in the course of discussing life in Australia she mentioned the term. I immediately said that would be a great book. The term was so strange and arresting to me. When we realized that it represented a viewpoint and practice so far from ideas of American individualism and exceptionalism we knew that we potentially had an interesting project.” For rest of brief interview and selected images go to http://www.visualnews.com/2012/09/29/tall-poppy-syndrome-on-a-cultural-phenomenon/.

Given current election campaign dynamics, perhaps the ideological proponents of great wealth would do well to address critics in relation to this particularly "unAmerican" concept.