Monday, 20 May 2019

Humans, Humanity, and Human Rights - Chapter 1 (F)

This project commenced with a conceptual outline, published on Saturday 1st December, 2018, at: https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2018/12/humans-humanity-and-human-rights.html
I’ve decided I’ll post each chapter in its first, raw state, and you, Dear Reader, can see if my later research (probably long after I've finished this first version, in my retirement, should I be fortunate enough to actually get to retire) led to any change. (You can also think about the points I am making.) 
I've come up with an initial structure of the book (no guarantees it won't change), and will add the links to each chapter in the latest installment as they are published. Owing to the size of each chapter, I will have to publish this using the sub-chapters. Links below, and also here.

*****

Chapter One – Introduction to Concepts, and On Early Humans

F.  Our genetic neighbours, gatherer-hunters, and being humane


OK, so I have mentioned “moving out of Africa”.
J.C. Peters writes, in “History that Changed the World” (pub. Odyssea Publishing, 2017, ISBN 978-90-825063-5-8 [Amazon] [1] ):
“Around 70,000 years ago, humans began to spreads outside of Africa, to Europe, Asia and beyond.
There they encountered other hominins, who had evolved from the Homo erectus that had left Africa some 1.5 million years earlier.”
In the context of this book, I am not interested in the arguments/”discussions” about when this happened, nor by which route it happened, as the mechanics around its commencement.
To set the scene for this a little, a high school teacher began a lesson by showing a photo of several species of herbivores (I think zebras and a horned critter- possibly impala?) peacefully grazing together . . . and then commented that the species we could see we in competition for resources, and that eventually one of the species would “drive the other out” (or some similar phrasing).
It was quite incongruent with the peacefulness of the scene, but, more to the point now, illustrated that academic language does not necessarily mesh well with common understanding of terms (which is a failing of the academic world now being - partly – addressed by projects such as “The Conversation” newspaper [2] . . . a dash of common sense and some swallowing of intellectual hubris/arrogance wouldn’t hurt either, but that also applies to many other areas of life, including a wide range of professions such as the one I work in J ).
Thus, the various pressures that drove early modern humans out of Africa were not necessarily physically violent – and, when such physical confrontations did occur, it is quite likely that they were based on bluff and intimidation, rather than just going straight into causing as much harm as is possible.
On that, keep in mind:
·         the Guardian article I referred to in the previous sub-chapter, that leadership was about “more than bullying” [3] ;
·         that there is quite a bit of evidence that humans are hard wired against causing actual harm – militaries spend a great deal of effort overcoming this, as is discussed by Paul K Chappell [4] (e.g., pp 63 – 65 AND PP. 168 – 178 of “The Cosmic Ocean” [5] )and is fairly well summarised in an online video by “Lindybeige” (Nikolas Lloyd) called “Shooting to kill - how many men can do this?” [6] ; and
·         the term “ritualised aggression” [7] .
So, even if physical harm did not occur, it is quite possible (actually, I would go as far as “quite likely”) that some harm did occur – we understand quite well these days that fear and trauma cause harm, and even dedicate a significant amount of resources to finding a ”cure” [8] .
From Paul K. Chappell’s section on fear of human aggression (pp. 210 – 217) in “The Cosmic Ocean”:
“. . . around 98% of people have a phobia of human aggression. Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman calls this the universal human phobia.”
“What is more psychologically traumatizing, falling off you bike and breaking your leg, or a group of attackers holding you down and breaking your leg with a baseball bat?”
(I’ve often thought that, when we hear people advocating toughness, including carrying weapons, we’re not hearing that person as such, we’re actually hearing their trauma speak through them.)
So, considering that pressures are not necessarily physically violent, but that we’re also likely to try to avoid aggression, what could have been at play when humans started moving out of Africa?
Well, that could – speculatively – have included:
1.       simple human curiosity –what is over that next hill?;
2.       increased contact and possibly a perception of pressure;
3.       a quest for more land / resources; or
4.       an individual’s / small group’s quest for more power.
On that second point, an article on aggression in chimpanzees noted that “attacks were more common at sites with many males and high population densities” [9] . The effect of overpopulation / crowding is, in my opinion, one of the most seriously under-acknowledged issues in the modern world.
The cluelessness – that’s both my word and my opinion – that I’ve seen on this includes:
·         town planner’s blithely advocating for increased urban densities with no consideration or even awareness of the problems that perceived lack of personal space / privacy can occur – especially when trying to import views on this from one culture to another;
·         misattribution of causation to other secondary effects of crowding / overpopulation [10] ;
·         a false and pervasive assumption that overcrowding has to be extreme (e.g., at those levels found in institutions [11] ) before it causes problems;
·         a false equivalence between public and private open space (i.e., parks vs. one’s own backyard); and
·         a simple lack of research because academics are, on this issue – and I’m letting my frustration run rampant here, a pack of idiots.
Despite that last dot point, there is some work that can be drawn on [12]. As an example, the following excerpt from student essay (“The Real Root of All Evil? Overpopulation!”) is from https://www.deltacollege.edu/student-life/student-media/delta-winds/1999-table-contents/real-root-all-evil-overpopulation:
“The harmful psychological effects of overcrowding due to overpopulation were made clear to me in a biology class. I read about an experiment where two rats were put into a cage and allowed to reproduce freely. At first they got along fine. That soon changed. The number of rats multiplied but they remained in the original cage. As their numbers increased, they started to exhibit anti-social behavior. The outcome of overcrowding is the same with humans. The less space people have to live in, the harder it is for them to get along. As people compete, not only for space but also for food, water and air, the more hostile their behavior becomes. Crime, and a lack of respect for other people, becomes more common as personal space is reduced. Violence is more prevalent in highly populated areas, as are other forms of criminal behavior. This is probably due to aggression and anxiety brought on by a lack of personal space.”
On a similar note, and similarly from an “informal” source, from an article titled “What's the Psychological Impact of Overpopulation? Here's a Horrific Experiment”:
“In 1972, eight mice were placed in a utopia. Full of food, water, bedding, and space for 3000 mice. Within three years there were no survivors.”
The stages described are particularly interesting, and the articles points towards the work in the 1940s and 1960s of Dr John B. Calhoun [13] , who coined the term “behavioural sink” [14] (“Calhoun's work became used as an animal model of societal collapse, and his study has become a touchstone of urban sociology and psychology in general”), and whose work contributed to “the development of Edward T. Hall’s [15] 1966 proxemics [16] theories”.
This is, to me, self-evident: people need adequate personal space for psychological health and wellbeing [17] – they also need intimacy from trusted people, but anyone making that response to this point is raising an irrelevancy, and should be chastised for detracting from the point.
The need for personal space is not only physical, it is psychological – hence the right to freedom of thought.
Every child arguing with their sibling over this issue knows it too, and, although they struggled to cater for this, Victorian era town planners did what they could with public green spaces [18] .
Conscious awareness of the need for adequate space is not a modern issue. From a “Science Abbey” series article titled “Overpopulation: The World’s Most Serious Problem – Part I” [19] :
“Urban overcrowding was an issue as far back as the sixth century BCE. In ancient China the revered philosopher Confucius advised the government to control the balance between land and the rural population with forced migration.”
So . . . hoping off my soap box (another Victorian era reference [20] J ) and going back to the bright, shiny, just-out-of-the-evolution-box humans, well, let me remind you of the possible causes for drifting out of Africa that I was speculating about:
1.       simple human curiosity –what is over that next hill?;
2.       increased contact and possibly a perception of pressure;
3.       a quest for more land / resources; or
4.       an individual’s / small group’s quest for more power.
I have the impression that the second point, and to a lesser extent the third, are generally considered to be the main reasons for this gradual move by most people. To refine that a little, the concept of “fission-fusion” dynamics and aggression [21] (i.e., groups splintering into smaller groups, which then make different combinations) refines this a little, but as a whole it is still similar to the interconnected characteristics of a gas that we describe as temperature and pressure: as the molecules of the gas vibrate faster they bump into each other more, and also as the pressure increases the molecules bump into each other more. If the molecules of gas had their way, the collisions would drive them further apart.
This is a little simplistic, though.
One of the aspects I liked about Jean M Auel’s Earth’s Children series is that it – to some extent - illustrates the role that simple human curiosity had in the spread of humanity.
The other aspect is the quest for power – the prelude to building empires, not fully manifested yet as ways of supporting large groups had not been developed, but still there in a nascent sense. At this stage of our evolution, I consider this fourth point effectively a race between the majority of humans working out the benefits of rejecting aggressive leaders and choosing collaboration / cooperation and the minority of humans working out how to effectively dominate other people.
We could have benefitted from a time machine dropping an explanation of economic, social and cultural rights into the laps of those early people perhaps (assuming it could be translated, of course), or the skills to manage increased population. As an example of that, consider the following from https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2007-07-01-voa12/343044.html
“ . . . the stability of populous countries like the United States and Japan serves to show that overpopulation can be successfully managed. . . .  Whether instability is worsened by overpopulation or uneven distribution of natural resources, most experts warn that countries with high population growth and not enough resources to provide for their people are likely to breed unrest locally and export it abroad.”
Better alternatives existed, but we had not developed that knowledge at that time, and probably needed to undergo additional development ourselves before we could. We were gatherer-hunters, and could recognise when resources were being overloaded: the choice was move elsewhere, or fight and possibly lose some of our most valuable resources – people.
So the various pressures from bumping into each other and from uncontrolled aggression led to us expanding out of Africa.


[2] See https://theconversation.com/au, which is the original site.
[5] Pub. Prospecta Press, 2015, ISBN 978-1-63226-009-3
[12] There has been some, flawed thought it is  - for example, see http://theipti.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/covariance.pdf, which does not clearly allow for poverty, personal living space, etc.




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Sunday, 19 May 2019

Where to now for the ALP?

When things go wrong, there are a number of ways we can react. We can find ourselves in a state of shock, which is a human reaction that gives us the time and space to adapt psychologically; we can focus on finding the inspiration to draw together and become stronger and more united; we can learn from those events and find a new better way to be - or we can splinter into fighting and disunity, and thus turn a setback into a defeat, or a defeat into a rout.

In all the commentary I heard last night, one of the remarks that stood out to me was one by Peter Dutton, someone whose views and politics I loathe (and have written about previously - see here), who said the ALP had abandoned blue collar workers, and needed to get back to them.

Now, noting that Dutton, a former police officer who is one of the minority I have concerns about, possibly considers himself to have been blue collar (wrongly, if he thinks police are blue collar - and, as a member of the neoliberal party, he is far from blue collar now), the comment does raise some points which merit reflection.

The first is that, much as the Industrial Revolution (which led to the ubiquitous use of alarm clocks, beginning with "knocker-ups") irrevocably changed the nature of work, so too has the technological revolution - and especially the accelerating rate of change - irrevocably changed the nature of work. Gone forever for many (if not most) people, is a stable, single career path through life - rapidly going now is the stability and dignity of work which underpins the benefits of work, especially to peace of mind and the resultant mental, emotional and physical health and wellbeing, not to mention quality of life, which is something not measured by the extent of possessions one has, and definitely not by the wealth invested in house (not home) ownership.

Now, at the time of the Industrial Revolution, some people, much as King Cnut allegedly did with the tide (he was actually demonstrating he had no power over the tide), tried to hold that flood of change back - we even have a nice (but wrong) story now about how some of their actions gave us the term "sabotage". What did help us then was the development of unions - an event that was as radical as the Industrial Revolution itself, and one that focused on the clearly evident imbalance of power in society at that time.

The changes we face now are not quite so clearcut, but the reaction seems to be imitating the myth, rather than the reality, of the legend of King Cnut - trying desperately to stop the flood of technological change, in a set of actions with disturbing similarity to John Howard's attempts to turn Australia back to the white picket fence era.

It is too late for that - just as we are too late to prevent the climate crisis.

However, while all we can do with the climate crisis is focus on mitigating the effects, in the field of work we have a greater opportunity, the chance to emulate Bob Hawke's actions of 1983 and develop a worker's movement that will protect workers, their families, and their quality of life.

As we are now, I consider that the more hidebound, less visionary bosses have won the contest over workers' interests - and to quite an extent because workers focused on money and forgot the bigger picture, forgot things like the impact of losing work-life balance. In part, I consider that win because of the predominance until recently of men who had been limited by stereotypical male upbringing: we now have more women in key union positions, and men are less restricted by their upbringing than they used to be, but we still tend, most of us, to focus on what is in front of us - the next pay cheque, the next meal, the next bill, and forget to take a step back and look at where we're going to.

Both the union movement and the ALP need to inspire people to remember to take a step back, and look at the bigger picture. We need to adapt to the new world, rather than trying to do the union/ALP version of John Howard's white picket mentality by trying to resist inevitable change.

Unions, in my opinion, need to adapt support of workers to the new work life cycle, where rigid boundaries don't exist. Suggestions to consider here might include:
  • having a union that is not industry specific, perhaps a "centralised "union or a change to allow workers to join the ACTU directly;
  • for the many, many, MANY workers who know they get benefits from the union campaigns on pay and conditions and want to contribute to that but without necessarily getting caught up in aspects they disapprove of (and as an example of that I recall the blatant homophobia that existed in some unions until just a few years ago), implement the ability to contribute without having to be a member; and
  • introduce the ability to change quickly and easily from union to union- which may require some changes to how fee collection and funding is structured.
Matters that the ALP needs to consider may include:
  • provisions to help workers manage change - which I have written about here;
  • focusing on acknowledgement of quality of life - which is what the economy is meant to serve - for workers and their families; 
  • address the climate crisis in terms of the economic and job impacts it will have - which goes FAR beyond just losing tourist jobs: as examples, agriculture will have to adapt in major ways (the neoliberals talk about power costs, but why didn't any of the responses include that food prices will go up orders of magnitude when food has to be grown in greenhouses?),  and we are going to need many more disaster recovery specialists; and
  • finally, just as consumers need to be educated on the impact of their choices on the climate crisis, we need to educate consumers on effect of their demands on workers- especially demands for faster responses, which erodes the work-life balance. This doesn't need to be done aggressively or with an accusatorial tone, but present a human face that shows consumers how their choices affects both the quality of life of other people and the demands bosses place on their own life.
Next, I want to raise the point that not all bosses are bad. I've worked for some excellent, understanding and supportive people - and even back in the Industrial Revolution days, there were bosses who wanted to do well by their workers. Their attempts to do well can often be criticised, but even some of the more questionable ones sometimes stumbled onto an unintended improvement, such as the rabidly anti-union Henry Ford, who - for self-centred financial reasons - introduced the five day working week. Perhaps most notably of all, one of my earliest meetings with a member of the ALP was (at a community service organisation in the mid-1980s) with one who was a business owner, who greatly impressed me by commenting that what business owners needed was to know what conditions they needed to allow for, not having conditions that constrain or restrict workers.

Lumping all bosses together under the label "enemy" is what the more abhorrent bosses do with workers. It is a mistake (as is militancy) that alienates many workers - and potential supporters of workers - these days and has as much to do with the decline of unions as anything else. It is also open to a charge that such simplistic thinking is as much an inability to cope with change and the nuance of reality as is the problem behaviour of some bosses. In the 21st century, it is the sort of thinking that will continue to poison and kill the union movement.

Finally, the delivery of this has to put responsibility where it should be: citizens are not passive couchsurfers who can expect a world to deliver to them their benefits, perks and "rewards": they and the government they shaped - either actively, or passively by cynical inaction - and then selected (a matter voters must collectively accept responsibility for), share the job of bringing a better world to all.

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Saturday, 18 May 2019

Australia's Commonwealth Election results

Update: after I posted this last night (at, I noticed, 11:11 PM), the ALP conceded and Bill Shorten resigned. An analysis of the election and its result has been posted here.

I've also found this about my concerns about the lies hate flowing in some Chinese social media groups.
 *****

Wow - an unexpected result. At this stage - and vote counting will continue for some time - it looks like the neoliberal coalition government will be returned.

There have been some signs that this wouldn't happen, including:
  • public opinion polls and media reaction being quite negative to the neoliberal coalition's change of leadership; 
  • polls that were favouring the opposition ALP significantly over the neoliberal coalition; and 
  • the strongly pro-ALP and anti-neoliberal election result in my home state.
However, there were also strong indications that the ALP's leader, Bill Shorten, was not particularly liked by voters, with personal approval ratings that were quite low. The neoliberal coalition capitalised on this, with their anti-Bill Shorten focus.

So . . . going in to the election:
  • the public opinion polls were starting to tighten; 
  • the ALP needed to do well in Queensland, where concerns about jobs had a lot of support for the controversial Adani coal mine that was contrary to the rest of the nation (or to a significant in another state); 
  • the neoliberal coalition were running a campaign that was anti-ALP policies (the ALP had made details of a package of progressive policies available quite some time ago so they could be debated and defended and voters persuaded - in other words, they ran a scare campaign), as well as anti the ALP's leader; 
  • both campaigns were quite Presidential, with an unusually heavy focus on the leader.
At the start of the ABC's election coverage, I was stunned to see the number of neoliberal coalition electorates being declared straight away - it caused the same sort of despairing feeling I saw at coverage of the US Presidential election in 2016. I know that it was early, and that things can change, but there was too little momentum and too much of a gap too early.

The election still has to be officially called, and the extraordinary number of pre-poll votes (did they all really have legitimate reasons for re-polling?) will have an influence. Many of those were before the public opinion polls started to tighten up, so they may be more in favour of the ALP than today's votes.

Nevertheless, something - or some things - went wrong: what?

I think fear has been a major influence - in particular:
  • fear around loss of jobs, notably in Queensland; 
  • fear of trouble surviving financially as a result of the neoliberal coalition's fear campaign - and, ironically, the tougher living conditions the neoliberal coalition, in my opinion, largely caused; and 
  • xenophobia - which was shown by the vote for the far right wing and extremist One Nation and the right wing anti-worker / anti-union UAP, particularly in the very socially backward state of Queensland.
I also think the Chinese language campaigns have been an extreme problem. 

Comments I've heard during the ABC's coverage also included:
  • no opposition party is likely to ever run a "big target" campaign again (several comparison to other past unexpected results have been made); 
  • the UAP's advertising blitz caused problems for the ALP, especially in Queensland; 
  • the success of independents shows that sophisticated community focused campaigns are likely to be the future of campaigning; 
  • the public opinion polls before the vote were mostly wrong in Queensland.
Overall, I consider this result is terrible for the climate crisis, for Australia, and for Australians.

What next?

Well, IF the ALP does not form a government (it is still not definite), there will probably be a change of leader of the ALP, but, sadly, it will also be unlikely that ALP policies will be detailed, discussed and advocated before the next election - sadly, as I consider better selling of some policies and effective countering of the fear mongering is needed. Workers will be worse off (I would still like to see my idea on future proofing work implemented - maybe at a state level).

The facts of the climate crisis - such as the high energy prices being because of gas exports and over-investment, not renewables - also need to be better sold (and the ALP and the Greens need to collaborate on this, in my view as both need to sell it better), including that it IS looking after Australia's best interests and IS nationalistic to act on the climate crisis.

And we need to find an effective way to counter fear (see here, here, and here) - if it is effective, parties like One Nation and the UAP will decline, and that would be good for both politics and for the development of those people who were previously so fearful and plagued by misperceptions. (I'd also like the Presidential style to be replaced with a focus on policies, but I think that's going to be too much to be realistic - it requires too much of a change in too many everyday people.)

Will that be done before the next Commonwealth election - possibly at a state level?

I don't know.

And on that note, time to go to bed (and maybe think of moving to New Zealand for the next couple of years or so, if I can get a job :) - Jacinda Ardern is looking better than ever - any other nations looking for an armchair philosopher / commentator and her family? :) ).

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Friday, 17 May 2019

Comment on a recent police raid


The following is an edited extract of an email I wrote to the Minister for Police regarding a recent police raid on a premises which, coincidentally, is a well-known gay venue, were several things went wrong, including a serious injury to a man who fled out of fear that a violent homophobic home invasion was underway.
For media reports and other key aspects of this matter, see:
*****
I wasn’t planning on commenting on the matter of the recent police raid, the direct issues of which are mostly being well discussed in the media, but I have changed my mind following the recent comment by a member of the police union.
As a reminder of my personal background:
  • I have an uncle who was a serving police officer in another state, but left over corruption concerns;
  • I have known several police officers socially; and
  • my experiences with police have ranged from good to poor.
With regard to the police raid:
  • I was pleased that you demanded an investigation (that is indicative of governing for the entire community, not only the majority);
  • I was also very pleased that the police made an apology willingly and early; and
  • I am extremely pleased that the investigation has been referred to IBAC.
I recall hearing a comment on radio that the “Wrongs Act” includes a specific provision for making an apology without admitting guilt. I haven’t checked that (owing to limited time) but the source was legally qualified, so I will assume the comment is true. That provision is, in my opinion, excellent, and I hope it is more widely publicised.
The apology that was made, however, was early and unprompted, and that potentially helps reduce the trauma caused to victims.
My impression is that the general public thinks making an apology is an admission of liability - and they also do not know how that magnifies trauma, whether it is sexual harassment or assault, some other form of abuse, or a misuse of power. It would be good were such fallacies corrected.
The fact that the apology was made shows the changes for the better that have occurred in our police force over the last decade or so. This is an aspect that I keep thinking of when reading of the revelations of a current enquiry: that behaviour occurred in, and largely belongs to, an earlier generation of police. Today’s police have been better trained (and the increased accountability resulting from social media may be an influence - it certainly made a change to the behaviour of coalition military in Iraq).
I consider that these changes started with a past Chief Commissioner, but I also consider that the police reaction to those prevention-focused initiatives showed that some police are resistant to such changes, and are inclined towards the problematic behaviour shown by a number of recent matters (which have either been resolved, or subject to current enquiry).
One of the two aspects (*) that is significant, in my opinion, about such misconduct, is how many are adequately managed by internal police investigation - some do merit independent investigation for a range of reasons, but today’s police force is much better than it used to be at such investigations, and the early and mostly willing referral by police of the recent raid of concern to IBAC is actually, in my opinion, a sign of that.
Nevertheless, there remains room for improvement. On that, the main problem I see with police investigation of themselves is that there is no voice for everyday people. I would like to see such enquiries automatically include someone from outside the police to provide a view on behalf of the community the police is seeking to serve. Perhaps unusually, I would like that person, rather than being a human rights expert or lawyer, to be a qualified psychologist or counsellor, who can help police explore the likely impact of the incident on general members of public - that is, the trauma extends beyond those directly involved - and, if they are innocent, they are indeed victims NOTWITHSTANDING that the action was committed by serving police.
The uniform does not prevent trauma - on either side, just as it does not outrank the law. (* this is the second aspect I alluded to earlier)
The sort of attitudinal problem I am describing is something I first came across in the 80s in another state, where a police officer I knew was talking blithely of his preference to pointing a loaded gun at cars stopped during road blocks for his safety, and refused to acknowledge that such could cause any problems to the victims of that behaviour - he seemed to think that his wearing the uniform prevented damage, which is utter rubbish.
Other examples of such problem attitudes include (noting my comments about apologies minimising trauma, and that the other side of that is that not apologising or acknowledging increases trauma) police refusing to admit that being strip searched is traumatic, rather than “embarrassing” - particularly where cross gender strip searches occur (which is a practice that simply should NEVER happen) or where those people being strip searched are victims of sexual or child abuse - I recently read an eloquent description of such effects in NSW which include a statement of the obvious: that the people strip searched would probably never call on the police for help.
That also parallels my own experience, as I am reluctant to call the police because of the poor experiences in the past. Making a complaint about those would not help me to feel comfortable about calling the police: what would help is knowing that the police with problematic attitudes have gone. (I dare say that, despite the necessary and beneficial apology, many of the victims of gay club raid in the 90s would still be reluctant to call the police, and, despite the good efforts currently being shown by most police with regard to the raid of concern, it - and some concerning public remarks - will quite possibly cause reluctance to call police if needed in the future.)
Those police are largely those who developed through a previous era, when attitudes were different, but there is another aspect here, and that is the damage done by being a serving police member to the serving police member.
This is something is well understood in the context of military service - for instance, I understand that the US military determined - as a generalisation - in World War Two that nine months was the most any person could experience of frontline combat without becoming too affected to function, which is a criteria going beyond the now fairly widely understood PTSD. However, I am unaware of anyone having done a similar study of police, and I think it is desperately needed - some of the frustrations and desperation being revealed in current enquiries show the damage caused by trying to protect the community, and being unable to always do so.
It is also quite likely that most of the minority of police forces across the world who advocate for increased militarisation have been similarly affected. (Within that sub-group, there are quite possibly a minority who have psychological flaws, but I would hope those are now being prevented from joining the police - and any currently serving will eventually be replaced by the better generation coming through.)
I was pleased to hear last year of the measures being undertaken to provide increased support of police, but, in an ideal world, I would also like to see:
  • rotation of duty along the lines of rotating soldiers from frontline duty (and if that results in the community paying increased costs, so be it: I consider it high time we stopped undervaluing what we expect of others generally, not only in the context of emergency services);
  • similar to the above, increased leave provisions as a matter of course;
  • on the basis that the extraordinary powers police have (and I direct you to my comments regarding the trauma of strip searches as an example of this), routine monitoring of all police members’ attitudes, to find any indication of the hardening of attitudes that indicates the occurrence of psychological damage (such considerations would also need to differentiate between the banter etc that builds unity [a widely under-acknowledged matter, including in seeking improvements to business cultures] and genuine changes of attitudes); and
  • effective aid for problems (e.g., have the monitoring performed by an independent psychologist or organisation which is barred from reporting or identifying any individual cases, and that they also be authorised to provide aid, and that such be budgeted for separate to police funding).
All serving police need to understand that the impacts of their actions will go beyond those directly involved - particularly these days. I think most do understand that, and the proportion who do and accept that is increasing, but there is, as in all groups, a small, resistant minority. The concerns around possible militarisation being shown in response to the Hares and Hyenas raid, as well as the concerns of the LGBT community show that impact, just as the Police Union’s secretary suggest the existence of that resistant minority.
For the sake of the community, the police force, and those damaged real people in that minority, we, as a community (it is not only a police force responsibility), need to deal with the issues currently being raised much more effectively.
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Tuesday, 14 May 2019

What I'm currently reading

I actually have a fair few books on the go at the moment, but there's a few I want to mention.

Firstly, I'm still working through Timothy  Snyder’s book ”On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century” (pub. Vintage Publishing, 2017, ISBN 978-1847924889 [Amazon] ). Yes, it's taking a while, but I still have to work for a living and am still supporting my partner as she deals with cancer (her book on that experience will be great). The chapter I've just read drew parallels between the start of the SS and the way POTUS45 has worked his supporters into a frenzy to chase out dissenters from his rallies.

Next, I'm reading Chester Wilmot's "The Struggle for Europe" (Lucknow Books, 2016, Amazon - who have hidden the e-book ISBN yet again), about the rise of nazism and the fight to free Europe during World War (part) Two. Cited in the Wikipedia link: "John Keegan wrote, "Wilmot effectively invented the modern method of writing contemporary military history" ". So far, I'm finding this book far more useful than the texts I've been reading on "grand strategy", as it gives an excellent insight into the thinking, decisions and interactions between various events.

Finally, after read a free sample, I immediately bought "Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness" (Paulist Press, 2002 [first pub. 1977], Amazon - who have hidden the e-book ISBN yet again), by Robert K. Greenleaf. So far, it appears to be an early version of the concept of stewardship (servant  leadership) combined with business ethics. I've got a reservation as to whether this ethics will meet modern standards (e.g., LGBTIQ+ etc), but it's promising so far.

And now, off to my day job.

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Sunday, 12 May 2019

The gaps in modern society


The industrial revolution “reorganised” society – it shattered the idea of individual worth which had survived, to some extent, the inherent inequality and belittling (of the everyday person – what would be blue collar or working class today) evil of monarchy and Empire, and reduced individuals to cogs who were concentrated and used until discarded.
In those days, the greatest need was for physical survivability, and unions evolved in that context. They gave us the 8 hour working day, they have been instrumental in safety regulations, and they became well-organised at obtaining fairer pay.
They were needed, and they did their job, probably right up until the mid- to late-20th Century.
I’ll come back to unions, but let’s now briefly consider politics – in the specific sense of the functioning of Parliamentary democracy. This goes back to the struggles between the elites and monarch in the 1100s and 1200s (including the British Magna Carta of 1215, and the Magna Carta for the Kingdom of León in 1188), but wound up opening the door for some access to decency of life for the people who had less power than the elites – again, what would be blue collar or working class today.
Politics has evolved and developed, with a halting, somewhat to-and-fro lurch towards better democracies. It has focused on the physical organisation of society, up until the second half of the 20th Century.
And the life of blue collar or working class people has also changed since the mid-20th Century, moving away from the subservience to national sovereignty and physical conditions of life to a slow, cautious and sometimes reluctant embrace of the benefits of less material aspects of life, the pursuit of human rights, and a quest for a sense of meaning.
That quest for meaning did not, in my opinion, arise from the erosion of formal, organised and old stilted forms of religion, which had become focused on power and dogma millennia ago, but from the fact that the quest for physical survival was no longer so predominant.
In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, once the survival needs are met, people can move on to acknowledging and meeting other needs, and that started with the rebelliousness of the 60s (which I reacted to with the disapproval of a child inclined towards being a “square” – I have become far more radical as I have grown and seen and experienced abuses).
(This had also started in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but World War One put an end to that.)
Politics responded to that fairly well, at first, with the adoption of a broadening of the role of government that, to some extent, had its modern origins in FDR’s New Deal of the 1930s. Even Unions started to get in on the scene, with some activist strikes.
But then the elites struck back – neoliberalism was born (initially called economic rationalism here), and politics was wrenched back towards a focus on material matters, mostly through a focus on budgets and money (the so-called "fight against big government" swamped the fight against corporations so ably expressed in the original Star Trey TV series of the 60s). The elites were well organised, and they had their toadies, and as a result working and middle class people were befuddled and unaware, and thus bought in to the premise that money mattered, and Unions were totally outmanoeuvred and also fell back into a focus on the physical.
The world went from the hope and change of the 60s to the “Greed is Good” evil of the 1980s – just two decades that saw the everyday person set back to the psychological state of the 1800s and the Industrial Revolution, where the pressure to survive cut back on time for thinking and energy for activism. It was a state that led, ultimately, to the widespread victories of neoliberalism, and the rise of the far right as the peoples of the nations of the world drew fearfully in on themselves.
Against that, however, some people fought back – just as some always have, whether they were religious mystics in deserts and on mountains, human rights activists, politico-social progressives, or even “just” people pursuing a sea change/tree change.
Nowadays the warriors of change for the better are led by climate change activists, who are leading a fight to survival – again, yes, but the most profound since the threats of the Cold War brought us to the brink of a nuclear winter.
The Cold War was easier to win – due, in large part, to things such as evils of business propaganda that Bernays introduced, the vicious effectiveness of the elites and their toadies acting through neoliberalism, and the distraction and intellectual . . . laziness(?) of everyday people.
We have probably passed the point of no return as far numbers of human on this planet is concerned - the environmental consequences of climate change are too close to critical for the limited numbers of people who have the requisite desperation to win (I may be wrong, of course).
This is not helped by the rise of conservatism in politics, which has been aided historically by the continuing focus of more progressive mainstream parties on material matters, dithering (the opportunity lost by the Federal ALP in 2007 for some form of carbon tax, in part undone by hard line position of the Greens, was unforgiveable), by the errors of parties that were focused on environmental matters in preaching to the choir, and by the fears and refusal to admit changing circumstances of everyday people who voted conservatives in.
(There is also an obduracy of the bureaucracy that brought US President Obama undone, to some extent, and stops attempts to address problems such as the abuse of the punishment system - e.g., the psychological harm akin to being sexually assaulted of strip searches, which police refuse to even acknowledge.)
Those votes have, ultimately, been the biggest problem – and activists have failed to do enough on that score, in my opinion, and scientists and academics totally stuffed up their communication on this from the 80s until about ten years ago (the edited emails controversy did damage that is still lasting).
What hasn’t helped has been others buying in to the premise of the neoliberals – from the unions focus on pay and safety when broader thinking was required, to the greed of everyday Australians starting to think houses were a source of wealth rather than a place to live and the blindness and fear of politicians who cater to that rather than allowing smaller (including “tiny” homes).
And that has not been aided by the media, who have focused on the fleeting and sensational too often, at the expense of broader analysis and commentary (that we’re now getting with a number of outlets and journalists – to a depth and extent that was missing in the crucial 90s and 2000s). Under the pressures of modern life, pressures which should not exist, everyday people have needed the media to do the role of broadening perspective to a greater extent than they have.
In my opinion, to quite an extent media have set themselves up for the competition with social media by things such as tolerating / allowing the tabloid trash to continue existing and publishing their gossip – areas of the media are now doing much better (particularly the Conversation and the Guardian Australia), but will it be enough to overcome the tabloid trash’s power over everyday people?
People – voters – have also aided the problems we’re now facing (I struggle to understand how anyone could vote for Abbott). Political parties have organisations and styles that are largely focused on their support base, and occasionally delve into wider bases and lead to a win and maybe even a change of some sort, but their internal structures have significant parts that are focused on the quest for votes  i.e., political power, and that can make it hard for people who want to contribute to a change (it requires patience and [years of] persistence, and good argument to convince those in policy rooms – and, from time to time, a break).
There are, however, alternatives – such as the participatory democracy in some parts of South America. Getting those up, however, requires breadth of vision and depth of thought in the media, skill from advocates that would enable overcoming of the psychological and emotional scars that so many people have these days (which is something I may publish an essay on shortly), and commitment to change in politicians (which some have).
So where are we left?
I see many of the problems we face as gaps – breaks in “visionariness” (as shown in many unions in the late 20th Century), gaps between vision and communication (not aided by the short term focus and limited spread of effective ethics in the media), and a disconnect between vision and ability to act (affecting both political parties and everyday people who want simpler, lower impact lives).
Facing those gaps, and notwithstanding efforts so far to overcome them, I consider that the best hope we have is for everyday people to stop buying in to the premises of conventional society, including that we should have convenience and “stuff”, and choose to live their lives focused on material minimalism and non-material meaning.
Unfortunately, finding a way to survive while doing that is not easy.

(PS - see here - some interesting comments about setbacks in the late 70s) 
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