Quiet - lauding the disengaged

Dismissing those who complain seems to be an Australian pastime. 

We sure have a lot of words for it: whinging poms, elitist ingrates, dole-bludgers, anti-jobs activists, professional troublemakers, idiot protestors who block the streets and make life difficult for everyone else. 

In contrast, the fabled Australian character is stoic, no-nonsense, easy going, just get it done, uncomplaining. Don't make a fuss, don't whinge, and don't - whatever you do - get involved in protests.

This fabled character recently resurfaced in Australian politics. In May 2019, Scott Morrison attributed his unexpected election victory to 'the Quiet Australians who have won a great victory tonight'. 

I wondered who these quiet Australians were and if I knew any of them; they're the majority judging by the political outcome.

If we go by the dictionary, a quiet Australian is: 

➣ marked by little or no motion or activity, gentle, easy going

➣ free from noise or uproar, unobtrusive, conservative taste 

So, are the Quiet Australians minimally active, gentle, easy-going, quiet, calm, unobtrusive people with conservative taste in clothing and food? Don't they even occasionally yell at their children?

Well no, the word quiet means something much more insidious in politics. 

Uncertain 2 - our costly false comforts

By Mike Lundy

In the first part of this post, Uncertain about these uncertain times, I explored a contradiction at the centre of our humanity: wanting to be certain in an uncertain world.

Humans do whatever we can to avoid acknowledging the inherent uncertainty in our lives: cocooning ourselves in safe enclosures, limiting our lives, or planning obsessively to control the future.

We equate 'uncertain' with 'unsafe', to which our primal reaction is to run or make things safe again.

Our response when we perceive danger is emotional and compelling. Only rarely are our actions driven by an objective or factual assessment of information. We can even feel fear of imagined dangers, even when there is no imminent threat. Being told there really is no monster under the bed does not necessarily soothe our fear, and we continue to seek reassurance. We need to feel safe.

We do the same with the inherent uncertainty of life. The driver of our actions is emotion: we want a FEELING of certainty and safety. We want to FEEL reassured that things are certain and safe.

This means we are extremely vulnerable to any information that stirs our feelings of uncertainty and insecurity, regardless of actual threats, or to people who promise us certainty and safety in the face of real, imagined and even concocted threats.

Perversely, the emotional comfort of 'false' certainty is often more compelling than any facts of certainty and safety.

Every successful politician, marketing executive, con artist and cult leader knows this. And they exploit us with this knowledge.

Part 2 looks at the implications of our need to feel things are certain, and therefore safe, and what false promises we will happily accept in order not to feel the fear of uncertainty.

Uncertain about these uncertain times

By Mike Lundy

We are living in uncertain times.

Many of us feel very unsettled, even in the relative safety of Australia. When we are not searching out the latest pandemic news, we are flooding social media with our struggle to find focus or positivity, or we are comforting ourselves with nostalgia on travel, books and music, getting into gardening and busy work.

I sure feel a greater sense of uncertainty than I did this time last year.

The words: 'these uncertain times' are everywhere - news stories, ministerial announcements, articles on physical and mental health, reports, and advertisements for everything from cleaning products to insurance to dating apps. Some go so far as to call our times 'an era of uncertainty'. (Here's an Australian example from 2018.) An American report published in 2004, told us to expect that 2020 would be characterised by a 'pervasive sense of insecurity' related to concerns over job security, fears around migration, terrorism and internal conflicts, and military conflicts .

No prediction of a global pandemic though, the latest source of the ubiquitous statement that we are 'living in uncertain times'.

But are 'these times' truly more uncertain than other times? 

Interestingly, Oliver Burkeman says that every era describes itself as characterised by unprecedented uncertainties and lack of stability. 

Just a few of his examples:

 In 1951, Alan Watt highlighted a contemporary 'feeling that we live in a time of unusual insecurity'… referring to the impact of the breakdown of long-established family, social, economic  and belief traditions.

Writing about the Roman Republic and Empire over three centuries is replete with political instability and social unrest and the impact on people who felt their future was disturbingly uncertain.

The idea that earlier times were more certain and stable than our own experience of life is really nostalgia, based on an imagined and idealised past.

In fact, when you're fully engrossed in living your own life, you face uncertainty all the time.

Because life is irrevocably, constantly and most certainly uncertain. 

The global pandemic reveals a fundamental truth: we humans are deeply deluded that we are fully in control of ourselves, our future, our world. We desperately want to believe we can make our lives certain, set and fixed. 

Economist, a word that requires an adjective

By Mike Lundy

The journalist was interviewing the Prime Minister about a government proposal for boosting jobs. The proposal had no modelling, no risk analysis, no costings - no detail in fact. She asked him how he knew the program would work without any of this basic groundwork being completed.

She asked, 'Why should the Australian people trust your word?'

'Well’, he replied, 'because I am an economist, Leigh.'

In the political fog that makes it difficult to find facts and detail, this comment struck me as particularly alarming. I think the prime minister thought he was providing a genuine and satisfactory answer.

It's not any sort of answer actually. It just raises a whole lot of questions.

When a politician justifies their view by saying they are an economist, does that mean their views are correct? Why is economics a matter of 'trust'? What expertise are they claiming? What gives an economist authority to comment on the hugely complex economy of a developed industrial country? Why does the prime minister think that an individual economist can forecast the outcomes of fiscal policy, even without doing any modelling? (And I have to add, can the prime minister even claim to be an economist? Studying a Bachelor of Science (Hons) in geographic economics - a subfield of geography - and then never working in the field hardly makes one an economist. But then, that's probably the least pressing of the questions I have about this field.)

Let's start at the beginning: what is an economist anyway?

Douches and other bags

By Mike Lundy

A scumbag, a windbag and a douchebag walk into a bar.

Just a regular Thursday at my local. We regulars glance at the door as each arrives, dismay or resignation crossing many faces. If I see any of them arrive, I will try to escape. Sometimes, for a while, I can deflect them by looking really busy with my phone, but that is only ever temporary protection.

The scumbag (who sometimes brings his mate, the ratbag) - not so hard to protect against. Just never trust what he says, avoid shouting him drinks (unless you want to donate to his personal finances), and avoid making direct insults even in jest. He can be funny in a cynical, defeated, nasty sort of way. But he can suddenly turn, so it's best never to let your guard down. Finish the drink and then say, 'Okay, have a good night. Gotta see a friend about my car.'

The windbag - easier still; just try to steer the conversation to something you don't mind hearing about. At length. Escape is usually possible after a 'decency' period of about 10 minutes of listening to what is often little more than a whinge, without getting a word in. As you slide off the stool, slide in a quick, 'Oh well, shit happens. Gotta run, have to see a mate about my car.' 'You do seem to have a lot of trouble with that car.' 'Yeah, it keeps happening.'

Artwork by TheBeardedCavalier

But the douchebag. Ugg. Just grating. 

He boxes you in your seat standing too close with his arms akimbo. Even his popped collar is irritating. And he's not so easy to get rid of with reports of car trouble. The douchebag knows exactly what is wrong with my car, and insists on telling me how to repair it with step by step instructions, and also declares that I must be causing this problem by riding the clutch, but then adds that it is a known weakness in that model as the original design for those Japanese cars was never been fully tested in Australian conditions. Et. Bloody. Cet. Era.

He is so busy demonstrating his seemingly endless knowledge, he manages to totally ignore my body language screaming that I want to be just about anywhere else.

Eventually, one of the bar staff comes over to collect the empties and the douchebag is forced to move back by her intruding arm, so I slip through the space and start walking, speaking with my head turned back to my old, no longer comfortable seat, 'That might be handy that information. See ya next time.'

Next Thursday, I'll try the other pub.

What is it about the him? What makes the douchebag so utterly annoying? And why doesn't the douchebag know he is one?

The settings are all wrong

By Mike Lundy

Senior research officer Edo checked the dials again. The settings were all wrong.

With mounting panic, he started through the checklist of the Sentient Life Research Protocol for planet Sol972P3 for the third time.

The vast array of dials and flickering lights on the control panel didn't change. All the settings were way out. The planet was in deep trouble. And so was he.

Walking along the well-worn corridors of the Academy to see his supervisor, Edo tried to think back to his last review. He couldn't even remember the last time he checked P3. Had he made a mistake with the adjustments back then? Did his hand slip on the dials? Did someone else touch the settings?

Edo scrolled back through the research review screens, looking for the reason for the mess. The pages of data outputs showed P3 gradually had become more and more unstable under the extreme settings. Dangerous settings. Settings that had probably voided the whole research program, more than likely contravening all sorts of research ethics.

But, it didn't matter really why. It only mattered that it had happened. It was Edo's responsibility to keep on top of the adjustments. Zolic, the program coordinator, would be furious.

The implications were clear - obvious to any student of Sentient Life Adjustment 101. The settings on P3 had created conditions that were sending the dominant sentient life form to self-destruction.

Equal - Part 3

By Mike Lundy


Part 1 of this article looked back at some famous historical conflicts staged in the name of equality, and the documents celebrated as icons of humanity's moral progress toward a more egalitarian society. It pointed out that those famous conflicts were less about a belief in equality and more about resenting and rebelling against oppression.

Part 2 then explored the history of society to see whether inequality is an inherent 'natural' feature of human beings, finding instead that inequality was a trade-off for the more efficient resource production of agrarian society. Western* society developed from an egalitarian society through agriculture and an industrialised society that was increasingly hierarchical, with an unfortunate dearth of social controls over the behaviour leaders, other than outright revolt. In sum, appeals to 'nature' do not in any way support an argument for denying people equal rights before the law.

The structure of Western society has become less rigid over the last 100 years, and more people have equal voting, economic and legal rights.

However, one group of people find this all very distasteful.

This third and final part of the Equal series explores the growing influence of this group, the alarming future they represent and discusses what can be done about it.

Equal - Part 2

By Mike Lundy

Part 1 of this article looked back at some famous historical conflicts staged in the name of equality, and the documents celebrated as icons of humanity's moral progress toward a more egalitarian society.

Those who led the revolutions may have used the rhetoric of egalitarianism but, while they fought for their own 'equality', they continued to believe they were superior to others, for example, indigenous people, poor men, slaves or women. The men who wrote and signed those famous documents were satisfied that things were finally hunky-dory: at last 'All men are equal'… except for those that are not.

As I said in Part 1, the 'newly equal' continued to believe in a hierarchical arrangement of humanity, they just moved up the ranking. They drew the line of people who were 'unequal' below them. This reality was captured succinctly by playwright Henry-François Becque: the defect of equality is that we desire it only with our superiors.

Far from striving for equality, history's revolutions consisted of one section of society rising up against an individual (e.g. King) or a group (e.g. the church) that was usurping their assets and food, restricting their activities or options, oppressing them with gruelling work, or generally just being brutal to maintain control and take money from them. The revolutions were actually about securing the material needs of living and a sense of dignity by ending these various abuses of power.

History's famous egalitarian revolutions were more like the school yard retort: 'You're not the boss of me' or Monty Python's 'Don't you oppress me'. 

That's a long way from a belief in equality with everyone else.

Equal - Part 1

Mike Lundy

In the contest of ideas about society, the question whether all people are equal is pretty fundamental. (This is Part 1 of a 3-part article about the history of this question.)

The dictionary gives a range of meanings for equal; I've extracted those most relevant:

1a: equivalent/same in mathematical value or logical denotation; b: like in quality, nature, or status: c: like for each member of a group, class, or society  2: impartial regarding or affecting all objects in the same way

I hold the view that all people are of equal value and status. I recognise that people are different in temperament, ability and life story, but I believe everyone should have the same basic rights and impartial treatment before the law. I realise that many people do not share this view.

From the adjective equal we indirectly get the noun for the principle of human equality: egalitarianism. 

1: a belief in human equality especially with respect to social, political, and economic affairs 2: a social philosophy advocating the removal of inequalities among people

I say 'indirectly' because English borrowed the word egalitarian from the French égalitaire, originally from the Latin aequalitas meaning 'equality' and added the English noun-building ism. (And sure, equal-ism doesn't sound like an inspirational principle, unlike the more mellifluous egalitarianism.)

Like me, you may have been taught the last 500 years of Western history* has been a dogged struggle to achieve legal and social equality for more and more people. Famous words have been written - 'all men are created equal' - and held up as icons of the moral progress of humanity. 

But lately, my world view had a massive shake up. I learned that the majority of people who took to armed conflict in the name of 'equality' did not believe that human beings were equal at all. They were actually fighting for something else. 

Cheap

By Mike Lundy

Here's a versatile adjective: cheap. Depending on its context, it can be positive or negative. 

In its positive meaning, it can be a compelling adjective: 'Buy this now! It's too cheap not to!' In our western retail stores, the signs screaming 'SALE' are so ubiquitous we hardly see the word, but once '50% OFF' is added, now that's definitely a bargain! 'Those t-shirts are so cheap; I think I'll get three!'

But in its negative meaning, cheap is a dismissive adjective: 'Let's get something else, that fabric looks a bit cheap'. It can also be a critical adjective: 'He's so cheap, he never pays his share', or 'Talk is cheap; I want to see action'.

Interesting. What does the dictionary have to say about the adjective cheap?

1. charging or obtainable at a low price; b: purchasable below the going price or the real value;
2. a. of inferior quality or worth; b: stingy; c: contemptible because of lack of any fine, lofty, or redeeming qualities
3. gained or done with little effort

So, when it's about the price we have to pay for something, cheap seems positive. Yet when cheap refers to the quality of a product or a person's behaviour, it's not good at all. The negative implication of cheap is that something important is missing, something that we expect to be present: quality, generosity or effort.

Why do we have a different connotation altogether when cheap refers to the amount of money we have to pay? If we look a bit closer, we will see that someone important is missing then too.

What next?

By Mike Lundy
- avoiding what he really should do next with a flight of fancy on next as a part of speech 

From Toothpaste For Dinner

The books sitting on Reader’s bedside table, on the floor, those in the bookshelves, and the ones on the tablet are all locked in a fierce debate. They bicker and snark at each other as the self-entitled things that books tend to be.

'I should be the next (adjective) book: I am by far the most important and relevant to Reader's current project,' asserts Seven Cheap Things, sitting in the promising prime position on the bedside table. 'There is a deadline to consider.'

'No, I should be the next (pronoun) in line, 'says White Teeth. 'One should always read a novel between non-fiction books. That way, Reader can consolidate all that heavy, ridiculously self-important, so called ‘factual’ information before moving on. Plus, I'm due back at the library in four days; Reader better get started soon.'

Apologetic

By Mike Lundy

When we feel wronged or hurt by someone, an apology can help make amends and go toward restoring the relationship. Sometimes though, what gets offered as an apology falls a long way short.

We may not know exactly what words we want to hear, but we recognise when an apology is not quite right or not sincere. When the other person is not genuinely apologetic, this can add more hurt and damage to the situation.