Malcolm Fraser’s (below right) decision to resign from the Liberal Party prompts many questions, among them a meaning of the words “liberal” and “conservative”.
Australia’s former Liberal Prime Minister called into question the present direction of the political party he once led, when just last week he acted to disassociate himself saying it was becoming too conservative.
His move sets up a strange confrontation between those who proudly describe themselves as liberals and conservatives, a political standing that most see as one and the same.
However, while they gather on the same side of politics, they are in fact quite different.
Liberals are adventurous and quickly embrace something new, although with caution, while conservatives always prefer the status quo, but will adopt change the moment its worth can be illustrated and, importantly, proved.
The differences are subtle, but important.
The Malcolm Fraser led Liberal Party envisioned a vigorous business-lead Australia coupled with social justice and equality, along with an awareness of the past but aligned with a willingness to move beyond it.
According to reports, Mr Fraser saw the present Liberal Party as becoming too conservative, that is it yearned for yesterday – wanted to go back to the ‘good old days’ – and so seemed reluctant accept the world was changing and preferred what was rather than what will be.
Circumstances in our world are changing, and changing quickly, and although now long detached from the sharp end of politics, Mr Fraser seems acutely aware that managing for the future is not about looking over one’s shoulder, rather illustrating an understanding of new ideas.
However, it is more than just understanding those ideas as it is about blending those ideas with the social and economic life of all Australians.
I have never met Mr Fraser - as our PM I’m not sure that’s something I would have sought - but since retirement he has mellowed to become a thoughtful man who talks good sense.
He has long been out of the direct action loop, but his influence continues to be rich and deep and last week’s resignation is an illustration of his disapproval, and so a mighty influence.
A discussion about the origin of the universe and the “Arrow of Time” helped explain much about dilemmas presently troubling the world.
The California Institute of Technology’s Prof Sean Carroll (right), from the institute’s Department of Physics, recently expanded on his ideas to an over-flowing auditorium at the Elisabeth Murdoch Building at the University of Melbourne.
His discussion was not about resolving, or discussing, the world’s difficulties, but as he spoke to the riveted crowd those complexities, at least for me, became a little more understandable.
Explaining our 14 billion-year-old universe, Prof Carroll discussed entropy, which, he said, will, according the second law of thermodynamics, increase in an isolated system. Our universe is an isolated system
Measurable and understandable physics indicate that disorder and entropy was low when the universe first took shape, but all these years later, and it just happens to be “our” time, both are increasing to a point where they are threatening to escape our understanding and let loose on the world largely unknown happenings.
What’s evolving, it’s important to note, is not a response by any supernatural being reacting to human behaviour, rather it is a predictable and physical eventuality that is being hurried somewhat by the sheer number of humans who seem obsessed about rushing closer to the precipice.
Our world, which is an isolated system in its own right, is subject to the same dynamics and we are struggling with the resultant entropy.
Sadly we rush about dealing endlessly with the manifestations of that entropy believing them to be the doings of some super-natural being or some sinister other, rather than the expansion of our universe and so galaxy simply doing what it is they do.
Being thinking and doing organisms, we have mistakenly elevated ourselves to a pre-eminent position on our planet and have done that without much thought about tomorrow.
Our time here, in a geological sense, will be brief, but with a thoughtful approach to how we should live, we can employ entropy to our advantage.
As with aging it is about slowing down and disorder, and so considering that, we should aim at living more restrained lives.
