Living in news vacuum, yet living in a real world

Many kids live in something of a news vacuum.

Some will cheer and whoop in support of that idea, others would be equally critical of such parenting, reflecting pretty much any position taken in life about most anything.

Backers of the idea argue that young and innocent kids should not have the graffiti of news scribbled on the blank slate that is their nascent minds.

Such a position sadly fails to acknowledge the instinctive resilient capacities of the young and adds only what weight to any issue as to how it is framed by those older people around them.

The idea that in blocking out the news of the day as a way to protect children is really little more than parents refusing to personally engage with the events of the day and so play a key role in helping their children understand whatever is happening and put it in context.

Helping your children understand the news of the day, the news of the world is among one of parenting’s prime tasks.

Inexplicably, at least to me, the same parents who create that factual news vacuum in the name of protecting their children, allow those same kids embrace the most perverse fictions.

Writing in his 2018 book, “Fictions of Sustainability: The Politics of Growth and Post-Capitalist Futures”, Boris Frankel said: “Now, countless children are raised on a diet of blockbuster disaster movies, speculative dystopias and computer games featuring the collapse of civilisation brought about by terrorists, aliens, environmental catastrophes, unstoppable pathogens and other ‘monsters’ of the commercial imagination.”

Apparently, for many kids it is OK to have their behaviours distorted by the products of that “commercial imagination”, but reality is a no, no.

Fortunately, our schools adhere to the facts and even those which engage in the pursuit of fanciful distractions do take their young students on exploratory mental expeditions, allowing them to bivouac in learning places ensuring the expansion of their thinking, helping them better understand the real world.

The arm wrestle between market-driven imaginary mutations and fact-driven realities favours the latter as illustrated recently when thousands of students from across Australia went on strike to protest our government’s inaction on climate change.

The students understand and accept the irrefutable realities of climate change, illustrating that the thousands of striking teenagers had not been locked in a news-free bubble, but were in fact much more aware of what is happening than our dismissive government.

Late last year, The Guardian newspaper reported: “The science is clear, the facts are incontrovertible, and it is unconscionable to us that our children and grandchildren should have to bear the terrifying brunt of an unprecedented disaster of our own making”. 

The news aware students simply know and understand this reality and their schools should be congratulated for encouraging such learnings and parents who ensured and embraced these realities also deserve praise.

Newspaper readers can help make an idea a reality

Newspaper readers have much to do
 beyond just read - they have a critical
role in  the achievement or world peace.

Readers of this newspaper (first published in the Shepparton News) have a significant and important individual role to play in achieving world peace.

Should that sound outlandish, just remember world peace is simply an idea and nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

Interestingly it is an idea that appears to have wide currency for frequently people declare that world peace is what they most desire.

Maybe such an answer sounds politically correct and simply gives the respondent a warm and fuzzy feeling as it makes them feel as if they are at one with the universe, even if for a moment.

That said, there is a difficulty for the intent, or wish seems to get lost, or at least politically distorted, when it is contaminated by the rush, wants and needs of the real world, and so the statement is simply rhetorical and never makes it into the realms of practicality

Such a suggestion does the idea of peace a serious disservice for the absence of confrontation, violence or pugilistic-like behaviour is what is real; what’s not real and absent all remnants of civility is the so-called “real world”.

In that “real world” we argue, and frequently resort to killing each other, over almost anything.

The 20^th century was passionately violent and the “great peace”, as described by some, from after WW2 through to the beginning of the 21^st century fell that way as humanity lolled about gorging itself after discovering the keys to nature’s pantry – fossil fuels multiplied fabulously the efforts of every individual.

Distracted by that energy abundance we partied and built like there was no tomorrow, seemingly oblivious that there is actually a tomorrow; a tomorrow populated by people we haven’t meet yet and to whom we have an ethical and moral responsibility.

And so we return to peace.

Ask most people and they are eager to leave the world in good shape for those that follow, or that is what they say.

We need to husband what energy we have for while it does many things, it leverages peace, but peace, real peace begins with you; your thoughts, your speech and your behaviour, and, of course, how you treat your fellows.

Peace in its finality is a complex beast, but it begins and is built on a simplicity that is foreign to the complexities of our modern world.

Most believe they contribute naught to the violence that pervades our world, but we need to be careful; careful in many ways, but particularly in whom we hand responsibility for we don’t need leaders and other decision makers who militarize the language.

The solution is not in subduing the other and winning, rather it is collaborating and co-operating to stand side-by-side rather than face-to-face.