Equity is something about which most of us know little.
That is not a damnation of individuals, necessarily, rather
an observation that we are who and what we are through accident of birth or
circumstance.
Driven by those causations we gravitate naturally to our
role in life and so equity within our societal stratum is as expected and we
only take note when some obvious injustice, or glaring inequity, crashes into
view.
Democracy, in its idealistic shape, is the home of equity
and so those who pretend their behaviour is rooted in that paradigm, which it
rarely is, claim to be equity’s greatest champions.
Standing at the door of troublesome times brought on by a
collision of an unravelling world economy, a burgeoning population, energy
scarcity and human-induced damaging changes to our climate, our understanding
and application of fairness and justice will determine our reaction to these
changes.
Writing in his latest book, “The Better Angles of OurNature: The Decline of Violence in History and Its Causes”, author Steven
Pinker argued violence, the antithesis of justice, was not linked to arguments
over life’s fundamental needs – food, water and shelter - rather, equity.
Equity is one of those things high on the agenda for Shepparton
Access; the local team of enthusiasts who work hard to ensure those among us
who have not been as favoured by life can expect impartiality within their
respective communities.
Troubled by our misunderstanding of equity; a confusion that
escapes us until we step out of our comfortable orbit of our imagined normality
and stand in the shoes of another whose “ordinary” is decidedly different.
It is important to remember that the “other” is not
necessarily better or worse, just different.
As we stumble into a different future, the idea of equity is
to become a foothold on which humanity will depend with each of us needing to
understand and involve ourselves in sharing, collaboration and co-operation.
Democracy must encapsulate those traits along with honesty,
fairness, reason and justice as it builds a system free of superstition that
ensures liberty and decisions of integrity are being made by the people, for
the people.
True, that sounds somewhat idealistic, but anything of consequence
is grounded in utopian values and an equity that has a visionary substance, without
which navigating the shoals of energy depletion, climate change and economic chaos
will be difficult, if not impossible.
The equity encouraged by Shepparton Access is about willingly
sharing the public sphere with your fellows, which, in essence, is quite like how
we will be required to behave as we are about to be engulfed, seemingly
unaware, by the changes that await us.
Equity rises above the individualism so characteristic of
contemporary life.
