Disconnect between Shepparton and rich spend on military infrastructure

There is an alarming disconnect between Australia’s intention to spend heavily enriching it military infrastructure and life here in Shepparton.

Few in this community have any real and intimate understanding of what war is and why it happens, and how it can be avoided, and find themselves in lockstep with the political rhetoric of the hawks, whose allegiance to the military-industrial complex, which, through its hollow promises, does nought by worsen an already damnable situation.

Many whoop and cheer in support of the Turnbull Government’s intentions to spend lavishly on Australia’s military hardware and troop numbers.

Those same people put a high value on personal and national security but fail to understand that the much sought after security they ache for comes from within the individual and not from what is intended by the Turnbull Government.

Many see any suggestion that we should limit or reduce spending on our incongruously termed “defence” infrastructure as naïve and something that simply panders to pacifists or others unaware of human nature and within that what those same critics would claim is our “war instinct”.

However, according to a Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington, David P. Barash, that instinct simply does not exist.

Professor Barash, who has researched and written about human aggression, peace, and the sexual behaviour of animals and people, argues that those who hold to the “war instinct” idea are wrong and dangerous in clinging to that belief.

David P. Barash.

He discusses capacities and adaptations and while reading and writing are capacities, derivative traits that are unlikely to have been directly selected for, or developed, he says, through cultural processes.

In a recent article published by Aeon entitled “Is there a War Instinct?” Barash wrote: “Similarly, walking and probably running are adaptations; doing cartwheels or handstands are capacities.

“In my view, interpersonal violence is a human adaptation, not unlike sexual activity, parental care, communication and so forth. It is something we see in every human society.

“Meanwhile, war — being historically recent, as well as erratic in worldwide distribution and variation in detail — is almost certainly a capacity. And capacities are neither universal nor mandatory,” he writes.

The Turnbull Government’s intention to spend extravagantly on Australia’s military hardware is not about adaptation, rather it is about capacities; it is about preparing our nation for war.

A nation's strength is in its people, not its military hardware.

Rather than spending ridiculous amounts of our money on these sophisticated boys' toys, Malcolm Turnbull should be spending time with the Australian people building them into an impenetrable force, a society able to withstand any assaults.

Instead of buying war machines, Mr Turnbull should buy for himself a moral compass and share the lessons its points to with his counterparts and then, all Australians.