Socially complex, sad and unreasonable and illogical

The abduction, rape and murder of Jill Meagher was, and is, as socially complex as it is sad.

Steven Pinker's book
in which he uses
 statistics to illustrate
 the decline of
violence.

Reports of the event sent a decided sense of fear ricocheting throughout communities, particularly in Victoria.

As desperately sad as the circumstance is, when considered objectively, it was as rare as it is distasteful.

Whatever we might say or think, or communities are less violent now than they once were, a fact made abundantly clear by author Steven Pinker in his latest book, "Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined" .

Pinker relies on the brutality of statistics to help his readers understand that in this modern era such happenings in which Meagher became sadly entangled are a rarity, while only a century ago they were significantly more frequent.

People now are, Pinker eloquently points out, far less inclined to prosecute their desires and feelings through violence than was the case.

An event such as that involving Jill Meagher is launched into the public eye through the efficiency of main-stream media and it then comes under the unblinking public gaze through the seemingly ceaseless and masturbatory-like effect of social media, all along ignoring the infrequency of such things.

The public focus on that one relatively rare event raises the spectre of violence in our communities, a menace that is unquestionably real, but one that is lessened as education increases.

The more learned people become, the more they abandon the sword and take up the word – education ameliorates aggression.

Many have marched in memory of Meagher and that deserves applause, but their energy should not simply dissipate on the streets, rather be the beginnings of push to enhance the broader decency of our communities.

In taking Meagher’s life, the perpetrator stole not only her future, but along with that a sense of trust among people, even those geographically remote from the Sydney Rd incident.

Some women have already talked about the insecurity they now sense in certain situations and others have said that there are some parts of Shepparton they once avoided if possible, but now they most certainly will.

That I understand, but accepting the realities of life and being prepared to consent to statistics illustrated by Pinker, their concern is unfounded.

The expression of one fellow’s fantasies impacted not only those immediately involved, but filtered throughout the community to damage everyone, regardless of gender.

Women are nervous and men, whoever they are, carry the guilt, even though that is both unreasonable and illogical.

The manifestation of what happened on Brunswick’s Sydney Rd early on that September Saturday morning is many faceted, but among the legacies is an increase in the distrust between men and women.

Shepparton Access trades in equity

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.

The contradictions and clashes between beliefs and reality

Beliefs and reality are often estranged.
Most believe the world is a violent place, and of course they are correct, but if considered historically, they are simply perpetuating a myth.

Dr Rodney Tolley

Traders invariably believe that customers need parking close to their stores as the resultant success of their businesses is linked, inextricably to the convenience of arrival by car.
That is quite wrong as surveys throughout the world, including some by traders themselves, have illustrated that customers seek a host of things, among them safety and the ability to easily access the store on foot, but have parking near the bottom of their hierarchy of needs.
Those two matters, it should be noted, are just two of many discrepancies between beliefs and reality.
Steven Pinker explored the changing realities about violence in his latest book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and Its Causes”.
Pinker acknowledged that our world is a violent place with our sensitivities sharpened by the 24-hour news service that presently encircles the globe alerting us to every violent act, no matter how small, big or obscure.


Steven Pinker

However, comparatively few people today have to live looking behind, Pinker pointed out, in the fear that they will be murdered, assaulted, tortured, raped or abducted.
The belief is that people face all those dilemmas, but the reality is that we are in the midst of a peaceful epoch and violence in its absolute sense is something of a rarity.
Car parking is another troublesome myth, different obviously, but equally ill-founded.
Speaking recently in Melbourne the chair of the global movement, Walk 21, Dr Rodney Tolley, said traders unquestionable believed car parking was what had the biggest influence on their businesses, when quite clearly it was other things, among them their easy accessibility by pedestrians.
Dr Tolley was talking to a relatively benign audience of mostly planners and those interested in urban design and argued that most business owners didn’t truly understand what it was that customers really wanted.
He said that the walkability of towns and cities, and within that easy access to shops, was now “core business” and needed to be treated seriously by all in the community.
Dr Tolley was not simple theorizing as he was able to produce hard numbers illustrating how businesses had sharply improved once pedestrian access to them and the walkability of the general area had been enhanced.
Life, it seems, is not exactly what we believe; we live in haze of myths, of ill-informed fantasies and are surrounded by judgements that are demonstrably inaccurate and yet in the name of emotional comfort, arrogance, ignorance and pride we to persevere with beliefs that have humanity teetering on the edge of the chasm.