The promised land awaits, but we can't get there from here

The promised-land is close, but you can’t get there from here.

It is so close that you can almost see it breathe and yet while the vision may be clear it is, in fact, unreachable.

Victoria's Premier,
Denis Napthine.

The promised-land is exactly that, promised. You work, you save, you deal and you even make promises, but still the destination seems as distant as ever.

With your shoulder to the wheel, with your back bent and your mind tuned to the task, you draw a little closer to your goal, but then the illusion simply slips away.

The promised-land glistens on the horizon, it shines with the assurance of new day, a day so glorious that the sun never seems to set and if you listen to the corporate boosters, life just keep getting better.

Humanity is locked in something of an ideological arm wrestle with some, for whom life is getting better, declaring the promised land has arrived, while others are as equally convinced that the promise is not only hollow, rather a fallacy, an illusion manufactured by the rich minority for their benefit, paid for the majority.

The promised-land can be seen as an allegory of a gated community – you can see it, you know it is there, you see many coming and going, but the gates remain forever closed to those without the necessary social connections and, even more importantly, a handsome bank balance.

Events of the past week have blunted budding optimism with Tony Abbott declaring that, as Australia’s Prime Minister he would disband our Climate Commission, effectively sacking the head of the organization and former Australian of the Year, Tim Flannery.

The promised-land as seen by Abbott is really the stone-age for he would also repeal Australian’s only true effort to combat our carbon dioxide emissions, the misnamed “carbon tax”.

His Victorian Coalition Party compatriot and Premier, Denis Napthine, also stands with those who misunderstand world events; those seemingly unable to understand that tomorrow will be different in every sense from today and his government is spending millions researching a container port will be ultimately as useful as an umbrella in a tornado.

The promised-land must be somewhere else for many in the world are behaving in a manner unbecoming a child; they glare at each other, belligerently brandishing nuclear weapons and declaring their use will reveal a better world.

There must be parallel universes for this one, it seems, has been taken over by aliens, those who put profit and property ahead of people, and strangers who see the good life as amounting to little more than accumulation and subjugation of the other.

The promised-land awaits but that is what it will remain until those in “this land” understand access rests with inclusivity, fairness, collaboration and sharing.

Idea goes up in smoke, leader announced by smoke

The young boy fantasized about having his own club, somewhere he could gather with like-minded souls, talk about things he now knows are social justice, equality, fairness, peace and altruism, but the idea vanished like smoke.



Charles Mackay
discusses madness
and delusions. 

Even then, in his naïve and youthful way, he could see there was no place for such an alliance as the world, it seemed, was driven by division and littered by other clubs that proffered similar values, but rarely, if ever, practiced them.

The club, he imagined, would have its own quarters remote from the influence of what he saw was a troubled and divided society, and its supporters would be clearly recognizable because of a distinct garment they wore.

Its totem, his youthful mind had decided, would be tangible, something he could physically experience; something palpable from the existing world and not an imaginary thing whose force rested upon faith that defied reason and drew its strength from illusion.

His idea dissolved as maturity advanced and in listening with intent to the “responsible men”, he became, throughout his teenage years embedded in the status quo to march in lockstep with the very people whom he instinctively suspected, but who, at the time, appeared to have a clear view of the future.

As it turns out, no one, not even the responsible men, could see or imagine what was going to happen and so their efforts combined with the peculiar and eccentric behaviour of the bizarre “clubs” that proliferated like weeds, did little but distort life.

Strangely, one of those, which has more than 1.2 billion club members from all corners of the earth, meets in a club-house remote from society, wears distinctive and in today’s world inappropriate clothing, conveys its message through chants, sustains itself though addiction to a litany of myths, recently announced the arrival of a new leader by pumping white smoke from the club-house chimney.

The young boy understood the importance of his idea, but the fearing people would laugh at his immature utopianism, abandoned his dream only to be seduced by the magic promised by the responsible men.

Youth, they say, is wasted on the young, but once imbedded the ideals remain and although mislaid for a time and confused by modern life, those foundational values of justice, equality, fairness, peace and altruism have recovered.

The white smoke from the club-house chimney might have signalled a new leader, but it was also a timely reminder that the ideals of youth; ideals about tangible public goods, have more value than is to be realized through adherence to a myth.

Nineteenth century author, Charles Mackay, wrote about Extraordinary Delusions and the Madness of Crowds and watching that rising smoke confirmed, for me, the Scotsman’s views.

Exponential population growth is exhausting earth's resources

Humans have historically exhausted what existed and then moved on.

Our world is full and it is
 time we started listening
to those with ideas
about slowing exponential
 population growth.

The earliest small groups of humans, or tribes, settled briefly and when the immediate environment was no longer viable or provided the live-giving resources they needed, the group simply moved on.

Space was never a problem and the richness of the planet continued just over the horizon and so it was simply a matter of shifting your belongings, as few as they were, and re-establishing life in the “foyer of a new supermarket”.

The idea that we could always move to a new place has become entrenched in our psyche and humans have always looked longingly to the horizon convinced the solution to their difficulties were “just out of sight”.

That assumption has been evident throughout our history right from when the first “thinking man” emigrated from Africa to the dream of many that we could colonize other planets.

When our numbers were few and we had room to spare, the dynamic of staying for a season or two and then moving-on made complete sense.

When we arrived an area was rich with life and by the time we left it was pretty well exhausted, but as human demands were relatively small and, importantly, infrequent, nature had a largely uninterrupted chance to repair the damage.

The idea that our planet was voluminous and forever giving has become entrenched in human thinking, leaving many of us with the “throw-away” mentality.

Mostly humans everywhere have always exploited what existed, customarily to civilization’s detriment, and then moved on.

Most civilisations, history illustrates, survive for about 1000 years, except for those that were founded upon a rich stream of nature that saw the essence of life refurbished annually or more frequently.

Nature has put out the “No vacancy” sign ending our free-wheeling approach.

We don’t, however, appear to be paying much attention to the fact that the world is full as we continue to live as resources upon which modern life depend are endless – they are not and if don’t think the world is full, ask yourself why the only survivable space for many families in India, for example, is literally on a rubbish tip.

What do we do?

We need to support those with ideas to slow the exponential growth of human numbers, for if we don’t do it voluntarily, a pandemic will insist, killing billions, and we need to embrace and apply the grossly misunderstood idea of equity.

How do we do that? First, accept and understand the damaging reality of exponential growth; second, abandon narcissistic individuality, live altruistically; and, third, embrace equity, fairness and justice.

Australia’s asylum-seeker dilemma is simply about people moving to escape political crossfire and resource depletion – they are simply exercising humanity’s historic exit option.

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.