Pandering to a dead paradigm

Celebratory applause has welcomed news of a new residential development near Mooroopna whose obedience, it seems, is to a dead paradigm.
The Victorian Government has tipped in $2 million toward a $6.5 million project in Mooroopna’s “West growth corridor”.


Mooroopna's railway station
 - effectively cut off from
 the town.

Applying values that have held our gaze for decades, the so-called corridor, north-west of the town, of nearly 300 hectares will allow for about 1600 housing allotments and become home for some 4000 people.
In an era of seemingly endless energy, including easy access to a wrongly assumed infinite flow of oil, and a time when we were unaware of how residential sprawl equated with size of our carbon footpint, such applause would have been appropriate.
To excavate a weary cliché, “the times they are a-changn’”, or more accurately, have changed, and although predictions are invariably wrong, the future of the “west growth corridor” is, in an energy constrained world, decidedly questionable.
Rather than cast our lot in with a project that breaks new ground, literally, we should be redirecting that cash toward the total redevelopment of central Mooroopna allowing for an increased density of residences with access to near car-free public spaces and, of course, the opening up of the railway station to those on foot.
Density does not equate with overcrowding, rather with thoughtful placement of residential areas generating a distinct sense of community that is mostly missing from many modern housing estates.

A former Mooroopna fellw, Jack Findlay,
won the world motorcycle championship
in 1975 and his feat is acknowledged at
this stature in the middle of the town.

Ideas from the mid and late 20^th century that saw housing estates developed on the basis that people wanted detached homes on individual blocks, remote from community services and absolutely car dependent, continue in present times and provides, it is almost certain, the template for what is envisaged near Mooroopna.
What is planned for the corridor appears to be the manifestation of thoughts remote from an acceptance of facts illustrating an understanding that rather than encouraging remote residential expansion, we should be working towards the reverse; the creation of a new central Mooroopna.
The utopian vision is vibrant – the future of the former Ardmona fruit factory is not bathed in optimism and that space should become the heart of the new Mooroopna providing easy pedestrian access to the railway station with the other end of that public space open to the town’s existing main street; surrounded by residences of two or three stories; a public vegetable garden; shops and a variety of government services.
Like it or not, we face a future of scarcity in which the skills of the artisan will become invaluable and spaces, places and facilities should be allowed within the “new Mooroopna” at which these people could work and their services be accessed.
The “five minute life” would be possible – home, work, shopping, socializing, leisure and public transport all within easy walking or cycling distance.
Whether or not Mooroopna is ideally sited is debatable, but the fact is that it is where it is and so short of uprooting the entire town, something that is impracticable and undesirable, those with the cash and the planning power should be revitalizing the heart of the town.
A “new Mooroopna” would be that heart, contrary to the west corridor growth plan which does nothing to appease the need of community rather; it worsens world troubles and simply enriches the few who endorse such expansionist plans.

Sign leaves me wondering

The rather large electronic sign maintained on the burnt out shell of the Shepparton Hotel by Greater Shepparton’s Cr Milvan Muto leaves me wondering.

Messages on the high profile sign, it beams over Shepparton’s busiest intersection, are frequently less than complimentary of some people and certain institutions, but that, in itself, is not what ignites my wonder.
Many are celebratory about the behaviour of Cr Muto arguing his demeanour as being essential to the democracy and honesty of the council, of which he is a part, while providing a much needed voice, it’s argued, for the excluded, suppressed and unheard ratepayers of the city.

Shepparton's Cr Milvan
 Muto



That may or may not be the case, depending on your stance, but that is not really the point for what is truly interesting is the admirable tolerance of all in what might be termed the “Muto-affair”.

Most of us have not been privy to intimate details of what has been happening between the council and one of its brethren, but the details to which we have been privileged, point to a conversation within a breath of violence.

Contemporary understandings of violence are mostly about blood and bruises, but verbal violence can be equally damaging with the first line of defence being tolerance, but frequently the impact is on our emotions and sometimes that can be equally hurtful as torn skin or a broken bone.
I look at the sign and wonder about the tolerance that allows it to continue broadcasting to anyone, who cares to look at the often less than complimentary messages.
Freedom of speech, decency, civility, respect and a “fair go” are all values worth protecting, but I do wonder when the right to one’s opinion crosses a difficult to define line to become abuse.
The recognition and enactment of those values breeds tolerance and it falls to each of us, as best we can, to consider life from the position of the other and yet, at the same time, engage with and apply those things that make for a broadly happier, safer and stronger community.
Considering that, I wonder, does tolerance morph to become broader acceptance of an evil? Does our tolerance, something endorsed by most recognised religions, actually reinforce and therefore fortify the very thing that was both disruptive and surreptitiously destructive to the broader wellbeing?
The diplomacy inherent in democracy is to be lauded, but it takes special wisdom from an alert and adroit thinker to understand when the subtly of mediation is exhausted and further progress rests with an almost dictatorial-like decision.
Cr Muto is at first blush a pleasant fellow who appears to have the wellbeing of the city at heart, but he seems socially ill-equipped for the broad-ranging demands of a city councillor, the evidence of which is displayed most days on his sign.

Socrates knew he knew nothing, and died for that

Socrates knew he knew nothing, but those who imagined they knew everything put him to death.

We continue to harvest the impact of that centuries old error and today, it seems, the much-celebrated mediocrity of mankind has been substituted for wisdom.
We had our chance at greatness, but let it slip by and now we have a misunderstood unhappiness.
About two centuries ago we discovered how to access fossil fuels allowing us to unleash countless millennia of ancient sunlight, freeing us from endless toil and through innovation the lives of most were enhanced in hitherto unimaginable ways.
Although people can point to the wonders of the modern age and say “all is well”, in fact it is not as that error lives to haunt us.
Excited and blinded by the discoveries of about two centuries ago, we wrested the earth of its finite fossil fuels and luxuriating in that success and moment of excess, we choose to ignore the almost limitless energy resources provided by the sun, the wind and geothermal, an inherent life force of the earth itself.
Wisdom was absent and in its place was momentary pleasure and, particularly, profit. Socrates, metaphorically, had again been put to death, once more by those who imagined they had all the answers.
It is always easy to be intelligent after the fact, but rather than exploit and exhaust our finite fossil fuels, we should have metered them slowly out, using the energy they provided to allow us to develop and create a beautiful alternative energy system, that would be still serving the world today and ready for centuries to come.
Rather than creating personal mobility systems (cars) that made just a few rich, most subservient, severely depleted our oil resources and irrevocably damaged the world’s environment, we should have been conserving that “black gold” in order to build the ancillary equipment that a workable alternative energy system demands.
Some have articulated solutions for the future, but in most instances that solution needs equipment whose creation depends upon oil, that irreplaceable black gold.
Looking into the abyss, we wonder what Socrates would suggest. Probably, for a start, that we step back and then turn our minds to imagining a solution to a dilemma that has arisen from the lack of thought and a weakness that has seen us abandon all that is good as we have pursued short-term gains, profit and pleasure.
The future is long and will be undoubtedly tedious unless we understand and learn how to husband what ancient sunlight the earth has bequeathed and within that build a sustainable world that uses primarily renewable energy.
It was a grave error to put Socrates to death and yet we have again, metaphorically, made that same mistake.

Always seek quality ahead of quantity in 2012

An earlier conversation urging a preference for quality ahead of quantity probably aroused puzzlement among some.

The drive for quality in modern businesses is overt and almost without fail rewarded monetarily or in a way that enhances the self-esteem of an individual or a group of people.
Business today sees quality and the subsequent recognition and reward for its achievement largely through the prism of customer satisfaction.
That satisfaction, according to the hierarchy of most businesses, certainly the successful ones, is unquestionably about increased sales; about the growth of the company and so more throughput.
Contemporary economics lives within a language code that is confusing to the un-initiated, even to many who speak the language, but stripped of its bewildering fineries, the more throughput a company has, the better the end result, assuming its governance is in order.
In this instance, quality is simply about ensuring the maintenance of an ever increasing throughput, which in a world without restraints is honourable and so worthy of our applause.
However, our world is in reality quite different from the seemingly infinite world in which our ideas of growth and business were conceived.
Beyond the remote original thinker, whose sanity was questioned as was their allegiance to God or the gods, the piecing together, since the Industrial Revolution, of the mercantile world happened largely in ignorance that nature was calling the shots and not, as it was then believed, and still is by many, some mythical supernatural being.
Quality in its modern meaning is about whether your new washing machine lasts two or twenty years or whether or not your car will perform as intended for its expected ten years.
Quality time also means spending an uninterrupted hours with your kids, rather than being divided between them and some portable electronic device or simply being distracted by thoughts that you should really have your shoulder to the wheel and not “wasting” time with your family.
The idea of quality has been so distorted that its real meaning has been disenfranchised and the essence of it being hijacked by our modern industrial world to ensure riches and comfort for a few and servitude for everyone else.
Quality, in its deepest sense and if we are to unravel its mysteries, demands a whole societal re-focus that puts the wellbeing and contentment of people clearly ahead of the manufacture and consumption of “stuff”.
Work is clearly essential to our wellbeing, but it needs to be work about survival and not work building and making stuff that simply depletes the world’s resources and has little to do with, if anything, enriching personal psychological value.
Quality is something that takes time, it is personal and its achievement is hugely satisfying.

A likeable bloke in a difficult scenario

I like Barack Obama.

Barack Obama

He appears, and I say “appears” as I have never meet him and so depend upon media images to form my view, to be a genuinely pleasant bloke with life-affirming values.
However, and as with everything there always seems to be a “however”, he is ensnared in an unsettling political structure deemed democracy, but is really something quite different.
Should the fellow, described as “the most powerful man in the world”, be allowed to implement, unfettered, his ideas then America would unquestionably be a better place.
Sadly, because of the political intrigue in which he is enmeshed and the irrational fanatical-like beliefs and the neo-liberal forces he confronts, his political survival is at best, tenuous.
Whatever he may or may not be, the US president is heavily influenced, some say “controlled”, by the military/industrial complex that revolves around short-termism that give precedence to corporate profit ahead of the broader welfare of the people.
Australia has long supped at the US dinner table, or more correctly scrounged the scraps, and always been in bed with them, but now the electric blanket has been cranked up another notch.
A US military base will soon be a feature of the northern Australian landscape further implicating Australia in America’s hegemonic plans, something about which we should be remarkably cautious considering their successes, read failures, in the past century.
Americans generally, but not specifically, have an arrogance about their way of life and are so sensitive about it, that they undertake in other countries a style of social engineering that many see as simply a military invasion.
They are legendary for claiming their actions as self-defence and within that, helping build democracy.
Comforted by such self-congratulatory thoughts, they killed thousands in Vietnam, mostly children, women and peasant farmers, and despite some of the heaviest bombing the world has ever seen, the Americans, and of course us, were chased out of the country by a rag-tag army – democracy, of a type, had won the day.
Conscious that America has been involved in historical events, historical means “to this day”, that if perpetrated by others, they would be considered war crimes, we need to be cautious about aligning ourselves with such a questionable friend.
America should look to its own troubles before turning its attentions to the world’s dilemmas.
Considering the hierarchy of those matters on which a nation’s wellbeing is measured, America has much social engineering to do at home to help the legions of their own who are falling through the cracks in its societal structures.
American life may look glamorous, but reality is different with millions struggling to maintain even the rudiments of life.
Obama is a nice bloke, but rather than accommodating America’s imperialistic ambitions, we should suggest he invest his time, money and effort at home.

Considering the past, building the future

Seemingly unproductive discussions about the latest Murray Darling Basin plan cause reflection upon Malcolm Turnbull’s first speech to the Australian parliament eleven years ago.

Richard Heinberg has written about the end
of growth, to which the modern world
 is addicted.

The then newly elected member for the New South Wales seat of Wentworth said: “I am proud to be a part of a government which has led the way in better management of our water resources”.
Honourable thoughts and intent, but after a more than a decade of talk, we are still talking and while that outcome is not personally Turnbull’s responsibility, it is about the tolerance, fairness, justice and frustrating procrastination attributable to democracy.
Being in the shadows of the recent failure of climate talks at Durban, what Turnbull said in that maiden speech seemed prescient; “We must assume on the basis of current science that our world is getting warmer and our country, at least, drier”.
The Sydney based politician, however, is obviously an agent of economic growth, a fact clearly illustrated by his private successful business interests, when, among other things, he said in 2004: “Nothing increase choice or widens the horizons of families more than a strong economy”.

Richard Heinberg's latest
book, The End of Growth.

That was more than a decade ago and economic growth is still today the mandate of governments around the world and is simply the extension of a paradigm that prompts quantitative decisions; decisions that determines success or failure in our contemporary business world.
However, the idea that growth will reveal a future rich in happiness and material goods is dead.
One who is unafraid to talk about the end of growth, having in fact written a book with that title, is American author, journalist and educator, Richard Heinberg.
Writing in his latest newsletter, Heinberg said, after explaining the economic contractions the world faces because of energy depletion: “There is light at the end of the tunnel. If we focus on improving quality of life rather than boosting quantity of consumption, we could be happier even as our economy downsizes to fit nature’s limits”.
Standing at the eve of a New Year, the least we could do is seriously consider how we equate the exhaustion of the world’s resources with the idea of ever expanding growth, and in doing that it would quickly become obvious that the tumour-like growth driven optimism of most is sadly misplaced.
The downsizing Heinberg points to is inevitable, but the decision to favour quality ahead of quantity is a choice.
Modern business parlance is about quality, but that push for excellence is primarily about ensuring the achievement of goals aligned with quantity, or in simple terms, growth.
Future happiness and contentment hinges on us having the integrity to ensure that in everything we do in 2012, quality should precede quantity.

Enlightened humanism is about peace and good will

Careering toward Christmas we encounter, almost every day, adages urging us to behave for the betterment of others or in some other uplifting sense for the good of all.

One adage argues that we seek “peace on earth and good will toward men”.
Such intent is honourable and might have some cumulative impact if said often enough, but it is fleeting and unlikely to have any lasting impact.


Enlightened humanism will
bring peace and good
will, and enhance democracy.

That wish has theistic roots, but in its secular sense does not apply to any “ism” and so being free of any ideological constraints, it is a plea we should take up with enthusiasm.
Sadly, such enthusiasm has been lacking, although some argue we are in the midst of a “long-peace”, a claim supported by unquestionable statistics.
Civilization, the idea that life has an intrinsic value and that existence is enhanced when we bond with and support each other as opposed to exploitation, is edging forward to become deeper, broader and stronger.
The de-civilizing events of life are becoming rarer, although the 24-hour news cycle that encircles the globe would have us believe otherwise.
Not many decades ago a quarrel in some remote place that cost 100 lives went unnoticed, but today it is in our newspapers and frequently leads television news, not to mention references on many internet websites.
Although the barrage of deathly news sometimes seems overwhelming, in an historical and statistical sense it is measurably significantly less than what humans once endured.
The peace that you and I now take for granted, was once absent from the daily lives of all and the idea of “peace and good will” was an urgent need that challenged the norm in which most anyone, anytime, could be assaulted, robbed, murdered, declared a witch or had their personality assassinated by the application and implications of some perverse superstition.
Christmas is the high point of a superstition we can live without, but within it are the seeds of “peace on earth and good will toward men”, but whether or not we have the skill to divorce myth from reality is, considering humanity’s history, a seemingly insurmountable challenge.
However, we should not be disheartened for happily saddled with enlightened humanism there are many who value peace and the profit it brings to all people ahead of the pointless costs of conflict.
The arrival of circumstances and conditions about which we know little, such as burgeoning populations, energy scarcity, a dysfunctional economy and changes to our climate, will test adherence to principles allowing continuation of the present “long-peace” or, the collapse of morals prompting an incomprehensible collision of humans.
In the name of “peace on earth and good will toward men”, I long for the former.