Living in news vacuum, yet living in a real world

Many kids live in something of a news vacuum.

Some will cheer and whoop in support of that idea, others would be equally critical of such parenting, reflecting pretty much any position taken in life about most anything.

Backers of the idea argue that young and innocent kids should not have the graffiti of news scribbled on the blank slate that is their nascent minds.

Such a position sadly fails to acknowledge the instinctive resilient capacities of the young and adds only what weight to any issue as to how it is framed by those older people around them.

The idea that in blocking out the news of the day as a way to protect children is really little more than parents refusing to personally engage with the events of the day and so play a key role in helping their children understand whatever is happening and put it in context.

Helping your children understand the news of the day, the news of the world is among one of parenting’s prime tasks.

Inexplicably, at least to me, the same parents who create that factual news vacuum in the name of protecting their children, allow those same kids embrace the most perverse fictions.

Writing in his 2018 book, “Fictions of Sustainability: The Politics of Growth and Post-Capitalist Futures”, Boris Frankel said: “Now, countless children are raised on a diet of blockbuster disaster movies, speculative dystopias and computer games featuring the collapse of civilisation brought about by terrorists, aliens, environmental catastrophes, unstoppable pathogens and other ‘monsters’ of the commercial imagination.”

Apparently, for many kids it is OK to have their behaviours distorted by the products of that “commercial imagination”, but reality is a no, no.

Fortunately, our schools adhere to the facts and even those which engage in the pursuit of fanciful distractions do take their young students on exploratory mental expeditions, allowing them to bivouac in learning places ensuring the expansion of their thinking, helping them better understand the real world.

The arm wrestle between market-driven imaginary mutations and fact-driven realities favours the latter as illustrated recently when thousands of students from across Australia went on strike to protest our government’s inaction on climate change.

The students understand and accept the irrefutable realities of climate change, illustrating that the thousands of striking teenagers had not been locked in a news-free bubble, but were in fact much more aware of what is happening than our dismissive government.

Late last year, The Guardian newspaper reported: “The science is clear, the facts are incontrovertible, and it is unconscionable to us that our children and grandchildren should have to bear the terrifying brunt of an unprecedented disaster of our own making”. 

The news aware students simply know and understand this reality and their schools should be congratulated for encouraging such learnings and parents who ensured and embraced these realities also deserve praise.

A wicked problem defies contemporary or traditional solutions

A wicked problem is one which worsens when subjected to contemporary or traditional solutions.

The Queensland bushfires gave us
some remarkably unusual scenes.

Here in Shepparton, we were comfortably geographically remote from the hitherto unseen bushfires in Queensland, but metaphorically living next door in a climate-changed world.

The fires that were unquestionably aggravated by our disrupted climate system and many even say “caused”.

The solution, interestingly, was to fly firefighters and equipment in from all around the country using fossil-fuelled energy sources that further enrich the damage caused by a conflagration with their direct links to climate change.

And so the fires caused by climate change - not at all, according to the business a usual brigade, or almost totally in the minds of climate change advocates - fell directly into the “wicked” realm as in fighting them, that’s the solution, we added significantly to Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Let’s accept for a moment we are facing a wicked problem (we are), but that is rather difficult to grasp here in Shepparton as life appears OK, beyond, that is, a striking absence of rain and severe temperatures.

The Goulburn Valley has fortunately avoided, certainly, of late, the headline-grabbing climate change-driven events that have brought catastrophes to many communities throughout Australia, and the world.

Writing in “Defiant Earth: The fate of humans in the Anthropocene” the Australian author and public intellectual, Clive Hamilton, said, “The greatest tragedy is the absence of a sense of the tragedy”.

The Professor of Public Ethics at Canberra’s Charles Sturt University, said: “The indifference of most to the Earth System’s disturbance may be attributed to a failure of reason or psychological weaknesses; but these seem inadequate to explain why we find ourselves on the edge of the abyss.”

Interestingly as some sort of hint, the America news website has said that: “It’s almost easier to despair or to will oneself into ignorance than to begin to grapple with the future”.

During a recent discussion, it was suggested that the way ahead, the way to deal with this wicked problem, was to embrace meekness, and idea that contradicts the essence of the capitalist economic system that champions aggression.

And turning again to Clive Hamilton, he points out that the forces we hoped would make the world a more civilized place – personal freedoms, democracy, material advance, technological power – are in truth paving the way to its destruction.

Albert Einstein’s suggestion that madness was doing the same thing repeatedly an expecting a different result seems to equate with the solution to the Queensland fires - using fossil fuel powered devices to solve a problem caused by a disrupted climate system that has been primarily unsettled by humans dumping excessive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

A Yale professor of law and psychology, Dan Kahan, says climate change had become a symbol of whose side you are on in a “cultural conflict divorced from science”.

That adds to the wickedness of the problem and so one solution is the immediate change in our behaviours to encourage adaptation, along with a more restrained way of living.

Joining me at the launch of the book “Degrowth in the Suburbs”.

You, dear reader, joined me at the recent launch of the book “Degrowth in the Suburbs”.

Well, you were not actually there in person, but it was such an important moment that I took you along in spirit.

Why did I bother? 

The book, the work of Samuel Alexander and Brendan Gleeson, gives a clear understanding the difficulties arising from the energy-intensive economic system that prevails here and points to the need for altered behaviours if we are to avoid a collision with resource shortages and climate extremes.

Dr Alexander, a co-director of the Simplicity Institute and a lecturer at the University of Melbourne’s Office of Environmental Programs, co-wrote the book  with the Director of the university’s Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, Professor Gleeson.

Interestingly, I have been an advocate for the densification of Shepparton and so rather than allowing, or encouraging the city, to spread in what I consider a haphazard manner into adjoining farmland, we should be restructuring the city’s rating system to make densification irresistibly attractive to developers.

However, Alexander and Gleeson were not enthusiastic about densification as we first must learn to live with a built infrastructure that will be an integral part of a towns and cities, suburbs in particular, for many generations yet.

In an interview just last week, Alexander said everything needs to be taken in context and it was dangerous to make sweeping generalisations about what is an inherently complex problem, but he said it may well be appropriate to consider a degree of densification for Shepparton.

Most of Shepparton’s infrastructure has existed for about a century and so what we are building now will have to endure whatever it is the next 100 years will bring and having listened to Alexander and Gleeson, we need to think carefully and deeply about what we build, why we build it and where we build it.

And in their book, the authors point to a “crunch” moment when there will be a collision between the world’s finite resources and human aspirations, and if not within the next few decades, then most certainly before this century is over.

Degrowth in the Suburbs is not a cheap book, something for which Professor Gleeson apologized during the launch noting that it was problem of contemporary publishing, but people here will have the chance to read it soon for free when a copy is secured by the Shepparton library.

Dr Alexander is an example to us all as his way of living, which by today’s standard is austere and yet according to him complete, rich and happy, is about sharing, living with just enough and being dependant wherever possible on renewable energy, growing his own food, and investing himself in his neighbourhood.

The work of Alexander and Gleeson allows a glimpse of the future, suggests what our response should be and, in a charming way, gives us hope. 

Measuring success is easy, especially if we apply contemporary values

Success in Shepparton can be measured easily, certainly if we apply contemporary values.

In fact success anywhere is easily gauged if we apply assessments that have catapulted humanity to the point were it stands astride the world.

Yes, busyness driven by the exploitation, sometimes knowingly and others not so, of human nature has given us so many wonderful things, but left us teetering on the edge of the abyss.

There is another way.

Idleness appears integral to who and what we are and yet any suggestion that it be enthusiastically embraced brings scorn, derision and laughter as we are so conditioned why a life of work, accumulation, ambition and pleasure arising from what is considered success that we are unable, it seems, to contemplate anything different.

However, writing in “Idleness; a philosophical essay” Brian O’Connor said: “A more stable and less ambitious socioeconomic system could possible save us from some of the more familiar perils of modern life”.

Already, before writing another word, I can hear the chorus of complaints from those addicted to a life of busyness, who see success only in achievement and living a life diametrically opposed to idleness.

Much of what we enjoy today, they would argue, only exists because of efforts of those who were engaged, busy and constantly pushing to improve things, make them better and wherever and whenever possible allowing people to live an easier and trouble free life. 

And, of course, there is lots of sense in what they say, but, as most know, a trouble free life is a mirage.

Many conflate idleness with pleasure, but they are in fact different and as O’Connor says pleasure is eventually expended, it cannot form the basis of any long-term way of life, whereas idleness allied with virtue has a certain endurance.

Busyness became embedded in our lives after the neoliberal seed planted in the first half of last century and  then flowered in latter decades when those playing the long game manufactured a few crises to suggest that what existed was failing and the philosophies that drove, among other things the monetisation of everything and privatisation of the publicly owned infrastructure, was the only way.

The resultant busyness produced many things, among them an inequality of a like the world has never seen before as it can be shown that just a few more than 60 individuals control more wealth than 3.5 billion people.

Interestingly, inequality carries its own seeds of destruction.

Although that inequality could bring social or revolutionary changes another even more destructive process, which has arisen from this obsession with wealth, control and power, is afoot - it’s the disruption of our climate system bringing changes to our weather of a type never before experienced.

Where does idleness fit in with this? 

Well, it seems that virtuous idleness allows time for reflection and strips us of our energy-rich behaviours that are pushing our world closer to circumstances about which we know little. 

And so what does that mean for Shepparton? For a start we should embrace idleness, step back from the previous PM’s mantra of jobs and growth, consume less, detach ourselves from our energy-rich lives and encourage our city council to follow the lead of their Melbourne counterparts, the City of Darebin, which has formally adopted a climate emergency strategy.

Freedom is a fickle thing, but the UBI can help us experience emancipation

Freedom is a fickle thing, little understood by most and seldom experienced by many.

Imagined freedom for some is just that for the for the daily vicissitudes of the economy limit their behaviour and so remove the spontaneity that is fundamental to emancipation.

And that sociological control, the removal of our human spontaneity, is the unspoken goal of the power regimes in society whose control rests with people not understanding or experiencing real economic freedom.

We are all working for “the man” and history has shown, repeatedly,  that “the man” doesn’t like spontaneity or genuine freedom among the people and so will crush it whenever and wherever it appears.

And so the freedom we imagine and pine for in not being economically obliged to dance everyday to the fiscal tune of an inherently flawed systems; systems that favour just a few and disenfranchise the rest, can be found through a Universal Basic Income (UBI).

Australia is rich beyond imagination, although political rhetoric tells us otherwise and despite the political carping, we are ideally placed to simply give people money and so that is where the UBI comes in.

Annie Lowry describes UBI in her 2018 book “Give People Money: The simple idea to solve inequality and revolutionise our lives” saying, “Every working-age adult citizen would receive the same basic income payment every week. A smaller basic income, known simply as Child Benefit, will be paid for each child. Pensioners will receive a higher basic income, known as the Basic Pension.”

The idea of a UBI has floated in and out of political discussion from as far back as the 16th Century (of course it wasn’t then called the UBI) but has not found favour, however, times are different now.

Although not the most important issue, but seemingly the most prominent, we are headed for technological unemployment and under what exists people without work will be forced to rely on the government for an income.

According to economists at Oxford University about half of American jobs, including millions of white-collar ones, are susceptible to imminent elimination due to technological advances and history illustrates that Australians, and by implication those of us in the Goulburn Valley, are usually on a similar trajectory.

A legion of arguments can be amassed supporting a UBI and any counter-argument can be easily dismantled if people willingly, honestly and ethically allow facts to influence their thinking.

The UBI is about equality, sharing and decency and it is soaked in practicality and Robert Jameson writing in 

“The Case for a Basic Income”, said: “These cost savings would arise from the fact that basic income is an incredibly simple system to administrate, yet would be able to replace a huge swathe of complicated benefit systems currently in operation - and free us all from paying for the huge administration costs that go with them.”

Further, he wrote: “There would no longer be any need for sickness benefits paid to people who are unable to work. There would be no need for tax credits or 'universal credit' or income support. Incapacity benefit, carers' allowances, some (but not all) disability benefits, maternity allowances, child benefit, council tax benefit - no longer needed!”

Where does the money come from is the most common question, and that of course is not unreasonable.

The arithmetic for bureaucratic savings is obvious, but somewhat harder to detail are savings arriving from the broad betterment of people that arises from the lifting of the oppressive need “to keep a roof over our heads” and the willingness and ability of people to take risks (start a business) when their economic survival is underwritten.

Experience from around the world, especially in poor and developing countries, illustrates that to directly give people cash is clearly best as it is nearly always used to improve a person’s life, despite the odd miscreant who wastes the payment.

And as with the present drought there would no need for public aid for farmers, as we would have already “have their back”.

Taxation favours the few and so would need to be restructured to ensure all were treated equally.

 Interestingly, the UBI is not about tinkering around at the edges, rather a dramatic, game-changing simplification that offers, as Robert Jameson says, the real prospect of a genuine revolution in simplification, in efficiency and in the reduction of costly bureaucracy.

A short local and personal story - the little girl from my street, now no longer little as she has three children, one in his twenties, and is being treated for breast cancer.

She has to travel to Bendigo each morning for treatment after which, for economic reasons, she has to rush back to work in the afternoons. A UBI would avoid that crushing necessity in what is a truly difficult time. 

A UBI would allow her to escape that practicality and then, as an added bonus, allow for personal, intellectual and emotional freedom.

We lose our grip of stupendous wealth and private interests snap it up

Sadly, we let the stupendous wealth from Australia’s mining boom slip through our fingers only to see it be snapped up by private interests.

The benefits of that boom should have been dispersed throughout society, including the Goulburn Valley, but no evidence of the boom is to be found here for we mistakenly believed the free marketeers and the idea of “trickle-down economics”.

"Work is the refuge of people who have
nothing better to do" - Oscar Wilde.

Profits from that boom left just a handful of people astonishingly rich and the rest of us wide-eyed and wondering what happened.

The promises were hollow, misleading and little more than lies. Trickle down became trickle up, or flood up.

However, we stand on the cusp of another boom, one that can bring massive benefits to all, but already the corporations are gathering, eyeing off the profits and strategising what they can do to ensure they will benefit most and wider society, that’s you and me, will continue to foot the bill.

Profit from this boom, some of which is happening here in the Goulburn Valley, will be, if we allow it, privatised and the costs socialised.

The arrival of renewable energy presents a wonderful opportunity - it’s new, it’s different and being here at the beginning we have the chance, and the responsibility to ensure the industry is structured in a way that it is effectively publicly owned and so benefits all, rather than a handful that circumstance has favoured. 

Altruism, not profit should drive the process.

Our present energy industry morphed from a publicly owned and operated operation to a private, profit-driven process in which the customers, the users were the losers. 

Writing in his new book, “The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future”, Andrew Yang said: “We have a 1960s-era government that has few solutions to the problems of 2018”, suggesting our government operates in a parallel universe.

True, Yang is writing about America, but much of what is happening in the U.S. is reflected in the ideologies of many influential people in Australia.

Australia is fantastically rich and convinced by a few rather tired rhetorical flourishes about safety and security we willingly hand over billions of dollars for military hardware and yet the idea of real and tangible personal security and safety that could be answered by a universal basic income (UBI) is declared beyond our financial capacity and so impractical.

It is neither, rather the UBI is totally doable and like the urgency needed in response to climate change, all it needs is the will and adherence to the idea that people are vastly more important than profit combined with the understanding that the accumulation of profit in private coffers adds nothing to broader wellbeing of the populace.

The renewable energy boom is a partial answer to the climate change dilemma and is also an integral tool in achieving a universal basic income. Now we just need the will.

In all this it is worth considering Oscar Wilde’s observation: “Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do.” Unfortunately, that may describe the vast majority of us”.

GV Health warrants our celebratory recognition

Institutions are greater, or lesser than the sum of their parts.

Evidence of that abounds and that can be found in the positive sense at Shepparton’s GV Health.

Works worth nearly $170 million to improve
Shepparton's Goulburn Valley Health has already started.

An institution is nought more than a collection of buildings and whatever appliances or fittings it’s particular pursuit demands, but it’s the people who populate the institution, those who work there, who make it either “greater” or “lesser”.

A recent visit to GV Health for a day procedure gave me ample time, and certainly, a practical opportunity, to make a judgment - it was friendly, professional and efficient, putting the sword to any belief that public patients are afforded a lesser quality of care than privately insured counterparts.

Of course, emerging from the experience with a good report immediately enhances such life events, but had the outcome been somewhat different, it would have been worse than mischievous not to acknowledge the kindness and friendliness of all.

The Shepparton hospital is most certainly a complex collection of parts and work has already started on a $169 million refresh of the institution that will make it even more labyrinth-like but at the same time a more efficient workplace.

Health care and its associated social assistance is Shepparton’s largest employer and with the broad smiles of helpful and conscientious people being the practical recognition of the broader management at GV Health, we should celebrate our hospital.

The idea of public health, as we see it at GV Health, is as it should be with each of us willingly opening our wallets to ensure health care is there for all our fellows, and ourselves, at minimal or no cost making the private health insurance industry both irrelevant and unnecessary.

However, what we have in Shepparton, as is the case throughout Australia, is entangled in perverse machinations that have evolved over decades as the tentacles of the market economy have been allowed, almost welcomed, into the cash-rich veins of the health industry.

First, it should not be considered an “industry”, rather it should be a service; a service whose aim is simply that of making those who use it, well again and not making those who work within it, rich.

Last week’s “Four Corners” program on ABC TV explored the problems of our burgeoning health industry and expeditiously avoided the ideological debate about private versus public, but was able to point toward many private health patients who had been exploited with costs far exceeding what was expected.

Australia’s public health service is among the best and to keep it there and improve it even more, it seems that upon being elected to any State or Federal parliamentary position, he or she who is elected should be required to immediately forgo whatever private health insurance they might have and so be forced to experience first hand the public health service they are responsible for.

Considering life, it is mostly only personal experience that enables you to make any sort of worthwhile or useful judgement about the services upon which we depend.