PREAMBLE IN THE INTERESTS OF CONSTRUCTIVE EXCHANGE OF IDEAS.
It is perfectly sane and reasonable at this stage to anticipate emotional and strident criticism given the destructive climate change our public discourse is going through with all its storms and floods of outrage, its tides of public sentiment and droughts of wisdom and compassion.
This note is a pre-emptive effort to manage expectations in that space.
Critical reasoning is a skill as much as it is a discipline. These are complex issues and discussing them openly is the path to better integration.
I do not value only positive feedback. Positive feedback is welcome but it is the well formed constructive feedback that helps me widen my understanding and hone my arguments. My mindset is not locked and done, it is, as it should be with all of us, an unfolding process, as my understanding evolves.
It is our responsibility to explain our thoughts and beliefs to answer any fair questions, but that is where our responsibility ends. It is our job to explain our ideas, but not to understand them for someone else.
If anyone is inclined to dismiss our current opinions on the grounds that we are incoherent or morally flawed, it could just as easily be that their understanding is not developed enough to value nuance. It could mean that they are too lazy to rewind and do some deeper reflection or too distracted to parse what is actually being said. It could equally be that they are simply too emotionally charged to invest the energy and attention to challenge their own limiting beliefs. Or perhaps they lack the goodwill or charity to allow for the merits of someone else’s beliefs that trigger their emotions
Either way, raw empathy is no substitute for wisdom and compassion and sanctimony is a very poor argument, from either the Left or the Right.
Your Voice cannot be given by another.
And it isn’t to be earned, it can only be found, through conviction and practice, by having something to say, and a refusal to be silenced.
Where we derive our Power.
Where we get our permission is where we get our power. That is why self-permission is so important.
Consider the diagram below.
The diagram illustrates an insight I arrived at all humans want Safety, Freedom, Power and Purpose but that that Safety and Freedom have to be brokered (not earned or deserved) with Other, that is the people we share space with and who we are in community with. And it also shows that our Purpose and our Power are something that we have to cultivate/unfold inside of our Self, in alignment with our truth.
How we Claim our Voice.
In ancient cultures, Voice was a freedom extended by Others and a Power granted by one’s self through arrival at a state of sufficient mutual care and understanding.
In those ancient cultures, young people or newcomers wishing to exercise the power of their Voice would need to be initiated or inducted into the community to ensure there was a ‘fulcrum’ of consensus and a prudent limit to any individual voice or voices.
The elders used to be the keepers of a ‘circle’. The children and youths were held in the circle, but to become a fellow keeper of the circle, any child or newcomer had to demonstrate their willingness to hold the same protocols, abide by the same laws, and be held to the same standards —in a word ‘Initiation’. The purpose of initiation was to ask two key questions:
Do you appreciate the duty of ownership and care for Self?
Do you appreciate the duty of ownership and care for Other
This is what it means to be an Elder, to be a ‘Psychological Adult’.
Thích Nhất Hạnh famously said:
“To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love. To know how to love someone, we have to understand them. To understand, we need to listen. Love’s other name is Understanding.”
Now, we have keepers of the circle, which themselves were not initiated, and who cannot understand much less demonstrate what it means to own and uphold care and valuing of self and care and valuing of “other”. We have not the language, nor the discernment, nor the awareness, and so we cannot have the wisdom or the compassion.
Still, we start from where we are with what we have. We cannot unmake the past, and we cannot pick the locks of our grievances by finding out now who to blame for the sorry state of affairs we all find ourselves in.
The ‘Voice’ Referendum
In Australia today, there is a referendum to determine whether to support a gesture to grant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, not the right to a voice at the table, but the right to convene a formally recognised panel, self-elected who will speak for their communities and their interests.
Like all Australian Referendums, this is poorly designed to achieve divisiveness and cannot properly address the actual problem(s). I am not saying it was deliberately designed to achieve divisiveness, but that will be the inevitable outcome regardless.
According to Wikipedia:
“Voters will be asked to approve an alteration to the Australian Constitution that would recognise Indigenous Australians in the document through prescribing a body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice that "may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples"
To be very clear, Australians who identify as Indigenous Australians are (technically and legally) full citizens with the same votive powers as any other citizen. The reality however is that their communities have several significant handicaps which have disenfranchised their means to exercise their voice and have their needs met. This is arguably due to the same brand of ignorance and dehumanisation that all colonising powers exercised over indigenous peoples during the age of colonisation which happened on every continent on earth except Antarctica and to a far lesser extent in Europe. More accurately it happened exactly the same way in Europe, only much earlier during the empire expansions of Rome.
Subsequently, indigenous Australians were further disaffected by arrogance and clumsy and ignorant attempts at integration which resulted in untold human suffering, and displacement, the results of which have echoed painfully through to today, unhealed and unaddressed.
One of the worst examples was the forced removal of children from their parents and communities for ‘education’ and cultural reprogramming which the responsible parties convinced themselves were acts of charity and for the greater good.
What further exacerbated the state of disenfranchisement and inevitable suffering, is how when any two cultures, meet, and a significant disparity in technical ability and adaption to various forms of complexity always disempowers the group who lack that advantage which creates the illusion of a faux-superiority of capability. To have a brain wiring and nervous system configured for a nomadic tribal lifestyle suddenly hijacked by a Western culture with the cumulative and compounding benefit of four centuries of progress is near impossible to integrate at all, let alone when facilitated so ungently and clumsily, all the while under the frown of bigotry and the insult of dehumanisation.
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
Soren Kierkegaard
To me, this is what wisdom looks like when looking backwards to understand.
What Wisdom Looks Like to Me.
Being disadvantaged from the outset means beginning at a position that lacks the privileges or advantages that others may easily access or take for granted. Failing to adequately address this disparity can result in systemic neglect and exploitation. We want to fix this, but a clumsy attempt to do so stands to cause a lot more harm than aid. To do nothing is unacceptable. To do something clumsy is the opposite of responsibility.
What wisdom looks like to me moving forward is this.
Politics cannot be practised like a Science or a Religion, it must be practised like a Philosophy.
We are asking the wrong question.
The referendum is about a serious and valid issue, but the way that it is being asked and the inherent confusion is going to result in the same illness that America is suffering from today and increasingly since at least 2016, whereby the level of argument and mistrust is made worse by two groups of people talking past each other, while ignorant of each other’s relevant and heartfelt concerns.
Here are some statements that on their own, if we are able to remove all emotional charge, we should be able to agree with out of sanity, prudence and human decency. If you are angered or frustrated, you are simply confused, invariably due to emotional charge, which is understandable, but not helpful. (When we hold a view, our job is to explain it to other people not understand it for them.)
Your Voice cannot be given by another. And it isn’t to be earned either, it can only be found, through conviction and practice; by having something to say, and a refusal to be silenced.
Dehumanising people you mistrust or who you disagree with or who mistrust and disagree with you, is not politics, it is religion.
None of us arrive at our mistrusts dishonestly.
We are all someone else’s ‘they’.
The problem with the Referendum is that it asks the wrong question, in an overly simplified way which muddies the waters for real concerns on both sides of the ‘for’ and ‘against’ voices.
The breakdown of communication and mutual appreciation and understanding is due to the accidental (or deliberate) attempt to take orthogonal and complex issues, which do not have symmetry, and reduce them to a “yes” / “no” question, and each side approaching the situation from their own narrow paradigm, either as a Science of scepticism or a Religion of Morality.
The ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ Arguments are Totally Orthogonal.
To properly understand this all, we need to accept that the “Yes” group is typically the Liberal voice and the “No” group is the more conservative voice of the piece.
To the “Yes” group, this is a simple ethical question of human rights that almost shouldn’t require debate. This is the simple view that most social justice speaks from and perceives the world through.
In this simple framing, only a moral monster would find a problem with saying “Yes”.
To the “Nn” group, this is not about whether other Australians should have appropriate and adequate representation. From paying attention to the social media commentary and general uncertainty, the actual questions that are coming up are:
“How are the normal democratic models ineffective for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island communities?”,
“How are their wishes going to be uniquely or adequately advanced by this model of representation?”,
“Is this proposed model open to manipulation?” and
“Which other disenfranchised Australians are being similarly neglected because their interests don’t neatly align with value metrics of policymakers and lawmakers?”
History Doesn’t Repeat, but it Rhymes.
For the “NO” group, their current misgivings have nothing to do with their belief or acceptance that Indigenous Australians deserve full and fair representation. The actual concerns and mistrusts seem to be aimed squarely at politicians. These are the same politicians who have earned the mistrust for several reasons, not the least of which was the bungling of the COVID pandemic and subsequent inability to acknowledge overreach and dishonesty. A further mistrust arises around how the social media trial of public opinion casts anyone who is suspicious of the government using fairness or safety as a cover to compromise civil liberties and do any number of underhanded things in the interest of greed and manipulation.
The conservative viewpoint of the COVID saga was that the government used the premise of a national health crisis to shame and disempower anyone who was sceptical, by labelling them as delinquent, foolish or dangerous. If the entire question is painted as moral and ethical, any counter question or challenge is simply painted as worthy of insult, public shaming and worth silencing. When we use moralistic issues to silence other voices, this is not democratic, this is closer to religious persecution than it is to democracy.
The truth is that people, neither on the Left nor on the Right, do not arrive at their mistrusts dishonestly and humans all hold onto their airs of disrespect and disregard, out of ignorance and fear.
Put Yourself in Their Shoes.
“What would I want?”
This question is an articulation of the Golden Rule. And it is not enough to simply ask “What would I want…” This implies a subjective inquiry: “What do I want for them?” The objective question rather, should be “What would I want, if I were in their shoes complete with their needs and vulnerabilities?”
If you are ever confused about a political issue and you really want to help, take the time to truly empathise and understand. Not raw empathy or moral sanctimony and outrage, those are the practices of pretentious teenagers and religious zealots.
If you claim to support the ‘Voice’ and want to discourage people from expressing their understanding or their opinions, then you are not a ‘psychological adult’ and you don’t understand the spirit of democracy.
If you had been disenfranchised or arrived at the present moment of realised circumstances beyond your control, where your voice carries less weight than someone else’s, you are going to want redress or to be made whole.
The Australian referendum is designed to be divisive, not supportive. It is moronic, to ask a question in this way. This is how you get results like "Brexit”; which was politically engineered and manipulated via fear-mongering and deliberate misinformation. No one got what they thought they were asking for because they never understood the issues. Ask meaningless questions you invariably get meaningless answers. This is not Democracy, this is a façade.
Anyone using the moral high ground of “It’s very simple.”: only your perspective is very simple; someone else is stuck with more complexity that your sense of moral high ground does not adequately negate or resolve for them.
Sometimes the idea is noble but the placement and articulation is flawed in its proposed execution and the obvious bleeding heart is not the only consideration of genuine need or prudence.
If you cannot admit of these points; this is not about human rights, it is a form of ‘wokeness’, which is a sham of politics using chiefly guilt and shame to manipulate a narrative. This is how you galvanise the other team into a more ruthless stance, less willing to hear your voice, because of how disingenuous the game is.
Furthermore, just because you are uncomfortable and the process seems designed to be divisive does not mean it was intended to be so. Just because it is possible to manipulate and abuse the outcome does not mean it was intended to do that.
If you cannot admit that you would want redress if you arrived here watching the world slide into an increasingly troubling and challenging moment, you would make a play for redress to establish your footing and your place at the table in a way you had never enjoyed before. If you cannot admit this, you are definitely part of the problem.
There are two orthogonal concerns resting on the same outcome and to ignore, demonise or attempt to shame, is going to serve no one except social media and media companies who are going to thrive on the agitation attention and animus.
This is what is happening in Israel and Palestine; Two irreconcilable issues. They are both addressable and resolvable but they cannot balance each other out; it is a false symmetry and people tear themselves apart based on asymmetric values arguing past each other.
If you are on the left and you are using shame and sanctimony the problem is you.
If you are on the right and you are using your mistrust of the government to disregard someone else’s wishes for equality of opportunity you are the problem.
The Actual Problem and A Better Way Forward.
There are no such things as ‘right’ or ‘only’ ways, but there are always better and worse ways, and we need to be open to better ways.
The problem, actually, is the government with its earned and deserved reputation for disingenuous and opportunistic bickering and point scoring and mishandling of public trust. And it is the ‘lip-service’ reputation which they have treated aboriginals and all disenfranchised groups with, which marginalised and undermined their welfare and ability to flourish.
The answer is not no government, it is better government. The answer is not selective representation, it is better and more democratic representation and more transparent processes.
There are no right or only ways, but there are better and worse ways. Better ways usually are less divisive. The Australian government, not activist groups, are responsible for disclosing and explaining and providing assurances to citizens who are sceptical. This cannot be done passively, it has to be done actively until it is effective. And now, whatever the outcome of the Referendum, the division, mistrust and confusion will only grow, because of how poorly the Australian government handled the entire thing.
The explaining and accountability due by any government is not to change the minds of children or hard-line fanatics, it is to provide sanity and context to well-meaning people who don’t know how to reconcile their own misgivings in a space that has become tainted by sanctimony, rhetoric and bad faith misrepresentation for the sake of agitation and entertainment.
My job as a philosopher is to explain things like this, to the best of my current ability and context, but not to understand it for anyone, or to cushion every sensitivity or avoid every trigger for everyone. They have to do that for themselves. And if you attempt to demonise me, or silence me, you are simply being hypocritical demanding a voice for some, while attempting to rob me of mine.
When we practice politics as philosophers, we hold this stance: “I’ll do my bit from goodwill and if you cannot meet me in that spirit of goodwill, we cannot help each other.”
This is not a political problem or an administrative problem, it is not a racial problem or a human rights problem - it is an integration problem.
This is not a political problem or an administrative problem, it is not a racial problem or a human rights problem - it is an integration problem. A 27-year corporate career in Information Technology taught me that integration done clumsily avoids the entire purpose of integration.
Integration attempted shallowly or cosmetically, can not only miss the intended objective but may also exacerbate existing disparities and challenges. Clumsy attempts at cultural or societal integration can deepen existing fissures rather than bridging them.
How to Facilitate Effective Integration.
Voice is not enough, there needs to be open-heartedness and some beginnings of a common language. There needs to be a mutual effort and investment of tolerance to develop that common language, which is the responsibility of all parties, to the measure of their current reach. Our current reach is not a permanent limitation unless it is treated like one.
The brokers of permission, that is the voting public, are themselves not integrated in a mature adult way to society. We have people who have a right to vote on issues they cannot understand or appreciate and who would fail the two earlier questions about the appreciation and understanding of care and ownership of both ‘self’ and ‘other’.
Governments who present uninformed citizens with a choice, without providing context, transparency or accountability and without earning back the lost trust from the previous scenario which left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, are not practising Consent. Consent can only be given when all parties understand what they are consenting to. This has not happened and no one knows the answer to the questions that were raised earlier in this article.
That there is an overdue problem of neglect and disenfranchisement to address is without question. A referendum about a model with unclear efficacy, motives and vulnerabilities is hardly so cut and dry.
In the realm of Information Technology, several key principles guide effective integration, and these could serve as metaphors or frameworks for understanding societal integration as well.
We are attempting to address an overdue integration of two social operating systems, with differing sets of inherent capabilities, default languages and nuances of communication, differing challenges and no neatly aligned priorities. We do not need to understand all the complexities of Information Technology and how relevant or suitable this is as a philosophical metaphor, so understand the value of the wisdom being pointed to. We can however easily accept that if these were two IT systems, which needed to integrate more fully to function better and serve all the stakeholders, there is no way it would be handled like this.
The far bigger challenge is that the majority of the stakeholders on all sides of the question (Left and Right), lack the requisite appreciation and understanding of the complexities and necessities, pragmatic, ethical or otherwise and the brokers of the solution (the government and the opposition) have a thoroughly earned and deserved reputation for dishonesty, ineptitude and an unwavering culture of avoiding accountability.
It does not matter what cosmetic political or social justice project is attempted; Until the underlying systemic dysfunction and maturation occur at the right levels, this is fated to become just another politically charged bungle that will give the loudest voices on either side of the Left-Right divide greater cause for mistrust, vigilance and animus.
Conclusion.
As to how to vote in this Referendum or arrive at any opinion whether it is about American politics, the latest social justice storm, the war in Ukraine or the recent attacks in Gaza, the advice remains the same:
Arm yourself with as much understanding as you can, jettison any emotion, outrage and sanctimony, and sit with two questions:
“What would Love and Leadership look like right now?”
and
“What would I want, all things considered?”
There can be no successful integration without interface, and there can be no effective interface without tolerance, a sincere spirit of charity and leadership.