By Warwick O’Neill
Unlike a lot of people who follow the political and media ramblings of this country I like to ensure that I’m informed about issues from as many perspectives as possible. I don’t just stick to the tried and trusted papers and sites which comfortingly reaffirm my point of view and lead me to believe that the rest of the known world shares those views. I read and listen to various outlets, even though the opinion expressed may run counter to my own. Why?
It’s quite simple really, how can you form a valid and intelligent opinion if you haven’t bothered to hear all the arguments? How can you have an open and robust debate on vital issues if your only tactic is to shout down and silence dissenting opinion, simply because you don’t know enough about that opinion to debate it fully?
So what’s my point here? Well through looking at all these various sources and opinions, particularly the comments section of many on line media sites, I’ve come to realise that both sides of some of our most pressing issues have some very good points, some very ill-informed points and some wildly and incredibly dangerous attempts to take things to the extreme. But the one thread that runs through all these debates is this – no one acknowledges the good points in the other side’s opinion, they only attack the bad and attempt to crush the entire proposal because a percentage of it is no good.
Remember that old saying, “don’t throw the baby out with the bath water”?
And so what is the end result of all this? We keep devoting hours and hours of time and possibly millions of wasted dollars (remember that we’re paying politicians to resolve many of these issues – which remain unresolved), for years and years and go nowhere. One side has a win and the other side then goes about dismantling that progress while Australia floats around neither moving forward nor moving back.
The most obvious example of this is/was the ‘carbon tax’. Whether you agree with it or not, you can’t deny the fact that millions of tax payer dollars were thrown into its implementation, infrastructure was being installed and things seemed to be running OK. This was back in 2012. The debate was had, Labor/Greens won and that should’ve been that. But nay. Along came Tony and in 2014 the whole thing was scrapped, and here we are in 2017 still arguing about carbon emissions etc.
This is indicative of the state of public debate in Australia these days. The art of compromise has been annihilated, not just in politics but also in the court of public opinion. It has become a story of ‘if you’re not with me 100%, you’re against me’, ‘if I can’t have everything the way I want, then you can’t have anything’. We have developed tunnel vision where the only valid point of view is apparently the one to which you subscribe.
Let’s take this whole climate change, renewables versus coal thing as an example.
In the Green corner we have the great unwashed, three hugging, social justice warrior lefties. In the Brown corner we’ve got the greedy, power hungry capitalist environmental vandals. The lefties want all coal fired power stations switched off ASAP and mining and exportation of coal to be ceased yesterday, if not sooner. The vandals on the other hand want an indefinite future for coal, no need to invest in renewables and only coal can lift those poor third world peasants out of poverty.
Each side of the debate will tear out the throats of the other if they dare to imply there is a different way of viewing things. There is only one way and that’s either renewable now and to hell with the jobs of miners and power station workers (Green corner), or coal all the way and to hell with creating a cleaner world (Brown corner).
But what if, shock horror, both sides admitted that the other had some valid points? Jobs are important, particularly to the economy of rural and remote communities. Renewables, at this point cannot carry the full load. Climate change is real. Coal is not the way of the future. What if they managed to agree on all these basic points?
Well they’d compromise, wouldn’t they? They would say let’s invest as much as possible in renewals, while maintaining the current coal fired power and as more and more renewable projects come on-line, gradually reduce the reliance on coal. Natural attrition as coal workers retire will ensure a gradual reduction in numbers to coincide with the reduction in operations without causing too much misery to people whose jobs are on the way out.
On the other side, employing and training fewer people to work in coal will keep the numbers down, and those who would otherwise enter the coal industry can instead enter into and be trained in the renewable industries in which they can look forward to life-long careers.
And imagine if this approach had commenced twenty years ago. We’d be close to completing the transition by now, instead of still arguing about it. As it is, if everyone put their own bullshit aside and decided to act like intelligent human beings, we’re still looking at twenty to thirty years to end up where we should be now. All because of everyone’s ‘no compromise’ attitude.
But this isn’t the only area where real results and being delayed due to an inability to compromise. Immigration is either a ‘keep them all out’ or ‘let them all in’ approach, each of which is just as ludicrous, but each side will scream at the other in an attempt to stifle debate. Same sex marriage is suffering the same thing when an obvious solution is staring people in the face – ie most of the objections are based on religious grounds. So, the simple solution is one side allows that same sex marriage be legalised while the other side allows that the various churches can decide whether or not they’ll allow a religions service. If they won’t, then so be it, do what the rest of us do – have a non-religious marriage.
The inability to acknowledge other people’s point of view as being valid, and working with them to reach real solutions, in my opinion has reached crisis point in Australia. We have radio personalities having pies shoved in their faces while launching books, or CEOs having pies shoved in their face for supporting gay marriage (what’s with all the pies?). Apparently, daring to have an opinion in Australia means you can be assaulted by the self-righteous. What a sorry state of affairs.
Recently a movie producer attempted to bring a film to Australia which dared to suggest that men don’t necessarily have it all their own way. Did the SJWs take time to actually view the movie, or did they just simply decide it was an anti-feminist/pro domestic violence construct of the mythical Patriarchy and pressure theatres to cancel screenings and have the sweet and beautiful faces of a militant left wing media (The Project, Sunrise) lambast the whole thing and viciously attack the young LADY who made the film? Yup option two was the preferred option. Don’t even debate it, just attack it and tear it down so that the least number of people as possible get to see it. The funny thing is, due to the righteous indignation of all the bleeding hearts, more people found out that it was actually in Australia than otherwise would have. Something of a Pyrrhic victory I’d suggest.
Now I don’t think for a moment that people on either side of any number of divisive debates in this country are intrinsically nasty horrible people. I’d even go as far to say they actually believe they’re interested in what is in the best interest of the majority. I’ll admit myself to automatically adopting a stance in relation to various issues without necessarily considering the full story, but hopefully more often than not, before I start jumping on people I take the time to fully consider their position and I try my utmost not to look upon them disparagingly for having a differing point of view. Unfortunately I think I’m in the minority.
Until we all hold our own egos in check, until we all start encouraging open debate, until we start to accept that our point of view may not be the only correct one, then Australia will end up going round and round and round and going nowhere. I’m reminded of the old joke, ‘my dog just spent ten minutes chasing its own tail and I thought to myself how easily amused dogs are. Then I realised I just watched a dog chase its own tail for ten minutes’. So before you attempt to force your opinions on others to shut down debate, ask yourself is that really going to be productive, or do you just enjoy watching the dog chase its tail?
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Warwick O’Neill’s passion lies in exploring the nooks and crannies of Australia, both physically and historically and combing it all into writing historical fiction novels which showcase the colourful history of this country. His first novel; “Flames of Rebellion” is a fictional tale set amongst a real life backdrop of the Victorian Goldfields and the Eureka Stockade.
His blog site contains a collection of tales relating to his experiences over the last twenty years of parenting, off-roading/camping and occasionally managing to avoid incarceration by the skin of his teeth. He also hosts the YouTube video blog “On This Day In Australia” showcasing the lessor known events and people in Australian history.
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