Highlight of 2010

One of the highlights of 2010 for me was an unusual billboard I kept passing in Fitzroy in Melbourne’s inner north during the federal election campaign. The sign had a picture of the then Greens candidate for the seat of Melbourne, Adam Bandt, with the slogan, “I’ll stand up for refugees”.

From my packed tram amid the sullen throng of people on their way to work, my eyes would search for this billboard each morning, like a curious yet reassuring symbol. 

Something about that slogan, “I’ll stand up for refugees” was different. There was no apparent appeal to the self-interest of the voter; rather the candidate was asking people to vote for him because he was going to help someone else.

Electoral politics is almost entirely about self-interest. Whether it’s the economy, education, health, crime, transport or rural issues, politicians assume the average person is interested only in what is good for them and their family. Even environmental issues with altruistic motives are often cloaked in self-interest: a minister announces the preservation of a forest from logging so that it may be “enjoyed by current and future generations”.

Though the fulfilment of personal needs and desires is important, there is a range of human qualities neglected by mainstream politics: the need for community, the ability to reach out to others, the capacity to sacrifice for the welfare of other people and the planet as a whole.      

At heart, our culture and economic system are geared for self-gratification and the fulfilment of the individual through consumption. Economics is about generating unlimited growth based on the assumption that humans are motivated by greed and fear. Buttressed by the global advertising industry, which creates an endless stream of artificial wants and desires, the picture of what it means to be human has been narrowed. People are reduced to being ever-open mouths in vast and complex networks of markets to be mined for profit.

Politics is essentially about oiling the system of self-interest; which is why that poster in Fitzroy seemed to mark a departure, a statement of an emerging sense of different interests and possibilities. Commentators say the rise in support for the Greens is a sign of a “post-materialist” consciousness among inner-urban residents, a shifting of priorities towards community, strong action on the environment, and social justice.

The established political elites deride the emerging political consciousness as the product of “affluent trendies” who can afford to be post-materialist because they are wealthy, young and secure in employment. In a simplistic equation, people who prioritise such issues as the rights of asylum seekers are said to do so only because they no longer need to worry about the basic economic, health and education concerns that preoccupy the rest of the population.

There are deeper truths at work. A post-materialist cultural shift has been brewing since the late 1960s, when social movements led by young people attacked Western society’s sterile obsession with the economy and conservative social norms. Many of the ideas and new ways of living that were advocated then by minorities of social activists and their supporters, on issues like anti-militarism, social and sexual freedom, the rights of women and environmental protection were eventually incorporated partially or wholly into the broader society.

The continuation of that post-materialist trend seems now to be maturing and gathering momentum in new guises relevant to the 21^st century. One of the key features is the abandonment of self-interest as the sole motivation for human action. The interconnectedness of all life on Earth has never been more apparent nor the need to act collectively to protect and nurture it more urgent. Yet nations are still structured around outworn priorities which promote disconnection and disunity; the squabbling and inaction by governments at the various global climate change conferences are a telling example.

It’s clear that groups of people across the world are breaking the shackles of materialism, thinking and acting in ways that expand human experience from “what is good for me” to “what is good for us” and “what is good for all life”. That’s the animating shift in Australia behind climate action and transition-town groups and the strong interest in environmental sustainability and social justice in many inner-urban communities.

The success of this profound shift in consciousness will not be measured by the number of Greens MPs elected to parliament, though in parliamentary politics the Greens represent the shift most clearly. Its success will come over time when humanity broadly accepts and integrates its far-reaching implications and emerges out of the woods of narrow self-interest.  

By that time Adam Bandt’s confidently smiling face on a poster in Fitzroy will have been long forgotten, but his sentiment of connection and compassion will be closely woven into the social fabric.  

War in the Library

War broke out on a sunny afternoon at my small suburban library. It began as conflicts often do – with faint rumblings of discontent escalating into wholesale slaughter. Apparently, the only free computer had been double-booked.

An older woman with grey, short hair was insisting that she had booked the internet, but somehow her booking had not been registered.

The librarian told the woman bluntly she must have made a mistake. Affronted and defensive, she dug in and refused to concede. The young man using the computer looked up nervously from his YouTube clip but said he had a genuine booking. Then the real fun began.

When the computer next to the contested terminal suddenly became free, the jilted woman claimed it and began her assault. “Hard to find anyone with decency around here,’’ she sniped at the young man. ``Yeah, yeah, whatever,’’ he replied. For the next 10 minutes, while typing on her keyboard, she threw sarcastic barbs his way, to which he replied with increasing venom.

Finally the woman got up from her emailing chores and left the library. But not before one last shot: “Such a nice day, such a nice person ... pig!”

I watched this scene with fascination and horror nearby. I kept thinking how common it is for a person who feels wronged in some way to carp or abuse another.

Often it happens when a neighbour is rude, or on the road when another car cuts us off, or a parking inspector gives us a ticket even though we only dashed into the shop for a minute. We just can’t help firing a parting salvo to soothe our wounded egos. The volcano of our rage explodes in response to the hurt of the blow. Feeling abused, we abuse back.

But does it have to be like this? Do we have to bare our fangs when we feel piqued?

The key has to be emotional detachment – the ability to step back from the heat of the conflict and act in a positive way that embraces everybody involved, not just yourself.

We are not generally taught the art and skill of emotional detachment. At school we are urged to think critically, to inspect and dissect thoughts and arguments – which is about the exercise of the mind. What about emotions? In our rationally ordered, mind-oriented society, emotions are not considered the main game, yet they are hugely important and often influence and override what we are thinking.

The idea that as human beings we have a core or essence that is independent of our feeling states, that we don’t have to identify with our emotions and can stand back and not be consumed by them, is powerful and subversive.

Advertising relies on the manipulation of emotions and desires. How many of us go out and buy something when we feel unhappy, lonely, depressed? After the 9/11 terror attacks then New York mayor Rudy Giuliani told his citizens to go shopping as a way of recovering from their shock and grief. Go shopping. And of course politicians are skilled manipulators of the moods of the electorate, tweaking emotions like fear, greed and insecurity.

Emotional detachment does not mean becoming unfeeling or cold. It means recognising there is a choice about how to respond to a feeling. We don’t have to be slaves to our emotions. Another person may be abusive, they may hurt or wrong us in some way, but recognising that we have a choice creates the potential for acting in a way where we don’t throw our own toxic fuel on the fire of a conflict.

So how could the protagonists in the library have acted differently? The librarian should not have bluntly told the woman she had made a mistake, but tried to soothe her and offer her something positive (“It’s terrible you’ve missed out on the computer, can I get you on another one as soon as possible?”) Likewise, the young man could have expressed his sympathy for the woman’s plight and offered to help her make a booking for next time. He certainly should not have responded to her abusive bating. For her part, the woman could have channelled her anger and frustration by firmly asking the librarian to show her the booking system and ensure that she was able to use the next available computer.

It’s true these are ideal responses, but they are possible and they do happen. Sometimes all it takes is one or more deep breaths before we speak or act. But it begins fundamentally with the understanding that we are not our emotions, that war is not inevitable.

Published in The Age newspaper, February 2010

On Work and Connection

Mechanics are not the sort of people who reach for publicity, and they rarely get it. But I have a desire to hoist my mechanic before the bright lights and celebrate every grease-stained inch of him. 

He has been intimate with every part of every bomb I’ve driven over the years. He’s known the axles, picked through the engines, changed the groove-worn tyres and oiled the pistons. He’s been my counsellor and saviour countless times when, forlornly, I’ve rolled into his suburban garage with the latest problem.

His name’s Mick, which is somewhat typical for a mechanic. You don’t get many words out of him, and when he does speak they come rapid-fire and always end in a question.

`It’s gonna cost a lot to get new tyres, knowata mean? You’re better off getting re-treads, knowata mean?’

Mick works on his own and his garage is always full of cars, some jacked up high, others lolling about in various states of disrepair. His workshop looks like the grubby inside of hell. Even the girlie poster that once stood out near the entrance has succumbed and is buried under layers of grime.

He’s invariably busy but somehow always finds the time to attend to mechanical no-hopers like me. His patience, like the stream of cars that come in and out of his garage, seems endless.

George Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier made the profound observation that there are millions of people who work in jobs essential to the running of society who receive no recognition. Orwell investigated the lives of coal miners in northern England in the 1930s. The miners’ work led to the generation of electricity that powered the country, yet they lived in abject poverty and neglect.

In 2010 in Australia few workers endure conditions anything like those described by Orwell, but there still exists a kind of social short-sightedness and lack of approval towards many blue-collar jobs. Amid strict divisions of labour, we are still a society ruled deeply by status. And when it comes to dirty, repetitive or dangerous work we prefer to look away.

Imagine a car-dependent country like ours without mechanics. Or the conditions we would be working and living in without cleaners or garbage collectors. Or the hunger in our stomachs without the food process workers whose products pile up in supermarkets.

There are hundreds of jobs that don’t rate a mention in a society like ours that is obsessed with wealth, status and celebrity – and armies of unsung workers who nevertheless keep it functioning and well-oiled. The illusion exists that the work of the CEO and his office cleaner are unconnected. The truth is that one cannot operate without the other, and this extends to a web of connections throughout our complex society, binding the high and the low.

Friends of mine have the quaint habit of placing a stubby of beer and a thank-you card next to their letterbox at Christmas for the postie.  I haven’t met anyone else who does this, or hardly anyone who even acknowledges the person who scoots up and down their street daily delivering their mail. I try to say hello and thanks when I am at my mail box as the post is delivered, but the response is often one of surprise – as if anonymity is the ordained consequence of the thankless job.

My mechanic Mick may not be the poorest worker around, but in his concrete grease pit he’s certainly one of the less glamorous. Fundamentally it’s about what we value, and the ability to see and appreciate all the parts that make the whole.

Published in Eureka Street, August 2010

  

Ten Ants Only

Around the carpark of a block of flats in inner-urban Melbourne, signs say `Ten ants only’. The painter had mistakenly spelt ‘tenants’ with two ns, then painted over the second one.

The signs say ‘ten ants only’.

Passers-by long ago stopped wondering what they mean.

They ascribe the words to life’s imponderable truths:

like why some babies are born with hair and others bald,

and the movements of clouds.

Once I gathered twelve ants

and let them spill from my palm to the ground.

Two of them convulsed horribly,

died.

Sometimes I’ve seen people meditating before the signs.

They say Zen teachers use them as koans,

the novice’s journey to non-attainment enhanced

by the bite of gravel on his backside.

Some people say they have seen the face of a woman

when the light slants on the letters in a certain way;

that she weeps and miracles occur.

I’m sceptical, but not like the grim man who shouted

‘Tenants only! Not ten ants.’

An old woman sweeping the gravel said ‘Silence!’

And the ant trails weaving through the minds

of the young people on the ground stopped,

briefly, before resuming –

ten ants, not one more.


Published in Wet Ink magazine, September 2009