New world order
The Conspiracy Of Decency
Did they really land on the moon? Did W really know about 9/11 in advance? Did the towers really get destroyed by controlled demolition? What really happened to Princess Di? Did Paul McCartney really die back in the 60’s? JFK – one bullet, really? What’s really in Area 51? Is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion real? Are satanic cults really eating babies, especially Hillary Clinton? Is COVID-19 a hoax?
I don’t have any answers on any of these subjects. But it sure is fascinating to speculate on all of it. Such glorious fun to fall down a rabbit hole and find “the” answer. There is nothing so satisfying to the human mind than to get the answer right.
Funny thing is, the feeling of being right doesn’t even need to align with reality. Any answer will do so long as it blunts the confusion of not knowing. We live in a very confusing time. As alluded to in a recent Rolling Stone article, the American Empire is crumbling and history tells us that apart from the fact that all empires crumble in the end, it gets pretty messy and scary when they do.
All around us are examples of how our current systems are not working properly and have not worked properly for a very long time. So it’s not just America that is falling apart. We are in the throes of an enormous paradigm shift globally and with all due respect to all the theories about who is pulling the strings behind the curtain, I think if we pulled back the curtain we would find some facsimile of a tired, confused old white guy with no ideas, no plan and ebbing strength and energy.
It is easy to highlight Donald Trump as an avatar for that behind the curtain man/thing/entity. But he is a symptom, not a cause. He hasn’t seized control (yet) of a decaying society. He is the manifestation of all the fears and concerns and disappointments of people who have never seen success and want someone to blame and those who have had success and don’t want to share it or lose it.
To some, he is a cartoonish villain and to others he is a cartoonish saviour. What I see is the emergence of a very real kind of nihilism. The systematic destruction of norms and institutions is telling the world that there is no meaning, that all is failed and take what you can get for yourself.
The rise of authoritarianism around the world is not new. It has happened throughout history. It is kind of surprising to me that it is on such a steep growth curve at this time. I wasn’t expecting it.
OK, so thus far, I have painted a bleak picture of a pretty inhospitable future. I’ve got a little bit more of that to go, so hang in there please.
We look at America and are horrified by the statistics of black people being shot and killed by police. We are disgusted that the world’s most affluent country has rates of poverty and homelessness that should shame and embarrass them. We look at how they pollute their environment and treat refugees and gobble resources and bully other countries and are ripping themselves apart politically.
All this is true. You can see it on whatever news horse you back. Different spin and reason, same thing.
But we aren’t America. We are New Zealand and we think we are different and better. We don’t have that kind of rascism, economic disparity, poverty, homelessness and helplessness here. No we don’t. We have our very own home grown kind. I wonder how many people see Black Lives Matter on their TV and think that’s a good thing. Then they see Ihumatao and it’s all a bit close to home. We don’t need these bloody radical Maori’s messing up our nice country and valuable real estate.
We all see the world through our own eyes. We all have our own set of experiences that act as the filter through which we see things. We see a brown man with no shirt on with a coke bottle filled with soapy water and a window washer at the traffic lights and our reactions vary massively. Some see a useless bludger too lazy to get a proper job and probably dangerous so we wind the windows up, lock the doors, stare ahead with grim determination not to meet his eyes and if we really want to display our disgust, we turn the window wipers on.
Others see a proud young brown man, enterprising and energetic. Probably doing this not because he’s lazy but because he can’t get a job but still has the impulse to work. He may not have the means to get a job because he has nowhere to live and has great difficulty keeping clean and presentable. We watch him with the people who do let him do his work and see a cheerful, engaging wit and a warm interaction. Motorist and window washer, both a little better off for the interaction.
The truth is, we have a shocking problem in New Zealand. Life for too many people just isn’t fair. We have a government who have made all the right noises about making society fairer to all. I don’t know what the telling statistics are, but I wager that very little difference has been made to anyone much. I honestly believe that their intentions are good and they mean what they say.
We have people from all fronts attacking them for the terrible job they’ve done. Some because they are tribally from the other side and some, probably from the inside and even more voraciously savaging them for letting the side down.
On the other side we have parties that proudly promote policies that have manifestly failed over a period of almost forty years. I am not getting political here. I’m also not saying “a plague on both their houses”. If politics is little more than Kabuki theatre, with no actual progress, we have no use for it. What frightens me is that this will lead to increasingly fringe political forces gaining traction with people desperate to see positive change. Worse still would be the takeover of a main political party by radicals as we see in America.
Warning – it gets positive from here.
Rolling out a cliched expression – we have agency. The world we inhabit is not a movie that we passively watch happen to us. It is not the Coliseum where we are entertained by the dreadful injustices meted out to whoever is in the ring and cheer or boo depending on how we feel about what’s happening to others.
Without wanting to offend the religious, my perspective is that we have one go at this life. We can’t defer or trade off our actions in this life against another one in the future. This is our time to make a difference and it doesn’t have to be on a grand scale.
That Tweet you were going to send ripping the throat out of someone, that Instagram post that alienates people with the perfection of your life which really ain’t all that, that Facebook post ranting about whatever has “gotten up your goat” (ref. Kath & Kim). Resist the urge. Your base instincts aren’t your best feature.
Imagine if every interaction you had with a new person was like a date. You want to present the best of yourself. I want people to see my honesty, compassion and willingness to listen and change. What do you want people to see of you? Is it really your prejudices and bigotries or your better self? It lives in everyone but in many it sadly gets hidden or suppressed.
We can choose a different reality. We can address every issue that we face. In fact, I’d push the edges of that envelope a little further. We can, but really we need to. Our world is getting a bit sick of us. It’s starting to push back. I am not a committed greenie. I behave appallingly with my commitment to climate change mitigation, etc etc. Name your worthy cause, I represent tokenism in its finest form. But the issue of human relationships and the way we treat each other is what I truly believe in as the existential threat to survival.
I’m sufficiently serious about this that I would be happy to trade in my Labour/Green tribe for a grand coalition that agreed on a core set of imperatives – end poverty, make environmental sustainability a fundamental ticket to play for business, rewarding and acknowledging people who make a critical difference in those areas.
I don’t think we recognise the precipice we are standing on. I hope we do. Why? My 13 year old daughter and her mad and inspirational friends. My 24 year old son and his smart, insightful and deeply caring and instinctively wise girlfriend, his brothers who are navigating their way through this shit storm we’re in and the multitude of people I have met over the years and been touched and moved by. My world is full of people full of possibility. Not all of them have realised their possibility, but I want us to provide them with the space to do so.
Here are my suggestions for how we get to this state of Nirvana (not the band with the screeching singer)
Stop talking shit about other people
Start listening to people who think differently
Imagine a world where your loved ones would thrive and be happy
Do something about that
Help other people do something about that
I understand that this piece is long. It has all the hallmarks of a stream of consciousness piece. It kind of is, but it reflects what I really think, feel and believe. Please feel free to shoot me down, but I would just ask that when you do, you do it with better ideas, not hate and belligerence.