We have lost ground on what good character means. It is because it has become harder and harder to know what is right in different contexts. Can we refer to a woman according to her biological sex? Can we ask people to respect different faiths even when they don’t agree? Is it okay to suggest that the level of sensuality in the government-funded Mardi Gras is not ‘family-friendly’? What might happen if we disagree with schools secretly encouraging students to believe they can actually become the opposite sex to that which they were born?
Not so long ago, such questioning of these social forces would have demonstrated good and apt character. Not so now. Anyone raising such issues today would be lambasted for being not only wrong, but a bad person.
When I was but a boy, it seemed much simpler. We were expected to respect others – friend or not. Generally speaking, adults in our world were there to care for us, and we would do what we were asked.
It was not always plain sailing of course. In primary school it was – there it was safe, supportive, and encouraging while we learned to not just read, write and think – we learned to enjoy it.
The first two years in high school were different. Being the shortest was enough to have others ‘try it on’ with you. Asking for more to read at home might have you thumped on the station. And asking questions about God prompted a mixed response – from quiet respect, to interested questioning, to ridicule, to yes, thumping again. But by senior secondary school, us Western Sydney lads had it pretty well sorted out. We realised we were different and could talk about what we believed without anger or violence.
For example, I remember when Chariots of the Gods came out (a book that claimed pyramids were landing markers for space aliens). One day in the Yr 12 study room, I had ten fellow students around me asking questions based on this (novel and mischievous) book. No grudges, no threats, just some hard questions, and then we each continued on our way, which is how we finished school together.
And that is because it was all about character. Our parents encouraged us to not be violent, not to carry grudges, even when we were being ‘hard’ in our opinions. For me, I had training that went beyond these social norms. Indeed, my mother invited me to be concerned for others when they did hurtful things: ‘They must be in pain about something son – pray for them.’ It is now my wife who reminds me that ‘those in pain cause pain’.
At a broader level, I grew up trying to sort out what apartheid was about, and what was reasonable in moving forward – then came ‘the power of one’, Nelson Mandela. In India, we were impressed to learn about Mahatma Gandhi. And then came that wonderful speech by Rev Dr Martin Luther King: I want my daughters to be known by the quality of their character, not the colour of the skin. And we agreed with him, regardless of our background, no matter how we arrived here in this country, we agreed. It was character, not category, that was to count if this was to be a good land filled with people who care.
Yet I do not believe this Australia in which I grew up is staying that way. I do not have confidence in a Prime Minister who refused to take his oath on the Bible. From this I assume that what he does care about deeply is not the same as our Judeo-Christian heritage. I am not suggesting he must be a person of deep faith, but these actions seem to indicate that he simply does not seem to understand much of the source of our civic and civil society.
As a self-declared socialist, perhaps our Prime Minister believes that if people with true insight – like he and his close political allies – take more control, they can create conditions to make us all more decent. Perhaps he believes that all he must do is to convince those business people looking for a cause, and the intelligentsia, that this is a better road for the future, and that they are on their way to a bright new world of central control, central debt, and central dependency to make us feel better (on the right side of history, according to them).
But this strategy can only work if there are enforced categories of people, starting with those in positions of privilege, and those who control the political and scientific narrative. These political types can then tell everyone else what is right, for their own good of course. They believe they know best how to keep everyone safe – while they keep themselves the safest (and wealthiest).
All this leads to entrenched political emotional manipulation. So currently we cannot disagree with a political vote that will change our Constitution without being thought of as indecent, or called chicken-little, or being a heartless racist engaged in fear-mongering. This is irony to the level of perversity – for while being cast into these categories, we are being asked to be respectful. There is no interest in character. It is only about supporting the politics of the category of colour.
Yet in the history of the world, whenever categories that accord privilege by association are dominant, a nation critically weakens. Those in the ascendancy strengthen of course – but everyone else has less freedom. Under our current national leadership, that is our current path.
