Where Are The Men?

A few weeks ago I attended a question-and-answer session with a woman with elderhood status within the local indigenous community. She spoke eloquently and with an authority based in cultural values and history. I left the session feeling privileged to have had the opportunity to listen to, and be transported into, a realm of the heart.

I also left with an unsettling question: Where are the men?

In the room there had been approximately 80 people. I didn’t count them, as there were too many. I did count the number of men present though. Only six!!

Six men in a group of 80, only 7.5% of the total. Women outnumbered men by a factor of 13:1.

I have been involved in community development, social justice, and environmental movements for more than fifty years. In those fields I have noticed similar ratios in gatherings of what might be called politics of the heart.

Politics of the heart could be a phrase for utilising emotional responses, personal experience, and deep internal reflection to inform one’s philosophy and practice. Politics of the heart asks questions of my own self, it asks me to consider how my choices and actions impact upon social, community, and international situations.

Politics of the heart requires me to stand aside from my ego and to honestly look into the feelings of my heart. It is not easy. It is not straightforward. It may not even be conclusive.

Where then, I wonder, are the men when it comes to this politics of the heart? Why do women, time and time again, vastly outnumber men in workshops, seminars, retreats, and presentations that deal with the politics of the heart?

Yet, when it comes time to march on parliament, or to organise protest actions, or to stand for governmental positions, why is it that men tend to outnumber women? Although this latter situation is changing, it is a tendency I have noticed over 50 years as much as the tendency for women to outnumber men in politics of the heart.

I have not found any serious research attempting to answer these questions, so all I can do is offer some thoughts based on my personal experience.

Historically, and still mostly the case, men have been the privileged gender. It may be that this privilege means that men consider the issues raised within the politics of the heart unworthy of consideration because men are not impacted by such issues. Men have the privilege of not having to think about these issues.

Men have been socially conditioned to believe that politics of the heart involves soft issues, whereas the role of men is to deal with the hard issues. Becoming involved in soft issues for men opens us up to vulnerability – a notoriously soft issue. Male conditioning is for men to be strong, logical (not emotional), and to take up positions of leadership.

Male politics, in general, tends to be outwardly focussed. Questions dealing with law and order, foreign trade, defence systems, financial markets, machinery, and building and construction are more often seen as the male realm. These are all outwardly directed activities.

The politics of the heart, in contrast, is inner directed and deals in emotions, intuition, feelings, compassion, empathy, true connection, and self-reflection. Men (at least westernised men) have been told for many decades that these are not matters that men need to consider. Indeed, men have been led to believe that such matters are beneath them.

The sad thing about all this is that what men have been conditioned into is untrue. Sad too, is that what men have been told, what men have been led to believe, is also untrue.

So, men, let us overturn that ratio of women to men, and start involving ourselves in the politics of the heart.

A Different Kind Of Power - Book Review

Disclaimer: This book is the memoir of the former Prime Minister of New Zealand and leader of that country’s Labour Party. I have never been a member of the NZ Labour Party. I also only voted once for Labour, almost eight years before Jacinda Ardern was born. My vote then may just as much have been influenced by the fact that the Labour candidate – Ethel McMillan – shared the same surname as that of my mother’s maiden name.

 

A Different Kind of Power¹ is a refreshing read coming from a politician. Instead of focussing on the political intrigues, power plays, and other external trappings of a leader of a country, Jacinda Ardern allows us, the reader, a candid glimpse into her childhood and family life. These glimpses enable us to make sense of the different kind of power she espoused and later brought to her role as Prime Minister of Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Ardern grew up in two regional towns (Murupara and Morrinsville) and her family often shopped in Rotorua (my own birthplace.) Her family were Mormon and the lessons she learnt in door-knocking then were well utilised in her later life as a politician.

Yet, door-knocking was the least of the lessons she learnt in her younger years. By the time she had entered her mid-teens her mother had had a breakdown, her uncle was severely paralysed following a car accident in which two others were killed, and the brother of her best friend had committed suicide. These events provided the young Ardern with lessons in grief, empathy, and coping with tragedy. All valuable lessons for when, as Prime Minister, she was thrust onto centre stage in three tragic events to shock New Zealanders – a terrorist shooting at mosques in Christchurch where 51 people were killed, an eruption on the island of Whakaari/White Island killing 22 people, and the coronavirus pandemic.

A school experience that Ardern carried with her into her public life as leader of one of New Zealand’s major political parties was debating. She represented her school many times in debating competitions. One of the topics from her school debating years was, That the difference between what we are and what we could be is the greatest waste. She was to think about this topic often in her coming years. That topic and the thinking that went with it undoubtedly influenced her desire for a different kind of power – one based on kindness and empathy. Her answer to a reporter questioning her on her first day as Prime Minister was informed by this debating topic. ‘I want this government to feel different… that it’s going to bring kindness back.’

Becoming Prime Minister though was not comfortable for Ardern. As a youngster she had suffered from imposter syndrome and that stayed with her as she stepped into the most prominent position in New Zealand. A meeting with Queen Elizabeth II however, helped her overcome that hurdle. Not long before Ardern learned that she was going to be New Zealand’s youngest Prime Minister in 150 years, and also only its third female PM, she had been told she was pregnant. Meeting with Queen Elizabeth in private, Prime Minister Ardern asked the queen how, as a woman who had raised children at the same time as holding a prominent public office, if she had any advice for her. Queen Elizabeth’s reply was simple, ‘You just get on with it.’

Jacinda Ardern did so. She got on with it. I do not intend delving into the various policies she and the Labour party implemented during the term of her office. Rather, I wish to concentrate on those moments that displayed her intent to be kind and how others responded to this.

One such moment came five days after the 2019 terrorist shooting at Christchurch mosques.  She visited a school where two of the student’s schoolmates had been killed in the shooting. After a short speech in which Ardern told the students that it was okay to feel sad and that they should not be afraid of asking for help, she asked if there were any questions. After a pause a young girl at the front raised her hand. In Jacinda Ardern’s words, ‘Slowly, with thoughtful deliberation, she asked something I didn’t expect: “How are you?”’ The moment is touching, poignant, and full of hope. It also shows how many community members responded to and reflected back Ardern’s seeking for a different kind of power; kind and empathetic.

Sadly, not all New Zealander’s responded to her with such empathy and grace as this young woman. Ardern relates a couple of personal moments when she was the butt of hatred and bitterness. What she does not write about in the book, though, is that police figures show an increase in threats to her rose from 18 in 2019 to more than 60 in 2022 – a whopping 60% of threats made to all New Zealand MPs combined at the time. A large percentage of these threats were motivated by various conspiracy theories that arose during the covid pandemic. New Zealand was one of the countries that opted for measures that included lock-downs. Sadly, for her, the response by leaders all over the world was a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” She was, similar to all other world leaders, ‘faced with impossible choices.’

But, just as the Queen had advised here a few years earlier, Jacinda Ardern just got on with it – until it was time to go.

Many have suggested that Jacinda Ardern’s decision to step down as the Labour Party leader, and hence the Prime Ministership, was because she could not face the degree of hate and vitriol she was subjected to. In this memoir she makes it clear that there were other factors involved in her decision. The initial prompt was the discovery of a lump on her breast. She asked herself, ‘what if this is cancer?’ How could she continue if that was the case? In her office bathroom a thought arrived – Perhaps I could leave. This experience and the thought it brought to mind was the first in a number of thoughts that brought her to the final decision to step down as Prime Minister.

Whilst she had been Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had continued visiting schools. Often she would ask students the same question – What does a politician look like? More often than not the answers she got back contained a similar theme – selfish, old, untrustworthy, liar, bald. They were answers that disturbed her.

A week before she announced her official resignation she visited another school, this time on a marae (the focal point of a Māori community.) She asked the same question. This time she got a different answer, from a young woman: “’Kind’ she said. ‘I think politicians can be kind.’ I smiled at her. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think they can be kind, too.’”

Jacinda Ardern may not have convinced all in the New Zealand community (not even of her colleagues in parliament) of the need and possibility of a different kind of power based on kindness. But, for that young woman at the school that day it was distinct possibility.

It remains to be seen whether kindness does permeate political thinking and debate. A Different Kind Of Power helps to keep the possibility alive.

Note:

1. Jacinda Ardern, A Different Kind Of Power, Penguin Random House, Australia & New Zealand, 2025

Machiavelli’s Legacy: Deserved or Not?

Niccolò Machiavelli

What other personal name could be more associated with many of the nasty sides of human behaviour than that of Niccolò Machiavelli. His name is synonymous with traits such as ruthlessness, cruelty, manipulation, deceit, despotism, and fear. Indeed, the word machiavellian has now become a synonym for these traits.

A diplomat, philosopher, author, and historian, Machiavelli lived during the Italian Renaissance and is best known as the author of The Prince.¹

In that book, Machiavelli enunciated his ideas about what it takes to be a ruler and/or leader in those times. He has been called the ‘Father of political philosophy.’ His writings, especially The Prince, became foundation stones of politics from his time onwards. We still see his ideas played out in the actions of rulers all around the world today.

Male leaders in particular aim to be seen as tough, uncompromising, and decisive. All qualities that Machiavelli would have admired. Of course, female leaders have also attempted to rule in likewise manners. The UK’s Margaret Thatcher comes to mind; she wasn’t nicknamed the Iron Lady for nothing.

When Machiavelli was writing The Prince sometime around 1513 (although not published until 1532 – 5 years after his death) Italy was divided into a number of kingdoms, duchies, republics, and states – notably the Kingdom of Naples, the Republic of Venice, the Republic of Florence, the Papal States, and the Kingdom of Sicily. These various regions were constantly forming and unforming alliances and attacking one another.

Machiavelli’s attempts then to summarise and define the qualities of a leader under those circumstances becomes obvious. His intention was to provide leaders with means by which they could maintain their position of authority.

When viewed at from this distance, five centuries later, Machiavelli may not deserve his legacy,

However, as with so much, context is everything.

Let us consider a few of Machiavelli’s statements. The best-known Machiavellian maxim is the end justifies the means. For centuries this statement has enjoyed an almost self-obvious truthfulness about it. Yet, it is unhelpful and flawed. A whole systems understanding of the world and how it works recognises that ends and means are not discrete events but, rather, describe portions of the same continuous whole. Mahatma Gandhi, for instance, asserts that ‘means are ends in the making.’

In today’s highly connected, and increasingly polarised, this Machiavellian axiom is extremely unhelpful.

Some lesser-known statements from The Prince include: 1. ‘A leader mustn’t worry about being labelled cruel when it is a question of keeping his subjects loyal and united.’ 2. ‘It is a natural and ordinary desire to acquire.’ 3. ‘Is it better to be loved rather than feared?... since they don’t go together easily, if you have to choose, it’s much safer to be feared than loved.’ 4. ‘…fortune is female and if you want to stay on top of her you have to slap and thrust.’

Each of these statements, when applied in today’s world, tend only to exacerbate polarisation, violence, and hatred. The fourth of these statements, although Machiavelli was using it metaphorically (applying his comment to fortune) it does display the manner in which women were treated at that time. Today this would be outright misogyny.

Within our cultural psyche we tend to pay more attention to negative thoughts than towards positive ones. This negativity bias is an evolutionary adaptation. Our survival once was more guaranteed if we paid greater attention to perceived threats than if we ignored them (and even more so if we paid attention to the juicy fruit hanging from the tree instead!)

Thus it is with Machiavelli’s writings. We pay more attention to his negative expressions, even though circumstances have changed.

Consequently, with Machiavelli’s writing being still quoted and applied to positions of leadership today, we must view Machiavelli’s negative legacy as deserving.

In other words, the word machiavellian remains a synonym for cruelty, misogyny, deceit, manipulation, despotism, violence, and fear.

Sadly, leaders and rulers of today keep listening to the advice of Machiavelli.

Notes:

1. Quotations taken from the Penguin Classics edition of Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, UK, 2014.

Delusional or Disillusioned

We live today in a world in turmoil. It is difficult to understand what is going on. Then, when we do try to understand, how do we recognise information from misinformation or disinformation? What is real, what is fake?

Depending upon which camp we fit into, fingers get pointed at other camp followers declaring them to be delusional.

Yet, isn’t that contributing to the turmoil? One person, or one camp, accuses another person, or another camp, of being delusional. A wall gets erected. On one side – the illuminated. On the other side – the deluded.

One definition of delusional is a belief that, though false, is accepted by the mind as being the truth.

However, what if the other camp followers are not delusional but are illusioned. That is, have a belief that, though false, is tentatively held by the mind, awaiting confirmation or refutation. Being illusioned is like watching a magician who uses sleight of hand to temporarily play with our mind so that we believe what the magician wants us to believe. Following the magician’s trick our minds usually returns to a realisation that we have witnessed an illusion even if we don’t know how the illusion was carried out. We might say then, that we are now disillusioned – that is, we are free from the illusion.

Perhaps this is closer to what is happening within the minds (albeit at an unconscious or subconscious level) of many within the world.

For years, decades, even centuries, we have been fed the American Dream (even those of us who do not live in the US) and the promises of modernity. These dreams and promises have assured us that the goal of humanity, and our individual lives within it, is an ever increasing upward, higher, and wealthier future. Modernity promises progress, certainty, safety, and predictability.

However, modernity’s promises are illusionary. They fit neither with the individual’s personal journey nor with the whole planet. But, just as the magician can keep us mesmerised temporarily, so we have been able to go along with and live within modernity’s framework. Many of us have been able to live the American Dream.

But, no more.

The Dream is turning out to be a Nightmare. On an individual level, wages are not keeping up with higher prices. Furthermore, for many the dream of a wage is just that – a dream. On a social level lives are being shattered by warfare, incursions onto territory, and tensions between differing groups. At a planetary level, the ecosphere is breaking down, the climate is awry, species are going extinct at an alarming rate.

Even if we do not recognise these in a cognitive sense, our bodies can feel it. It is as if the magician has completed the illusion, and we are left feeling unnerved yet have no idea how the trick was done.

So, here we are – unnerved and disillusioned.

When a magician does this, our usual response is to applaud.

However, when the illusion of modernity is undone (albeit unconsciously,) our response is more likely to be to look for someone or something to blame. After all, the Dream surely cannot be a Nightmare.

Nightmares are frightening, they leave us insecure.

If the Dream of increasing prosperity, social mobility, and greater satisfaction does not deliver then where are the scapegoats? Who is to blame for this? At this point, anyone offering to alleviate the Nightmare, and promise to fix-it, is likely to be embraced.

It is here where disillusion and delusion merge. Disillusion may be the basis for the dissatisfaction with the way the dreams and promises have turned out, but delusion is what compels the search for a saviour, or a leader who will get us out of this mess and back to normalcy. Delusion tells us that such leaders offer the truth and the way forward again. And, of course, leaders will play on this. They will say, ‘Follow me, I know what is wrong, and I can fix it.’

Sadly, the fixes offered, and the saviours offering them, turn out to be illusory themselves.

If this is the case, then pointing fingers at one camp and calling them delusional does not help. More likely it is that they, and we, are disillusioned.

And that is a systemic issue.

The first step in tackling this systemic issue is to see through the illusion. How many of us are prepared to do that? How many of us even know where to start?

I’m not sure that I do.

I Can't Vote and I'm Okay

Next weekend in Australia (where I live) citizens go to the polls in their State elections.

As a New Zealander I am ineligible to obtain Australian citizenship, even though I have lived here for the past eleven years. Not having Australian citizenship means that I cannot vote in these coming elections.

And, I am quite okay with that. In fact, I could almost claim to be glad of that.

That seems a strange thing to say, perhaps even paradoxical, unreasonable, or senseless. It may look that way, especially from the perspective of those who claim that ‘voting is our democratic right.’

From my perspective, however, things look quite different.

Voting is not democratic.

That is perhaps an even stranger thing to say, even subversive, or disloyal.

Let us pick voting apart. Usually, when one goes into a polling booth to vote, the following have already taken place:

• The candidates for election are pre-determined. The number of us who suggest someone stand for parliament, council, senate, congress etc is extremely limited. Most often, it was not the common woman or man who determined who the candidates should be.¹
• The policies of candidates are pre-determined. Often the policies are to a) continue the present policies by an incumbent candidate, or b) offer up counter policies to those of the incumbent. Either way, the voter has no direct input into the policies, only a tick in the box against candidates with pre-determined polices.
• Candidates have often aligned themselves with one political party or another. Then, once elected, it is party policy that takes precedence over any suggestion of “representing” the local constituency.²
• The education, social standing, articulateness, economic resources, and/or celebrity status of candidates are strong indicators of the likelihood of someone being elected. These are usually those from elite groups of society. How often do you see your hairdresser, the manual labourer, or local barista on the ballot paper? Even were one of these to be on the ballot, how often do they get elected? Consequently, the decision-making bodies we get are not representative.

For these, and other, reasons, I claim that voting is not democratic.

But that is not all. Because of the above reasons, the electoral process results in a parliament, senate, or council that is little able to offer up the changes we need to see in these troubled times.

At the heart of much of the current predicaments we face is how we go about our collective decision-making. Electoral processes result in decision-making bodies that are adversarial in nature – hardly a system that allows for the collective creativity we need.

What then? How do we go about selecting public decision-makers if not by voting?

Toss a die, draw lots, generate random numbers (with numbers allocated to individual citizens,) flip a coin. These may sound flippant. Only in their simplicity. At the core of each of these is a very simple, and fair, means of selection.

Random selection.

Random selection has generated a lot of interest, research, and experimentation over the past few decades. It has a technical name – sortition.

The idea and practical use of sortition, and other forms of democracy (aside from electoral) go back millennia. The most famous is to the very birthplace of democracy – Athens.

The Athenians used sortition for most of their selection processes for their public decision-makers.³ Voting was generally restricted to electing those who would be their military leaders. Indeed, Athenians did not trust voting as a fair and democratic method.

There is even evidence showing sortition to have been used some 1,500 years before the Athenians. See this blogpost for more on these earlier forms of decision-making.

I have written extensively in this blog about sortition: what it is, how it works, and cited historical and contemporary examples of its practice. [Go to the “Categories” column to the right of this page and click on “sortition” and/or “democracy” – for these blogpieces.]

For now, I am quite comfortable in the knowledge that I cannot vote this coming weekend. I am also comfortable in the knowledge that until we shift from electoral democracy to more representative and/or direct means of selection and public decision-making then nothing will fundamentally change.

Hence, I can’t vote and I’m okay.

Notes:

1. I use the term ‘common’ (or ‘commoner’), not in its somewhat disparaging sense, but in its literal sense of ko = together and moi = to move, to change, hence to move and change together.

2. Even “independents’ are not immune to this. Recently in Australian politics we have seen the emergence of Teal candidates – a loose coalition of independent candidates. Furthermore, many of those who are presently ‘independents’ in Australian politics have either resigned or been expelled from political parties they were once members of. Others have gone on to form their own party.

3. Sometimes when I mention the use of sortition in Athens I am reminded that a “citizen” in Athens did not include women or slaves. That is true. However, that is not a critique of sortition; that is a critique of social structure.

Poisoned Protest: My Biggest Social Change Mistake

When I was a young man (I’m a baby-boomer) there were a number of social justice issues to be concerned about and take part in: The Vietnam War, apartheid in South Africa, the nuclearization of the Pacific, logging of native forest, the damming of waterways and flooding of fruit-growing valleys, racism, and sexism. Almost with glee, I participated in the protests, the rallies, the sit-ins, die-ins, and teach-ins.

As with most protest then,¹ the government of the day was often blamed for the situation, as well as being held responsible for seeing the issue resolved. Closely following the government in terms of who was to blame were large businesses, corporations, multi-nationals, and even the older generation.

Often in those campaigns, abuse and taunts were hurled. Words and phrases I would never want to hear in my own household.

Yet, it was all for a better world wasn’t it?

We were campaigning for peace, for racial justice, for women’s rights, for animal rights, for an environment free from exploitation. Weren’t those causes justified?

But, therein was my biggest mistake. Not only mine, but also the mistake of those I was campaigning alongside.

We (and I) failed to see what underlay, and under-pinned, all those issues.

Beneath all of them lie separation and ill-will.

Our sense of separation from each other under-pins all of these issues. When we think we are separate then it is very easy to see the other as of lesser value than ourselves, and so we justify our self-righteous anger and abuse. When I was a young man I was never to blame. I did not even consider the possibility that I may be complicit in helping to create the issues I was campaigning about.²

My words of abuse and invective that I hurled at politicians and others, helped to replicate the very systems I was supposedly wanting changed.

I was complicit in the very system I was critiquing.

Many years later I found that Buddhism recognised these two traits of human thought. The three poisons – ill-will, greed, and delusion – resonated with my continuing enquiry. Two of them (ill-will and delusion) were exactly what I had come to recognise as my mistakes.

Ill-will is self explanatory. Ill-will covers a wide range of thoughts and behaviours; from name-calling and verbal abuse all the way through to hatred, and the espousal of violence. It is clearly a poison.

Delusion, in the Buddhist sense, is that we are deluded by thinking that we are all separate; separate from each other, separate from nature, and even separate from our own self.

So, nowadays I am letting go (or at least, trying to) of the blaming, shaming, and defaming game. Letting go, however, does not mean giving up. It does not mean I am no longer concerned or aware of the plights, distresses, and tears of the world.

It does mean I want to acknowledge my complicity, and change those things that I am able to change. It means I willingly engage in conversations with others about how I, and we collectively, can change our behaviours and mind-sets, without hurling abuse and invective.

Such conversations are not easy, because I (and those I am conversing with) must step out of our self-conscious righteousness and let go of the ego that says “I have to win this argument,” or that “I am right, you are wrong.”

It’s an ongoing project.

Notes:

1. Sadly, the protests of today are little changed.

2. Sadly, I am still sometimes lulled into thinking I am not complicit.

Politicians Have Won - Again!

Last weekend in the State of Australia in which I live elections were held for local government. As expected, the predictable candidates won again. All of them, every last one of them are – politicians.

When the results come in, there will be some who cheer and others weep. Some voters will be glad, others sad. Many electors may even be mad.

From the complaints, moans, and groans I heard leading up to this election, it appears that this campaign has been little different to others. There have been complaints of cronyism and collusion, all the way up to allegations of corruption.

Could any less have been expected?

When would-be politicians are campaigning for election, money is key. Money buys exposure, and exposure translates into votes.

And it is the poor voter who is left bemoaning the outcome.

During the campaign, and following the casting of votes, I heard such statements as: “I’ll be glad when the election is over,” or “Thank god that’s over for another three years.”

All this is a sad state of affairs for at least three reasons:

1.     The to-and-fro name-calling and allegation and counter-allegation by politicians and their supporters should not be how we conduct our collective decision-making processes.

2.     In response to this, electors feel disappointed, unheard, and sometimes angry. It is as if elections elicit a feeling of angst amongst the electorate.

3.     The desire on the part of many electors that the elections be over-and-done-with as soon as possible sadly belies what should be an engaging part of civic life.

Can this be any different?

Yes, it can – if we think differently. And – if we think systematically.

Donella Meadows was one of the foremost systems thinkers in the world. Her book Thinking In Systems,¹ published posthumously, set out twelve leverage points at which to intervene in a system. She ranked these leverage points according to the effectiveness with which change may happen.

According to Meadows, the least effective leverage point was to change the numbers in the system. In terms of our political system, this translates to changing the politicians, changing the individual men and women who sit in parliaments, senates, and Council chambers.

Far more effective leverage points are to intervene at the level of goals, and paradigms. Doing so, requires us to think more deeply about what the purpose of our political system is and what assumptions is it based upon.

At present, we are simply changing the constituent parts. We are doing nothing to change the system. Yet, the system is not serving us. If it were, would there be so much angst around election time?

Our present mechanism for selecting those who are charged with making our collective and social decisions rests upon elections. What if we no longer used elections for that purpose?

What if we used random selection instead? What if those making our public decisions were selected like a jury?

“But, but, but…” The objections are many. When distilled, most objections can be encapsulated as: “But, that’s not democracy!”

It isn’t? Well, actually, it is.

Ancient Athens (the “birthplace” of democracy) used a process of sortition to select their decision-makers. Sortition is a system of random selection, and the Athenians used it in preference to elections.

I have written about sortition many times on this blog site, so I will not traverse the topic much further here.²

However, consider this: Would the three negative aspects of elections outline above be reduced under a sortition system?

I suggest, if the question is seriously pondered, and sortition fully appraised, then the answer has to be – “Yes.”

Sortition may not rid us completely of the three sad features, but it could seriously reduce them.

 Notes:

1. Donnella H Meadows (ed. Diana Wright), Thinking in Systems, Chelsea Green Publishing, Vermont, 2008

2. In the “Search this site” box type in the word sortition to be taken to blogs where I explore sortition much more fully.

Our Second Biggest Threat

Will the human race survive the Anthropocene Extinction – the sixth mass extinction?  It’s debatable.  And, what threatens our chances of survival?  This blog names our second biggest threat.

Covid?  The current (this blog written in August 2021) pandemic sweeping the world may or may not be the precursor to other more virulent pandemics to come.

No, covid is not our second biggest threat.

Climate chaos then?  We know the world is getting warmer.  We know that our human produced carbon emissions are a large part of that warming.  We know this warming is causing climate chaos.  We know this will almost certainly worsen.

No, not even climate chaos is our second biggest threat.

Perhaps ecological overshoot?  We know we have been extracting more and more from the earth, and producing more and more waste and pollution.  We know that since the early 1970s the earth has not been able to keep up with our ecological demand.  Our ecological footprint massively exceeds the earths biocapacity.

No, ecological overshoot is not our second biggest threat.

Our second biggest threat is our increasing polarization, and, along with it, our seemingly diminishing ability to communicate with one another.

This current covid pandemic is a glaring example of our inability to engage with one another in mutually respectful, and creative ways.  Take a look at social media posts about covid.  Two primary ‘camps’ seem to have formed.¹  In one camp are those who say we must all wear masks, get a vaccine, accede to lock-downs.  The other camp comprises those who say all the restrictions threaten individual rights, and that the vaccines are dangerous.

Each camp has its adherents who are prepared to hurl abuse at those in the other camp.  Each camp has those who label the other camp followers as ‘idiots,’ ‘uneducated ignoramuses,’ or worse epithets.  Each camp claims that the other does not know what they are talking about.  Each camp accuses the other of not doing their research.

In short, each camp has proponents who are unwilling to engage with the other.

That is the threat.

If we are unable to engage with each other, without descending into name-calling and judgemental accusations, then there is very little chance that we can find any passage through the threats of climate change and ecological overshoot.  And, without that ability to engage with one another, we will not survive the Anthropocene Extinction.

The inability to engage with one another, though, is itself a symptom of the second biggest threat.

Polarization.

Again, covid is a very good marker of this trend to further and further polarization.  Each of the camps referred to above seem to be becoming further and further entrenched in their own ‘truth story.’  Each seem to be retreating into an echo chamber, wherein those who disagree are kept outside (defriended on facebook for example) and more and more evidence for their viewpoint can be found within the echo chamber.

Covid is only the latest example of this increasing polarization.  In a disturbing piece of research published in 2015, researchers in the U.S. tracked the level of cooperation, or lack thereof, between Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives between 1949 and 2012.  The results (see diagram) are revealing.²  Polarization has been increasing during those sixty plus years. Democrats are in blue, Republicans in red.

Of course, it could be argued that the U.S. House of Representatives does not represent the state of the world.  That is true, but only to an extent.  Our political systems often reflect the situation within the electorate, and/or tend to guide that level of political/social discourse within the electorate.  Furthermore, we know that the U.S. has a huge influence upon the culture of the western world.

Furthermore, we have established infrastructure that exacerbates, even thrives on, polarization.  Our parliamentary and legal systems, in particular, are structured on adversarial lines.  These are recipes for polarization.

Sadly, there is no way we can negotiate our way through covid, climate chaos, or ecological overshoot, if we remain trapped within echo chambers, especially echo chambers that we are adding more and more soundproofing to.

That is why polarization is our second biggest threat.

Our Biggest Threat?

You may be wondering what I consider our biggest threat to be?

Polarization is an inevitable outcome of a disconnect from one another.  When we view humanity in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’ then we have begun the slippery slide towards polarization.

Our disconnect from one another is itself constructed on an even more fundamental disconnection.

Our disconnection from nature.

This is our biggest threat.  Yet, it is a threat we hardly even see, let alone acknowledge.  Starting with our disconnect from nature we easily slide into a disconnection from one another, and further still – a disconnection from our own selves (I prefer the term ‘soul’). 

When that happens, we find ourselves on a slide that ends with toxic individuality – the ultimate disconnect, and the ultimate polarization.

Is there a way to recover?  Is there a way to reconnect?  Is there a way to step out of our echo-chambers?  Is there a way to rediscover our souls?

Is there a way to survive?

Notes:

1. Presently it does appear that each of these ‘camps’ constitute only a small segment of the population.  Most people seem to be placing themselves outside of either camp.  How long that will last is unknowable.

2. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0123507 Accessed 25 August 2021

Don't Expect Change To Come From Governments

All too frequently those seeking social change point to governments
as either: 1. the problem, or 2. the solution.  Sometimes both!

We hear statements such as “the government needs to do this,” or “the government needs to stop doing that,” or “if only the conservatives/liberals/tories/socialists/democrats/greens were in power.”

Power!  Ah, that slippery, contestable agency to which political candidates and parties aspire.  Ursula Le Guin¹ claimed that government is “the legal use of power to maintain and extend power.” (my emphasis, see later)

Yet, government is a socially constructed institution that does not exist in a vacuum.  The great theorist and writer on nonviolent action, Gene Sharp, comments in his seminal trilogy that:

“An error frequently made by students of politics is to view political decisions, events, and problems in isolation from the society in which they exist.”²

Sharp’s understanding turns everything on its head.  Metaphorically, we could imagine government as being the few oranges at the top of a pyramid of oranges.  If one of those oranges at the top is removed, then the pyramid remains, and the orange is easily replaced.  However (as many skits and cartoons have shown,) if we take an orange from near the bottom of the pyramid, the whole pyramid collapses.

Like the orange pyramid, governments ultimately remain (and have their decisions accepted) because the base of the pyramid is not shifted.

The crunch is that it does not shift because many at the base of the pyramid continue to expect change to come from the top.  It never has, it still doesn’t, and it never will.

Where, then, does change come from?  Let us begin by looking at the base of the pyramid.  This base is constructed from our cultural beliefs, norms, behaviours, ideas, concepts, and aspirations.  When we fully recognise the implications of this then we also begin to understand that we can also wield power – collectively.

Furthermore, because all this is a system then it is possible to intervene to change it.

Leveraging systems

Donella Meadows, one of the pioneers of systems thinking, gave a lot of thought into what she called the “leverage points” in a system.  Following her untimely death in 2001, a book she had been working on was edited and released in 2008.³  In it she listed twelve leverage points in an ascending order of effectiveness.

The least effective of Meadows’ leverage points she refers to as the “numbers.”  In the social/political system discussed here these are the individual MPs and political parties.

The next leverage point she referred to as the “buffers.”  Here, we can think of these as the “checks and balances” of the system, including the “legal” use of power referred to by Ursula Le Guin (previously quoted.)

At the other end of the scale (the most effective) Meadows writes of the “paradigms” of a system.  Paradigms are the mind-sets from which an entire system arises, including our collective-cultural belief systems.

From this systems thinking approach some implications arise:

• Our system of government rests upon a belief that power resides in and is maintained by governments.
• By accepting that belief we abdicate our personal and collective abilities to effect change.
• Every time we couch a problem/issue as one of politics and/or government (whether as a social change movement or simply in our everyday conversations) we focus on symptoms and neglect to diagnose or recognise underlying causes.
• By expecting (and advocating for) change to come from governments we waste emotional energy, often leading to any or all of: frustration, despair, anger, disenchantment, or simply dissociation.
• Furthermore, often when we “fight” an issue at a governmental level we end up supporting and giving legitimacy to the very system which is at fault.

We can change our mind-set.  We can intervene in the system at a paradigmatic level.

We should expect more of ourselves, individually and collectively.  We can expect more.

Notes:

1. Ursula K Le Guin (1929-2018) is an American science fiction writer best known for her Earthsea fantasy series and the novels Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed.

2. Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part One: Power and Struggle, Porter Sargent Publishers, Boston, 1973.

3. Donella Meadows (ed. Diane Wright), Thinking In Systems, Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction, Vermont, 2008.

Fascism By Any Other Name...

The term eco-fascism has been used as a smear against those who wish to speak of population growth within the debates about the state of the world.  The term suggests that those who propose a curb on population growth are eco-fascists.

However, the term is: unhelpful, oxymoronic, and essentially obfuscating.  Here is why.

The word fascism conjures up images of concentration camps, Nazi rallies, Hitler, Mussolini, and the holocaust.  For many, fascism is a blight on world history, and a social/political/economic ideology that should never again be entertained. 

Fascism

Fascism is characterised by (inter alia):

·       dictatorial power,

·       an authoritarian regimentation of society,

·       a one-party totalitarian state,

·       nationalistic ideals embodied in the Leader (cf. Führer)

·       belief in a superior, master race,

·       suppression (often by violent means) of any, and all, opposition,

·       State control of the media and judiciary,

·       dominance of the military and security infrastructure,

·       promotion of (toxic) masculinity, and rigid gender roles.

The word itself is derived from Latin.  Fasces is a bundle of rods.  One of the symbols of fascism is a bundle of rods enclosing an axe with the blade emerging (the fascio littorio.)  Benito Mussolini adopted this symbol and founded the movement Fascio d’Azione Rivoluzionaria (Fasces of Revolutionary Action) in 1915.  This later (1917) morphed into the (Italian) National Fascist Party.  An early admirer of Mussolini and the fascist movement was Adolf Hitler.  The rest (as they say) is history.

Fascism has a fairy distinct (recent) history and a reasonably defined set of characteristics.

Ecology

Ecology on the other hand has a lengthy history, defined by complex inter-connections, and sometimes contentious ideas.  The Greek philosophers (especially Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Herodotus) were articulating ecological (and environmental) ideas two and a half thousand years ago.

The word ecology itself was first coined in 1866 by Ernst Haeckel, a German zoologist and naturalist.¹  As a branch of biology, ecology has come to mean the study of:

·       life processes, interactions, and adaptations,

·       flows of resources and energy through ecosystems,

·       how ecosystems emerge, develop, and thrive (or not),

·       connections, partnerships, patterns, in life and ecosystems.

Although identical with, ecology has become associated with environmentalism.  The environmental movement could be summarised (perhaps crudely) as a movement of human stewardship, recognising humanity as a participant, and partner, in ecosystems and the planetary whole.  The environmental movement rejects the notion that nature, and ecosystems, are the enemy of humans (and vice versa.)

Thomas Berry (one of the foremost ecological, environmental, and spiritual, thinkers) puts it well when he says,

“The human is neither an addendum nor an intrusion into the universe.  We are quintessentially integral with the universe.” ²

Ecology then is: non-hierarchical, bio-diverse, recognises uniqueness, co-operative (notwithstanding the existence of food chains), co-evolutionary, and emergent.

Word Meanings

The American science fiction writer, Philip K Dick, warned, in a 1978 speech, that “The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words.”

An Australian reviewer, takes this warning a step further and claims that, “Everyone who hopes for better, needs to use terms precisely, especially political language.” ³

With these two cautions in mind, it is the contention of this writer that the term eco-fascist is one of those words that manipulates and is used imprecisely (often by those who seek a better world.)

It is manipulative because it ascribes the possibility of someone with fascist views to simultaneously be an environmentalist.  It manipulates in the opposite direction also.  If the two sets of characteristics described above, for Fascism and Ecology, are laid side-by-side, then it is noticeably clear that they are mutually incompatible.

Hitler’s Vegetarianism

We know that Hitler was a vegetarian and had a love of animals, especially dogs.  This is sometimes used to suggest that it is possible to be both an ecologist and a fascist – in short, an eco-fascist.  However, Hitler was not motivated to invade Poland because of his vegetarianism.  Nor did he command the extermination of Jews, and others, because of his love for the canine species.

Hitler was not an eco-fascist.  Hitler was a fascist.

Similarly, if someone in contemporary society claims that the problems of the world are caused by overpopulation, and that the solution is to cull people, then that person is not an ecologist (environmentalist), that person is enunciating a characteristic of fascism.

By describing such a person as an eco-fascist diminishes their extremism, and allows them to contend that “oh, but I was just doing it for the planet.”

No, the term eco-fascist is oxymoronic, unhelpful, and obfuscating.  There is no sanitising fascism.

A fascist by any other name is still a fascist.

Notes:

1. It should be acknowledged that Haeckel was also an eugenicist and a proponent of scientific (biologic) racism.  This, of course, muddies the water somewhat, as these two patterns of thought underpin some of the characteristics of fascism.  However, it should also be noted that ecology as it developed, shrugged off both these pseudo-scientific notions. 

2. Thomas Berry, The Great Work: Our way into the future, Harmony, New York, 1999.

3. Thornton McCamish, reviewing the book Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen, in The Monthly, Issue # 170, September 2020, Victoria, Australia.