Show Your Working

Reading the Australian news of late, there have been two conversations that seem to be dominating the narrative concerning violence. The first is the public violence like the Bondi stabbing a couple weeks ago, and the second is domestic violence, especially the killing of women, where apparently one woman is killed every four days. And, on the back of this conversation, a couple other points have been raised - what causes these events, how to stop it, and whether people should be able to have access to seeing it online.

Firstly...

I abhor violence.

But, regardless of what I think about it, it isn't going away. We are a violent species by necessity in the past, and we have continued to be that way because we have chosen to continue to compete against each other, than build with each other. We look to laud control over others, than our ability to help each other be our best. Individualism has separated us even further, rather than helping individuals excel so that they are more valuable, more relevant, more loved by the community in which they reside.

But I digress.

The things that cause these events are wide and varied, and it is a fact that men are often the perpetrators of the violence itself. And while it is easy to blame at the outcome, it is more effective to consider that the problem lies upstream, and the violence is a symptom of other illness. For instance, the Bondi stabbing was performed by a man that may have targeted women, either for some beknown grudge, or they were an easier target. However, he was also a man who had a diagnosis of schizophrenic disorders for over two decades.

Illness or Man; which condition is to blame?

If you remember back at school math and having to "who your working", if we continually look at the end results without understanding the workings behind what leads to the answer, we can't prove what is right or wrong. And if we can't prove it and only work on the assumption that the answer is correct, we open ourselves up to a lot of error.

Assumptions are dangerous.

For a couple of examples, someone asked me the other day how I was celebrating ANZAC day, but it is something I don't celebrate. I am not very patriotic it seems, but why? During the Olympics I am all for flying an Australian flag, but when it comes to the Australian government, I am not a fan. This is probably in part because I was never considered Australian when I lived there. I would get the "where are you from?" question and when I answered, I would get the, "No, where are you really from?" statement. And this was the least of it, and I grew up in a community that was filled with white Australians. For those who grow up in communities that are somewhat segregated based on background, I imagine that their sense of being Australian is even less.

Is it an excuse for violence?

Fuck no!

But it may make up part of the conditions that lead to it. Similarly, for the last three decades or so, men have been positioned as the enemy, as the patriarchy that are inherently evil. This has led to a couple generations where fifty percent of the population have been told that they are bad, because they have testicles. And if you tell someone they are bad often enough, well, they will likely start to act that way. Not all of course, but some.

We are all on a spectrum, which means we all have the propensity to act in a myriad ways at extremes, yet most don't. But when some do, it causes more of the labelling that the rest will also, and the normal distribution shifts further toward the extreme. Then, factor this polarized position across everything that is important, release it into the internet that is driven by clicks, and build mechanisms for "like minds" to gather and silo themselves into the flavor they support, and more extremism happens. Sweeping issues under the carpet, doesn't fix the issue.

I would rather talk with someone who is openly racist, than a closeted bigot.

And, we can see what happens when governments are able to pick and choose what their people are allowed to see. For instance, it has been 35 years since Tiananmen Square, and still Tank Man has no known identity and people are being punished in China if they speak about it. In your opinion, have the strict censorship laws for porn in a lot of Islamic countries diminished sexual aggression, or helped women in those countries?

Repression isn't cure.

And then, factor in the constant economic pressures in society from a global economy that is designed to repress people financially so that a few can gain, increasing cost of living, encroachment from technology to lessen employment opportunity, the many social movements that say that all of us are bad in some way, the isolation of individuals from community, environmental pressures, and many other factors, and it is a cauldron of poison bubbling over, where more and more people are going to snap, causing even more momentum to drag more people over the edge.

My point is with these very few examples, is that there is a lot of complexity in the equations that lead to the outcomes we are seeing, so treating the symptom is never going to lead to the cure. It is going to be a game of whack-a-mole where new expressions of the societal illness will arise. And if we don't move upstream to identify and heal the causes, we will all be lost over time, as we will continue to isolate, fragment, and get increasingly controlled by governments and corporations that will never have the interest of people at heart.

But, it isn't just a societal issue that is up to some authority to fix - as society is made by individuals. It is up to us to be part of the conversations, to recognize the potential for extremism in ourselves, as much as others, and then understand what leads into it, away from it, and how to never get near it. It is up to us to build healthy communities that look to empower people to be their best, in ways that also serve empowering others in the community to be theirs. We all have preferences, yet we needn't punish others that don't fit into what we prefer.

Human complexity is always going to exist, so there is no perfect equation that fits forever. However, we can do a lot better than we have been doing, and we have to stop relying on an authority to make up the rules that they say protect us, when in actual fact, they make them to protect themselves, by disenfranchising and disempowering us. We need to demand that they,

Show their working.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]