Gough Whitlam: A Personal Retrospective

I understand what you are saying, but if we apply logic to this situation, wouldn't it represent the PM being democratically elected by his/her political party, but not really democratically elected by the citizens of Australia, because as you indicate, the citizens are really voting for and electing a political party; not the individual. To substantiate my theory that the electorate vote for political parties, rather than candidates. I refer to the situation when the democratically elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, was replaced by ordinary person (Julia Gillard), who was never democratically elected by the citizens of Australia to the position of Prime-ministership.

You cannot seriously suggest that democracy was given to the Australian citizens, when a political party replaced a duly democratically elected PM (Kevin Rudd) with a stranger (Julia Gillard) no one democratically elected to "represent" them? That is a massive fundamental flaw in citizens constitutional democracy, and it doesn't take a genius to see it.

I also understand what happens in voting-land, and it frightens the heebie-jeebies out of me. I know there is a high percentage of people in our community who still vote for a local, State and Federal candidates, knowing nothing about that individuals policies, but vote for that individual anyway, because they want the leader of his/her political party to become the next PM.

I use to admire Penny Wong's strong political ethics, but for the same reason as yours; "contradiction" on gay issues, is the reason why I abandoned her to the scrap-heap of being just another scum-bag politician with a hidden agenda.

Even when we do get the occasional opportunity to get "independent" representation by way of independent candidates, look at what they do. What Oakeshott & Winsor did by selling their constituents votes for a hand-full of beans, has trashed the brand "Independent Candidate" for decades. They might get a few independent candidates in the Senate, but no one will ever trust voting of an independent candidate for the House of Representatives for a very long time.

 

OK, everyone knows how it works, if they don't then that's THEIR fault, the Prime Minister is the leader of the party and is elected by the party, they are under no obligation to elect who we want, or keep who was the leader during the election. It isn't right IMHO but it is the way it is and we all know it. Look at all the talk about Costello taking over from Howard, Hawk-Keeting to mention just a couple.

As long as we look at the election as voting in a party, or voting in a Prime Minister, we are looking at it incorrectly. If we all looked at the candidates that we elect, maybe we would get a better government.

Oakeshott and Windsor were in a bind created by the situation, it was a loose-loose situation, yes it has put independents in the wilderness worse luck, we need people who vote on behalf of their constituents, not Party lines. Penny Wong's contradiction was nowhere near that of O'Connor's and she is an experienced politician where O'Connor is a newbie. The Liberals don't care who they run here as they know they will never topple Tania.

I have said it before and I will say it again, we get the politicians we deserve.

 

I agree totally. Rarely does anyone look at the character or the individual policies of the individual candidates that stand for elections. 99% don't have any independent or individual policies; its all "their" parties policies that they parrot.

I disagree with your analysis regarding Oakeshott & Winsor. The majority of constituents in both their electorates voted for them as Independents candidates, as a "back-lash" and protest vote against both the other major parties (ALP & LNP) and Oakeshott and Windsor should have respect their constituents wishes. Oakeshott & Windsor as true independent candidates were NOT representing their constituents wishes by selling their votes to the ALP.

Yes. They both got their 15 minutes of personal media fame and glory, but at what cost to their electorates?

I see Wong's failure and hypocrisy regarding gay issues as a politician ten times worse than O'Connor's, because Wong is in an open gay relationship.

 

Leave aside the two independents, each issue would need to be looked at individually, and I do not agree with what they did, but they were often forced into corners by the media.

As for O'Connor, isn't he also in an open gay relationship? It's not that he is gay, but that he supports Nile, himself a hypocrite.

 

If we chose our representative based on who they were and what they had to offer, we wouldn't have the rabble we have now. First thing is that a candidate should have had to be a resident in the electorate. The system atm is they put those they want to win into a safe seat and use the unattainable seats to "blood" the new guys.

It has NOTHING to do with who is the best to represent us, it is who will get them into power, who is the best bet. It is not about us, it is about them. It is the way we want it, then we don't have to think, it's a problem with such a stable country politically, we become blasé.

While WE allow political parties to run our country instead of the elected representatives we will have problems.

 

Since I was the person who started this thread, a thread that has now followed a circuitous route over many aspects of the current and past Australian political culture, I'll post an exchange that took place recently between a Canadian with whom I correspond. He and I are the same age, and we grew up in the same part of Canada. We then went our separate ways in career and country, politics and religion. Here is part of the exchange, FYI.-Ron Price, the man who started this now somewhat long thread in cyberspace at this Political Forum.com.
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Friend(F-in Canada, age 70): I''m not a card carrying member of any party either. By dent of personality and an independent business career I guess I'm more conservative than anything else, and I'll probably vote that way. But the older I get, the more I detest the extremities of both left and right. The U.S. is a politically scary place these days with Tea Party Republicans polarizing debate in league with the NRA which is now encouraging teachers to be armed to protect children from mass murders. It's Dodge City down there in the US of A, and the farther south you go and scarier it gets. There was a good piece in the National Post (Canada's only right-of-centre national newspaper) by F.H. Buckley, a professor at George Mason School of Law in Virginia, author of The Once and Future King: The Rise of Crown Government in America. It's a short but masterful article entitled, "A Different Kind of Freedom." He compares the Westminster Parliamentary System with the American Constitutional System and deduces that Westminster takes the day. The National Post website is found at this link: http://www.nationalpost.com/index.html ...The article was on page A12 in the June 5th edition.

Ron(R)that's me, age 70 and living in Australia for the last 40 of my 70 years).... I won't go into the permutations and combinations in relation to the pluses and minuses of the Westminster Parliamentary System(WPS) and the American Constitutional System(ACS) although, after teaching and studying politics for more years than I care to count, I could write a little paper on the subject. You are in no need of my insights, or lack of them, in relation to these two major liberal democratic forms of partisan politics in the West. As I may have said in a previous email, I was inoculated against both systems: (i) by the time I had studied politics at university, and graduated in 1968 with a BA, BEd and (ii) having had political-party meetings in our home, meetings organized by my left-of-center parents back in the 1950s in my early teens.

F: (Remember this friend is writing from Canada and has lived all his life in Ontario).....With the print and electronic media's preoccupation with politics, it takes a concerted effort to avoid exposure. As time goes by, one thing apparent to me is the increasing exposure of corruption in Western governments. The media is not shy about using the actual word, "Corruption." The current election in Ontario is essentially been called due to the Liberal government's blatant corruption - 4 major scandals in 4 years.

R: I think I may have also said a few things about my BPD which I must apologize for repeating, if I have. Writing emails for me has become a bit of an art form as much as an exchange of information. This is necessary for me, otherwise the exercise in communicating my email would become like the process of transferring a pile of dry bones from one graveyard to another. Many MA and PhD theses are just that; indeed much communication has such little vitality that the Facebook-twitter style has become dominant--thus killing "the letter" yet again. The radio, the TV and the telephone have already killed "the letter," but it keeps coming back from its near terminal illness. I'm not sure if it will survive this latest internet threat to the existence of a once dominant and important medium of exchange. I find, in some ways, that several internet sites, especially politics and other social sciences, have become about as close to the good old letter as any form of exchange these days.

F: Your reference to Verdun, Quebec and Douglas Hospital resonates with us. My wife lived in Dorval during her high school years and attended a little church in Verdun.(My friend remains "a Christian" into his 70s) We have acquaintances that grew up in Verdun still live in Dorval. The wife of one couple also suffers from BPD, and has had frequent stays at what they call, "The Dougie." Interesting that you ended up there in that hospital after your time on Baffin Island. Don't worry about repetition - that's a badge of honour that goes with the accumulation of years. I'm delighted that we are at least doing our bit to war against the death of the letter (albeit in e-mail form). We at least were blessed to be alive and receiving a more classical education that allows us to communicate with a reasonable degree of literacy. FB and Twitter falls to the lowest common denominator of discourse in my view.

With any luck I may be out of the country on the 12th of the month. Tentatively planning a business trip to Cairo to close a deal for design/mgmt contract with a design/build contractor that uses a multi-room, modular concrete building system for 76,500 living units in South-East Nigeria. The firm is DISIhomes - www.disihomes.com, I think, or just Google DISI homes - you can see a video of the MRMC system - fairly interesting technology for generating a ton of high quality residential living units fast.

R: Well, you are still in the working world, Paul. I was under the impression that you had fully retired. Obviously, you still have a toe-hold, a foot or a leg in the business-employment world. Nigeria has certainly been in the news lately. The kidnapping of nearly 300 Nigerian girls has raised the international profile of the militant Islamic group Boko Haram and that increased profile could help that group with future recruitment as well as fundraising, according to some defense officials. "It's a win-win for them no matter what happens," said some official at some website. I trust you can close that deal for design/mgmt contract with a design/build contractor.

F: Just found out late last night that our first meeting is in Honolulu as soon as the project LOC is activated and we all have some funds to work with. That just happens to be the location of the original pilot project in the late 90s and the engineering offices of the system's designer. Up to this point our contact has been with the International Business Development guy in Cairo. So it looks like this is a go...we'll know for sure when they wire some cash into our corporate account.

R: I remember Honolulu well, Paul. My first wife and I dropped in there on our way to Australia in 1971; my second wife and I dropped in there on our way home from my only trip back home to Canada in the last 43 years. I had one day in the Golden Horseshoe walking around my old-traps and getting hit with nostalgia as if it was a perfume. My son became an engineer and your information might carry some weight in his world, his interest inventory. A lot of the stuff I write about will not grab your interests......I'm sure you will cope with whatever irrelevancies I include in my periodic missives. And I shall do the same. Just write what you enjoy writing, and don't worry if I don't get enthused about some guy in Cairo, F.H. Buckley, Dodge City, or your world of engineering....to each their own as we all travel life's road, eh?

F: You'd be surprised by what grabs my interest. An insatiable curiosity is one of the key components of my character that led me into the design profession. I sense that I've been blessed with a treasure trove of diversity and investigation in having reconnected with you. Keep whatever is running through your deep and wide mind coming....I love it all. Conversely, I'll attempt to keep my responses free of irrelevant details that only bore and distract. BTW, which of the engineering disciplines did you son follow, ie: structural, mechanical, electrical, civil etc.

I'm guessing winter is setting in for you. Do you ever see snow and what kind of temperatures do you have to deal with. I'm enjoying our ability to connect, Ron. My happy challenge is in attempting to process the massive content you refer me to out of our conversations. I'm amazed at the depth and breadth of your body of knowledge. There ought to be some, "GURU," designation somewhere to honour your contribution to the world of knowledge - in essence you are a parallel Wikipedia.

R: Yes, winter will be here in 2 days, for those who see it beginning on 1/6/'14 and in a little more than 3 weeks for those who see it beginning on 21/6/'14. I never see snow......although if I want to I can drive an hour away into another part of northern Tasmania and see it on the mountain tops. According to a lady who works in the post-office here in George Town, and who has lived here all her life, there was snow in town 40 years ago, but it melted as it hit the ground! Don't worry, as I've said to you before, about reading all that stuff on my webpage: http://www.ronpriceepoch.com/ ........or anywhere else in cyberspace. Read what interests you and that applies, a fortiori, to my emails. With part of your life in the business world, part of your life as a family man, and part of it dealing with the print and image glut of our globalized world, you don't need a great pile of words to "challenge" you more than you're already challenged......Make our exchange a pleasure all-round. That is the way it is for me now in the evening of my life. I write to you out of enjoyment. Most people are Facebook types, if they write at all these days: short and sweet or not so sweet, as the case may be......I've had enough of duty and obligation to sink many proverbial ships.

F: Heck, Ron, I'm not that busy - the kids are all grown, I'm not one of those grandfathers that figures they have to be integrally involved in the lives of their grandchildren so I see them when I want to and have coffee with my daughters when we can schedule it; they're all busy with their careers and families and I enjoy being a spectator. I'm delighted that we can chat back and forth about all manner of content. I've lived my life in the world of ideas and concepts - helping others visualize what their futures might look like and it's a rare find to come across someone like yourself that has traveled a similar journey albeit at a much higher academic level that the somewhat gritty road of designing for rank capitalists and directionless public sectors. Thanks for being willing - I'm enjoying our conversations to the full.

R: Trust your Canadian summer in Ontario is not as hot as the many I remember in the 1950s when I sought refuge in our basement with no air-conditioning back then.

F: The days around here now almost feel like early summer - temperatures in the mid 20sC, a fair bit of sun yet technically it's still spring. We had a zinger of a summer last year - heat and humidity just like you remember. The AC bill was going through the roof. Then this winter was one of the severest in recent memory. So I guess climate change is real. Not so sure about it being anthropometric - that seems to be moving into the sphere of the global warming ideologues. New religions are being created regularly. Trust your health is remaining good. Sounds like you've got the major chronic challenges well controlled at this stage of the game. Trust you wife and loved ones are well also.............

R: I won't comment on your busy, or not-so-busy, life, on climate change and the weather, on any more of my chronic medical challenges, or on my life or yours as a grandfather, but I will write some more after lunch, having set the stage for my response to your email yesterday.
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I trust the above has been of some value to those who are readers on this thread....

Ron

 

Hi Ron,
love your style, love your writing.
It is interesting to see how people can change over time, some do so to the extreme, others remain in their little (or big) world.
Ron, you have more experience as you are a little bit older, and lived on two different continents, how do you see our future here in Australia? What do you make out of our current federal government?
Gough had a lot of vision, that is something many politician lack these days, and some even appear to have none.....
Regards

 

I thank you, m2catter, for your kind and generous sentiments. I'l have a go at your post, and its questions, after some breakfast of my meds, my vitamins and minerals and my porridge.-Ron

 

There we are, m2catter, with breakfast down the hatch I'll start to deal with your excellent, but not simple to deal with, questions. The future here in Australia is, of course, intimately tied-up with the future of our planet as a whole. My views on the current federal government are also tied-up with my views of the overall political process, views I have now held in a variety of ways since my university-days. As you say, Gough had a lot of vision which, as you go on to say, "is something many politicians lack these days, and some even appear to have none."

I think I'll start with some context since I have thought about your questions, and questions similar to them, for decades now. I'll post two links to my website: one is a history webpage with its sub-section on economics, and one is a philosophy webpage with a sub-section on politics. Back in 1964/5 I was a student in an honours history and philosophy program at McMaster University in Hamilton, the lunch-pail city of Canada because of its working-man's culture. My father was one of these working-men. My university years and my socialization contributed to some basic views in these formative years which, by the age of 30 were fairly set and they have remained in that set with some polishing and refining since then, since the early 1970s.

This context I provide will probably be too wide a one for you since it presents my very general views. To deal with the narrow ambit of your questions would place me in the same position as the pundits I listen to on the TV and on the radio. These pundits remind me of the sophists in ancient Greece in Athens in the 5th century BC which you can read about for a historical perspective on the wisdoms you receive each day, each month and over the years in relation to your questions by the bucket-full and to which I do not want to add. You can get back to me, mcCatter, after you have had a gander at the following two links, and after you have drowned in and been inundated by more verbiage than you probably have bargained-for. After reading, teaching and studying politics since the 1960s, more than half a century, I can not offer you simple answers to complex questions in these small boxes or, to put this a little differently, I am disinclined to do so.

There are many books now dealing with the wider ambit and the larger context of your questions; I'm offering you large slices of my "books." For now, I remain in appreciation for your complimentary words which, in my 70s now, I appreciate more than you will know.-Ron
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http://www.ronpriceepoch.com/PHILOSOPHY.html and http://www.ronpriceepoch.com/HISTORY.html
Regards

 

Why would you expect a group of ex-solicitors to have any vision for the future of Australia and its citizens? Canberra is "not" a democratic government; its just one big solicitors firm.

 

haven't done them all but ..

 

Hi Ron,
thanks for that, I will look into it as soon I got a bit of time on my hands, I trust (or hope) it is not as difficult to read as I.Kant is?
cheers

 

The above two participants, culldav and DominorVobis, have both raised some good questions about qualifications for office, for vision, indeed, the whole question about just who would be best to have as representatives in a democracy. What, in fact, is a democracy? I will leave that quite complex subject for now. I have spent more than half a century trying to reduce the complexities of language in the social sciences and humanities for both myself and my students. A great deal of the content in these disciplines is, as you say m2catter, heavy going. One can get literary & verbal, psychological & intellectual indigestion trying to read: Kant, Habermas, Weber, Marx, inter alia. That is one reason why many prefer these little boxes at various forums and sites in cyberspace. But they are all just warm-ups for any serious students. In some ways the question is: how much reading can you stand?.... or, as the famous poet T.S. Eliot put it in another context: "human beings can only stand so much reality." Take lots of time, m2catter. There is no rush; you have all your life as I head into my 70s and 80s(if I last that long).-Ron Price, Australia

 

From a personal perspective, I don't think many have to spend years studying at Universities to understand the truth that confronts people everyday of their lives. The truth is; the vast majority of human beings are not intellectually or psychologically ready to embrace a "Utopian" style of democracy. Maybe that is something that will happen is a few hundred years time, if we haven't blown ourselves up, or been blown up.

Very scary and concerning about little crabs fighting over one grain of sand on an entire beach.

 

I think culldav is perfectly correct insofar as some utopian democracy is concerned. My own view is not significantly unlike that of Clive James in his analysis of modern pluralist-secular democracy; he has written about this subject in several of his books, and especially in his Cultural Amnesia. This is a book of biographical essays by James, first published in 2007. The U.K. title, published by MacMillan, is Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time, while the U.S. title, published by W.W. Norton, is Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories From History and the Arts.

Democracy is, and has been, an evolving form of institutional and political arrangement for organizing society; it has its roots in both ancient Greece, the British parliamentary system going back to, say 1215, and Protestantism in the centuries after, say, 1500. In what ways democracy will change and adapt in the next few decades and centuries is as complex a question as an analysis of its origins....it's time for my afternoon walk.-Ron

 

Democracy was originally established in ancient civilisations to enable ordinary citizens the opportunity and power to voice their opinions through elected government officials on how the "social construction" of their community should work. Unfortunately, history is a good teacher, and its taught our modern society that is was easy for greed & corruption to infiltrate the citizens elected government officials in every ancient civilisation. When greed and corruption infiltrated their elected government officials; their original concept of "real" democracy was replaced with a dictatorship.

We have the same principals and concept happening today in modern Australia and other countries around the world, but we just don't want to accept or acknowledge the idea that we are actually living under a current and modern dictatorship, and not a "real" democracy which we all imagine.

Yes, we delude ourselves into believing our vote counts as "real" personal democracy, but how can out vote count as "real" personal democracy when in actually legal terms, it is worthless and useless, and something politicians and their political parties can manipulate and play around with to suit their own agendas. Agendas that are never in the citizens best interest, regardless of what rhetoric the politicians claim.

Logical examples to my last paragraph:

1) A Governor General "not" hired or elected by the Australian people dismissing Gough Whitlam, a duly "democratically" elected Prime Minister of the Australia people.

2) Kevin Rudd, a duly "democratically" elected Prime Minister by the Australian people, being replaced by a stranger (Julia Gillard) as PM, who was not elected by the Australian people.

"Real" democracy, personal rights & freedom has been gradually eroded away by the very individuals (politicians) who the citizens have empowered and elected to represent their voice and opinions on how the "social construction" within their communities and societies should work. Instead of politicians being the citizens representatives, they have decided to become our Lords & Masters, as they once did in ancient times.

It seems for a for thousand years humanity started to step away from the cave and stopped being afraid of the lightening & thunder by themselves, and now the politicians have convinced us to be scared of the lightening & thunder again, and we have run back into the cave. Maybe the politicians like having the power over us and playing and playing "witch-doctor" to a group of scared and frightened people. LOL

 

For anyone not familiar / or 'of the time' of Gough Whitlam, an interesting interview here from 1985.

Gough had an extraordinary character. He exemplified his own motto of 'maintain your enthusiasm'.

[video=youtube;101l8AS9p3M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=101l8AS9p3M[/video]

 

Thanks, Gwendoline! Maintaining one's enthusiasm is crucial in so many ways. After more than 50 years(1960 to 2014) of reading and studying, teaching and writing, about politics, partisan and non-partisan, it would be easy, as is the case with many observers of the political scene, to throw up one's arms in despair. I continue my enthusiasm for the content and issues in relation to the political world at these two links, FY possible I, dear readers: http://www.ronpriceepoch.com/PHILOSOPHY.html , and http://www.ronpriceepoch.com/HISTORY.html ...Readers may find my interest in the macro-world of politics does not touch-down on the micro-world sufficiently to grab their attention. But, after 50 years, it is "the big picture" that interests me more and more as the micro-world gets examined on a daily basis in the news and in most political reporting both online and in real space. As an online blogger and online journalist, I find I pick-up readers who also have this "big-picture" interest and intellectual enthusiasm. Go to: http://www.ronpriceepoch.com/Journalism.html

 

I have no enthusiasm for politics, nor believe politics and politicians have any current or future benefits to offer humanity. The entire conception & institutions surrounding politics and politicians have stagnated and become corrupt.

I believe too many educated and intelligent individuals try to analysis, dissect, and examine "politics" like it was some kind living biological entity. Instead of analysing "politics" for what it really is; an inanimate idea/thought created in someone's head.

I think we are simply over exaggerating the concept and importance of politics, and giving far to much credence and credibility to a basic idea/thought created in someone's head. What is the big problem in replacing an idea/thought like "politics" that doesn't work anymore with another idea/thought that does?

An example. If someone had an idea/thought to build "item A". How many people would really think we would be still trying to build "item A" with the same flawed idea/thought 2000 later, instead of trying to think of a new or different idea/thought to build "item A"? Therefore doesn't it beg the question? "Why is humanity still persisting with a fundamentally flawed concept and idea/thought like politics; politicians and governments even when 2000 + years of recorded history shows us its a flawed concept.

Hell. Politicians on a daily basis tell the citizens "politicians/government" don't work anymore. It seems the citizens are hearing this, but not listening.

Politicans tell us on a regular basis they don't have the managerial skills or competence to manage our country or our communities anymore. They sell our public owned assets, by insisting they have a financially better survival rate being in the private sector. They tell us they cannot competently manage the public's smaller owned assets, but in the same breath, they advocate, they can competently manage $hundred billion dollar government department like Health & Education, and our countries $1.3 Trillion economy. Seriously, if someone cannot understand or comprehend the absolute contradiction in that methodology, then they need to go to a chemist shop and buy some "smart" pills.

Here's the laugh. When Tony Abbott (politician) was spewing out his verbal diarrhea and telling the Australian citizens "they" had to tighten their belts, because Australia was in a financial crisis, and our young uneducated and unemployed people were reduced to packing food into boxes and weeding gardens - Tony just threw a lavish long week-end holiday for his fellow politicians that cost the Australian citizens $450 million dollars.

What did the expenditure of $450 million dollars of citizens money achieve for the citizens - absolutely NOTHING. Nice lurk 'n' perk for the parasites though!! Just imagine what that $450 million could have achieved and accomplished for the citizens if it was spent correctly, instead of giving those parasites a "freebie" $450 million holiday on OUR money.

I would like someone to explain to me, or offer me an explanation as to why we cannot create a better idea/ thought than these current parasites?

 

We all know the "political" story. Some individuals, and only some, start with sincere good intentions in wanting to help the community or society in general, but once they get their snouts in the tax payer funded troth, and a taste of the tax payer funded lurks 'n' perks, their good intentions fly out the window - regardless of what political party they are associated with.

This is the recourse of paying people (politicians) large salaries, who in turn pay other people to do their work for them. We should be just hiring and paying the people "WHO" are doing the actual work; don't you think, NOT paying huge salaries to the mouth-pieces who do nothing?

 

Last night, I watched Q&A on the ABC for the first time in a few months. Once again, the two politicians; Tanya Plibersek & Malcolm Turnbull tuned the episode into another three-ringed-circus, fighting and bickering about "who's" political policies were the best for Australia and the Australian people. The pair of them presented like a couple of drunken old moles fighting in a beer-garden on Sunday afternoon.

Not once did they ask the people in the audience: "How can we help you"? "What would you like to see changed"? "What would you like to do"? No. It was all about them, as per usual.

The only intelligent and credible comments were being by the two "non" politicians, and the audience agreed with this by the way they were clapping loudly after each comment - considering Malcolm & Tanya were only getting minor audience approval.

I think we just need an intelligent person or an intelligent group to start leading us down the right path (away from the cave again), so we can see that by abandoning these parasite politicians will not mean doom & gloom for our society.

 

Part 1:

The above posts from culldav, giving him nearly 3000 posts here at this site, enough to make a collector's edition of several volumes, express the concerns of millions, not only in Australia but in many of the nearly 200 countries into which our world is currently divided. There are no simple answers, although the world is full of pundits, ill-equipped to interpret the social commotion at play throughout the planet. As the world listens to these pundits millions sink deeper into a slough of despond, and culldav's reaction is understandable.

Troubled by forecasts of doom, people do battle with the phantoms of a wrongly informed imagination, stumbling ahead. Our days pass swiftly as the twinkle of a star; at this crucial point in humankind's history millions are possessed by various tangled fears and worries and, since 1914, 100s of millions have perished because of all sorts of traumas. By one account some 1000 million have perished from various kinds of crisis in the last 100 years(that's 1 billion souls). And who knows what lies ahead in this 21st century?

Part 2:

Yet, at the same time in these last 100 years, the advances in technology and science are greater than in all of human history. The changes in science have not been matched by changes in religion and politics, domains of thought and action which are still caught in outworn shibboleths which culldav writes about with more than a little accuracy. Humanity has been caught, for at least a century, in a titanic convulsion which seems to hit us by stages: WWI, WW2, and the problems and perils of the last half century. Traditional belief systems have been taking a hammering for several generations now, a hammering from which they have not and probably never will, recover. In the 70 years since WW2 there has been a long series of episodic crises, another sort of destruction, far more drastic than those of the earlier wars or so American writer Henry Miller argues.

“The whole planet,” wrote the American novelist Henry Miller(1891-1980) as far back as 1941, is in “the throes of revolution. And the fires will rage until the very foundations of this present world crumble.”-Ron Price with thanks to Henry Miller in The Phoenix and the Ashes, Geoffrey Nash, George Ronald, Oxford, 1984, p. 55.

And on that happy note, I think I'll have my lunch.-Ron Price, Australia

 

Thank you Ron, for taking the time, and having the patience to read the comments and opinions of an amateur blogger.

I try to stay focused on each individual blog topic, and concentrate more on factual issues and concepts, rather than deviating into emotional debates.

Although, I can become emotional when I believe the poster is deliberately being obtuse.

I also like to use critical analysis when discussing topics, and like to discuss issues and topics from a half full, half empty glass perspective, rather than just one rigid viewpoint.

My parents influenced my behaviour and thinking to an extent, but my own personality and use of commonsense created my "Identity Marker" - me.

My parents used a lot of adages as an easy method for them to impart their knowledge and wisdom onto inexperienced younger children, and I remember a couple of classic things my parents told me, and they still serve me in good stead today:

1) Never believe everything you hear and read on face value

2) The instinct of every species is for the next generation to be that little bit more intelligent and little bit physical stronger than the previous generation.

There is really nothing more I can about "politics" except to reiterate; that its an antiquated philosophy that should go the way of the dinosaur, considering the untold death and damage its caused the population of this planet throughout history.

Surely there are educated and intelligent individuals or groups within our human society that can create a concept/idea that can guide humanity to a better, more prosperous future for everyone; rather than the current concept/idea of politics and governments?

I just feel like banging my head against a brick wall in disbelief, thinking humanity will be left at the stumbling-block of politics/government for the next few Centuries, because we don't have anyone/any-group who can give humanity an alternative now.

 

Section 1:

I share your concern, culldav, about the partisan political world that comes at us all day after day and night after night; indeed, by my late teens more than 50 years ago, I could not understand how anyone could seriously become involved in that casuistical exercise. It was an exercise I had experienced at point-blank range in the small house in which I grew-up. My parents, always socialists, had taken an interest in a small left-wing party in Ontario in the 1950s and, for several years, I listened to their discussions from my bedroom which was about ten feet away from the living-room where a dozen or so folks gathered to deal with their current party-agenda on a weekly and monthly basis. Politics for me, at least initially, was not on TV(which my mother sold after 2 years of having it in the house), it was in my face. I did not like it then and I do not like it now. Of course, millions now get their politics in pablum-form on TV and the radio; they never go to meetings, usually preferring a good movie in the evening and putting an X on a ballot every few years as an expression of their convictions.

Section 1.1:

I was inoculated against that endless back-and-forthing by the age of 15 in the late 1950s. I still took an interest in the big picture, in society and the individual, and spent my 5 years of post-secondary education studying several disciplines that were each involved in trying to explain and understand the complexities of human behaviour and the institutions that dealt in various ways with that behaviour. By the end of my university days in 1967, I was so disillusioned not only with western parliamentary democracy but also with the major western and eastern religions. I got a job among the Inuit on Baffin Island hoping that that indigenous community offered some hope. I quickly realized that animistic religions, like the Inuit or the Indian or, indeed, any one of dozens of others on the planet, are plagued with the same problems as those of our westernizing nations of the planet and their political institutions. The world can no more go back to "the elders" than they can plod ahead with Christianity or Islam, inter alia. The famous sociologist Emile Durkheim made this point in his writings: the insanity of trying to apply ancient systems of ethics, 2000 years old, or 4000 years old or, like Islam, 1400 years old, to our current planetizing world. Truths which are perennial, but not found in archaic forms and language, are needed.

Section 2:

I am now in my 70s and I have given-up trying to convince others of my several convictions, culldav. I, too, had aphorisms to grow-up with. They were given to me by the bucket-full from a mother who had aphorisms coming out of her eclectic religious-and-philosophical mind and heart. These, too, have stood the test of time as have, it appears, yours. Then I married a lady who grew up with another set of aphorisms from the more skeptical and cynical culture of Australia. I now have so many little-wisdoms-and-aphorisms that I am a walking-talking fount of practical-packages-of-punditry and I have placed an exposition about them at this link: http://www.slideshare.net/RonPrice/funnies-weewisdoms

I wrote that little bit of prose entitled: "A Sub-Genre of the Email Industry" due to the many humorous and not-so-humorous, uplifting and not-so-uplifting, amazing and not-so-amazing, wise and not-so-wise emails I've received in the last 20 years. My guess is that about 5% of all the emails I’ve received from 1994, when emails first began to enter my life, until now in 2014 are of this genre. I hope you enjoy the following summary of my experience of what you might call a sub-category of the email industry. This little bit of prose which is found above is a 5000 word digest of the twenty page, 10,000+ word, essay that did NOT make it into Dr. Funwisdum's new book Human Communication in the Twenty-First Century, editor, Harry Funwisdum, Oxford University Press, 2014.

I remain, yours sincerely

Ron Price of George Town
Tasmania, Australia

PS George Town is the oldest town in Australia; I believe that geologically Australia is also the oldest continent. I hope to live long enough to become the oldest man on this oldest continent; the way modern medicine is going, with some 8 doctors and specialists taking care of my several maladies, I may be at least in the running.

 

We do have much in common Ron.

I also share your disillusion with the major world religions. There definitely seems to be a shared link between the human concept of religion and politics/governance that originated from the tribal medicine man/woman.

I am only an amateur, but to me, it would seem that the symbiotic relationship between religion and politics/governance stems from both concepts (religions politics/governments) intentionally wanting to keep their communities ignorant for their own gratification and glorification. If we examine history, "neither" of the worlds major religions or politics/governments have ever lived up to their advertised rhetoric by serving the communities for the communities best interests. The communities always ended up being subservient outsiders to the two concepts, and never truly equal.

This is my thinking. If humanity started with the original concept of the tribal medicine man/woman, which then preceded to the concept of religion; that preceded to the concept of politics/governments. Then surely, we have the intellectual capacity to formulate a concept in 2014, that can precede the original 10,000 year old concept of politics/governments?

Speaking entirely for myself, I use to admire and respect educated intelligent professionals, and use their professional knowledge as guide in some of the decisions I made, but I have found that I can no more rely upon or trust these academics anymore, than I can politicians or religions. Its just such a reality check, to confront my own long-standing beliefs, that these so-called professional academics, I once relied upon to tell me accurate information and the truth, are really just "paid" company employees or mercenaries for hire with their own hidden agendas.

I sometimes get very despondent, when I see so many professional educated and intelligent individuals trapped in their own self important towers of academia, refusing to understand there is more beyond "their" own self-righteousness.

I do feel up-lifted, encouraged and very grateful that a professional like yourself would bother taking the time to read the blathering's of an amateur .

I hope you live long enough to become the oldest man on the oldest continent too Ron.

Cheers for now

David.