*****
I turned this into a speechwriting exercise (although my
sentences are all too long), but it is based on genuinely held opinions of
mine.
The freedoms of our nation can be traced
back a long way – to the Magna Carta, for instance, which was signed in 1215.
That document started to limit the so-called Divine Right of Kings – it started
changes, initially for barons, that later resulted in benefits for everyday
people. It moved society, over time, away from an imbalance of power towards
what we now term “a fair go”.
That word “later” reflects a time of hundreds of years of evolution – of hard
work, of improving understanding of our fellow citizens’ circumstances, of passing
- and improving - laws.
Together with the faster pace of modern
life, the rate of change around freedom has also accelerated in the last
Century – most particularly, over the last seven decades.
As with the preceding centuries, this last
lifetime’s worth of work has seen hard work, improved understanding, and
passing and improving laws.
As an example, the importance of women
being able to freely contribute to our economy, to the richness of social life,
and to the rewards of personal freedoms, has become fairly widely accepted.
It is not uniformly accepted – even by some
women, and there are thus, for instance, still some apologists for domestic
violence, or for restrictive or harmful versions of supposedly loving marriage,
and even for slavery.
Slavery. Human trafficking and slavery is a
problem that is still with us, more than two millennia after the Indian Emperor
Ashoka [see Note 1], of the Maurya
Dynasty, banned it. It has changed its forms and features, however, as the
world has changed. We no longer see as many people in physical chains, but the
chains are still there – financial, emotional, or cultural. Laws have and are
changing, and will continue to change, to address this changing evil.
Evil. LGBT people are no longer openly and
frequently described with epithets that basically mean evil – some reprobates
still do, but they are a backward minority, and are seen as such, just as
decent people do not see slavery as acceptable. Morally and spiritually, it is
the “fair go” denying discrimination, and the personal debilitations of fear
and hate that discrimination is so often founded on, that are what is evil –
not being a different race, or LGBT, or a slave.
Actions which counter the evolution towards
greater freedoms are also likely to be evil – and there have been such actions,
including violent revolutions that impose despots, reactionary social movements
(including social media trolling and
support for rape culture), and campaigns against fairer laws or education
to improve our understanding.
We evolve. Anything that stops that
evolution, or perverts it into something harmful, is morally and spiritually evil.
Our views on LGBT people have evolved as
our understanding has grown, and our laws have also evolved – albeit a little
more slowly. We now go beyond negative freedoms for LGBT people, such as the
freedoms from discrimination, fear and violence, to ensure positive freedoms
for LGBT people –notably, the recent freedom to receive official recognition of
loving relationships and families.
To some extent, this also reflects the
development of freedom for all society. We no longer consider it enough to have
the negative freedom of freedom from fear and oppression, a process
that the Magna Carta was a key step in, but we also want the positive freedoms (the Australian “fair go”) of freedom to
have
opportunities and a decent life – for us, our children, and our other loved
ones.
A key part of this evolution is debate, and
the increased understanding that comes, often not easily, from listening.
As an example, while many people oppose
active discrimination against women, or other races, without that debate and
listening, they may not understand that the circumstances of women and other
races, in comparison to the dominant, socially powerful groups, is similar to
the old imbalance of power between King and subjects.
And yet gaining that understanding is
crucial in successfully making the move from negative
freedoms, the freedom from active harm, to also fully realising positive
freedoms – which is when we, and all society, begin to realise the rewards and
richness of true and genuine inclusivity.
A “fair go” cannot happen when such
blinders are in place, tethered to our (mis)perceptions.
Those blinders may include not realising
the pervasive subtlety of social imbalances, whether between King and subject,
or dominant group and social minority, a pervasive influence imbued by the
bedtime stories our families, peers and influencers whispered to us as we fell
asleep when we were children.
Doubt that? Consider any of the notorious
Kings and Rulers of old. How different would they have been, if they had
received an upbringing free of exclusion and privilege, one where they were
taught to care for and respect others as part of a democracy, rather than being
brainwashed into seeing themselves as different, Divine, and without limited in
their exercise of power? Would Louis XIV have been so careless with the lives
of his subjects who were building the Palace of Versailles if he saw each of
them as valuable, possibly even his equal? Would George III have triggered the
American Revolution if he had not been so focused on preserving his “Royal
prerogatives”? Would Wilhelm II have so glibly plunged the world into war if he
had been raised free of the toxicity of hyper-masculine Prussia?
More recently, consider the rethinking of
colonialism, now that we realise the harm that it did – such as the destruction
of India’s economy [see Note 2], and
the devastation the West imposed on China when it violently imposed opium.
On the other hand, when Russia freed her
serfs in 1861, agricultural productivity nearly doubled, nutrition improved and
industrial productivity increased – the Russian GDP grew by around 18% [see Note 3]. The liberalisation of
China’s economy last century brought financial improvements [see Note 4] – although I would suggest
they were limited by the continuance of authoritarianism. More recently, a
number of articles have been published on the economic benefits of increased
diversity on companies’ performance.
One of the other problems that can occur when
debating discrimination is that symptoms
of discrimination may be given false equivalence.
An example of this is objections to women
having favoured access to sports facilities (so
they can exercise free of the intimidation of harassment), which focuses
solely on the issue of access, and ignores all the other problems,
discouragements, and disadvantages that women experience in such environments.
Another, at times particularly nasty, example of a false equivalence is thinking the men's rights group that are really about maintaining male levels of prestige, or excusing violence towards women, are the same as women's rights movements.
In fact, trying to equate evading the loss of an unearned favouritism as the same as a social minority group gaining equal access is a generic category that covers a lot of examples.
Another, at times particularly nasty, example of a false equivalence is thinking the men's rights group that are really about maintaining male levels of prestige, or excusing violence towards women, are the same as women's rights movements.
In fact, trying to equate evading the loss of an unearned favouritism as the same as a social minority group gaining equal access is a generic category that covers a lot of examples.
Perhaps the solution here is to stop
focusing on the symptom, and start looking at motivation and manifestation -
including in legal cases.
Motivation is fairly straightforward. Any
active form of discrimination is based on either hate, fear or ignorance. Courts
are well capable of assessing motivations, and do so in many, many
circumstances – for instance, in discerning whether a killing was murder,
manslaughter, or accident, and when considering or challenging expert opinions
around such matters as fitness to stand trial.
To claim that courts are incapable of
looking at motivation is an evasion of a possibly uncomfortable truth -
possibly personally (or politically) motivated, rather than founded in law, and
that is an action unworthy of our legal system.
What could be considered more “passive”
forms of discrimination, the sort of thing disguised as “cultural’, for
instance, is a manifestation of either inculcated ignorance or systemic
problems.
Again, our courts are well capable of
dealing with both, and have done so with, for instance. the Royal Commissions
into indigenous deaths in custody, banks and the finance sector, and child
abuse.
Going back to the mid-1800s, the High Court
in India ruled that you do not change a discriminatory situation by simply
removing the active form of discrimination. There are many flow on factors,
such as access to education and opportunity, to dress “acceptably” (showering and washing clothes is, for
instance, a particular obstacle to employment for the homeless), or be able
to commute, which also need to be addressed to address the imbalance between dominant
group and social minority, an imbalance so redolent of the old imbalance
between King and subject.
To enable courts to do this will likely
require further changes to laws. The United Kingdom has started inching towards
such changes with an enquiry into misogyny – an enquiry which was recently and
quite rightly widened to include misandry.
Such changes to laws, if implemented
through a robust debate in a democracy, are likely to be a good step towards getting
to grips with the fundamental problem that we dance around without naming it:
bigotry.
Notes:
2. As I understand it, India’s share of
world GDP declined by around 20% - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_India_under_the_British_Raj.
3. Markevich, A., Zhuravskaya, E., The Economic Effects of the Abolition of
Serfdom: Evidence from the Russian Empire, American Economic Review 2018, 108(4-5): 1074–1117
4. Maddison, A., Chinese Economic Performance in the Long Run (Second Edition, Revised
and Updated, 960-2030 AD), Development Centre of the Organisation for
Economic Co-Operation and Development, ISBN: 978-92-64-03762-5 © OECD 2007
Postscript
I’ve thought of another example of a false
equivalence: equating a peaceful inclusive march (they’re not always peaceful [e.g., when the so-called antifa
or anarchists
are involved]) with an inherently threatening right wing march about
keeping power. The key issues here are NOT the marching or self
expression, it is the motivation: inclusivity and unlocking access to resources
on the one hand, vs. shutting down sharing and maintaining existing,
restrictive, counter-productive holds on power on the other. The failure to
recognise that inherent difference is a major flaw in our courts, our media,
and our society as a whole.
In fact, if we had been dealing properly
with the issue of motivation, would we be having such a problem with neo-nazis now? Would
women still be struggling for equitable access to power? Would genocide still
be happening?
