In Australia, every person who voted for the neoliberal coalition government that we have is personally and directly responsible, albeit to a small extent perhaps, for all that the government has done - resisting action on the climate crisis, human rights abuses of Australians and others in our care, reducing firefighting capabilities, and lying about it all - in the cause of their laissez-faire interpretation of the neoliberal ideology.
There is political pressure that should be brought to bear on the parties in the neoliberal coalition to try to get them back to a more democratic and rational state of existence that is vaguely in the same neighbourhood as what those parties claim to be about (anyone surprised by my vehemence should look up what the current bushfire crisis is doing to my nation), as well as activism (I miss the word lobbying) on better policies and implementation all round.
But there is a personal responsibility that needs to be borne by voters as well.
I suspect part of the problem is what is referred to as "the death of expertise", where people think they know more than genuine experts.
That is, indeed a problem, but there are other problems around that as well, such as:
- the arrogance of "experts" (a problem I've seen many times in engineering, where many are blind to their unconscious bias - particularly when insisting on certain "preferred" solutions on the basis of cost [1] );
- the occasions when people outside the field know something useful (I won't try to find it now, but the "leaky weirs" approach to re-greening land is an example - as, perhaps, is also the Indigenous firefighting techniques that are finally being given reasonable prominence in Australia).
On the other hand, when it comes to religious, psychic and moral matters, I consider established orthodoxy (which means scepticism) to be utterly clueless.
So there is a balance in this, as with all things - in this case, being validity of expertise, and validity of unorthodoxy.
The one thing that every person can do is think and reflect.
While doing that thinking and reflection, it would be good to include some thinking and reflection on why people would make invalid challenges to expertise.
Those who know this blog would know I'd normally make a reference to people wanting to feel good, and that is true, but in thise case, those who challenge experts - in my experience - are seeking to feel of personal value, because they see their personal value as being dependent on external praise/appreciation - what could be termed status.
Of course, that's not true - people's inherent worth comes from the simple fact that they exist.
I can understand how people can doubt that, of course, because I doubt it of myself, and I know from personal experience that it is hard to feel of value when on the receiving end of criticism (whether that criticism is valid or not), which gets back to public figures such Senator Penny Wong. (I try to balance criticism with praise, but that can be taken the wrong way by people who are fire all the time - and my frustration over issues such as misgendering, which kills people, makes me too irritable to be effective at times, but I make the effort.)
I've been gravely concerned with the pressures we put on politicians, as have others (Laura Tingle wrote an excellent Quarterly Essay on that), and other figures. That criticism was one of the main reasons I got out of community activism.
And that takes me back again to personal responsibility. You may not always succeed (I don't - as I've just elaborated), but you can and should try, as you and the world will be a better place for the effort.
