The world is showing some major moral failures right now.
I’ll begin with my nation: Australia.
The despicable actions of extremists who have hooked up with the “Anti-YES” (aka “No”) campaign against the Voice show just how deeply white supremacism is scarred into the bedrock of the Australian psyche. The leader of the opposition either knew this would happen, or was politically inept.
As for those Indigenous people who have or will vote No, they are raising valid issues - such as Blak Sovereignty, the importance of what comes next, whether the order of Voice-Treaty-Truth should be/should have been different (I actually consider Truth should have been first, because of the denialists who are an endemic plague in this nation - as mentioned below) - but some are also acting out of extreme trauma.
I can understand that (to some extent) because of my personal experience - particularly of being on the receiving end of sexual violence. I have no faith in authorities so have always considered a formal complaint pointless. My various experiences of receiving abuse (including transphobic discrimination) have left me with complex trauma (PTSD), and I am still working through that - part of which is covered by my recovering from a corporate life series.
I have also watched my partner doing rescue work on a traumatised dog, and what is noteworthy to this post is that such animals will initially be so traumatised that they lash out at everyone - including those trying to help, who could ultimately be of help (as proved by the friendliness of said dog to such people). I suspect some Indigenous Anti-YES people are reacting on the basis of their trauma.
But the actions of the white supremacists against the Voice (including the violence) are comparable to the actions of those who traumatised the dog, have already exacerbated the scarring on the soul of this nation, and are far more reprehensible.
Those actions include:
- denying that disadvantage is real, and caused by structural and personal white supremacism and not any fault of those who are disadvantaged;
- revisionist claims that downplay or deny historical violence;
- emotional incompetence that results in them trying to blame others for their own unrecognised internal problems - including fear of change;
- incompetence at being human shown by inability to have empathy;
- seeking a sense of personal power no matter what the cost to others; and
- utterly appalling, blatant misanthropic lies.
The moral failures of the “Anti-YES” (aka “No”) campaign are, in my opinion (IMO), staggering.
Next, we got to the conflict in West Asia.
I wrote about this here and here on my political blog; for the purposes of this post, my key points are:
- life is sacred - which is why the death penalty is inherently an evil abomination;
- abuse, including bigotry/discrimination and oppression (including poverty) - are wrong;
- the long term abuse - including sexual - and oppression of Palestinians by Israel is wrong;
- the only viable future from here is a Two State solution;
- what the attack by a VE organisation against Israeli civilians did was:
- the commission of mass atrocity crimes;
- the triggering of a mass atrocity crime in response;
- death by suicide of that organisation, and the support Palestinians had been building in the USA;
- changes in geopolitics which have been speculated about (beyond the link just given) and may be intentional (such as disrupting negotiations on normalising relations, and strengthening Iran’s position) and some of which may not have been intended (such as strengthening the position of Erdoğan);
- lies, angry divisions and splintering in online platforms - particularly with regards to expectations of place, type and quantity of support - and within nations;
- make ANY AND ALL attempts at a peaceful solution in the future close to impossible.
There are no winners here - and denialism is a particular aspect of the anti-Palestinian position (the pro-Israel position is, IMO, differentiated by being more nuanced - see also my post here).
No matter that this attack has been described by some unfeeling “pundits” (and they are NOT being dispassionate: they are being incompetent as human beings in the reduction of themselves to automatonic cogs in the machinery of power) as geopolitically “clever” or other such tripe, it is a disaster all round with only small local gains compared to what has been lost. This a moral failure all round - and Israel is showing every sign of making the same destructive and self-destructive overreaction that the USA did after 9/11 when it extended its war into Iraq ...
Thirdly there is social media.
I hinted at the problems I have with social media in the preceding item, and I have had a mixed relationship with social media over the years - and have posted about that as well.
I’ve come to recognise some of these problems as part of being autistic, but I’ve managed those well enough in the past, so do not consider them insurmountable (for me). However ...
- getting to grips with the use of Content Warnings (CWs) has been a challenge. I support the use of CWs, and have benefitted by that myself in that I have been able to avoid being triggered when in a low energy/mood state. But:
- I cannot add CWs to boosted posts on Mastodon, which is a frustration when I consider the original post should have had the CW (and none of the work arounds is, IMO, satisfactory);
- I consider there can be a valid need for CWs on good news (e.g., may trigger people's grief/loss/trauma at what they went through before the good news), but I have been jumped on so thoroughly for doing so that I no longer bother (or don’t post);
- there is also a valid argument that CWs can prevent some people who should see something - and there are a lot of those! - from doing so.
However, as they are mixed in with the people who deserve not to be triggered, I opt out of such matters unless it is on a matter of direct relevance to me and my life (or my family); - I've subsequently witnessed requests for CWs being politely refused, and am left more dubious about the subjectiveness of this whole aspect of social media;
- the comment that favouriting a post sends a message of appreciation to the poster does NOT always apply, so I use that action with some care - e.g., if someone has written about a distressing topic, they may be upset that liking their post may seem like liking the action, rather than the writing.
This was a concern of mine when I was on a now notorious social media platform, and was never resolved to my satisfaction there, and, based on my experience, I consider the advice to favourite posts on Mastodon to be BS.
LinkedIn actually handles this best of all, IMO, with options such as like, applaud, support, laugh, etc. - acceptable responses and levels of engagement are another fraught topic - especially when compounded with my health problems, which can leave me with almost no energy at times (as an example writing this and today’s post on my political blog - the candle posts will be done tonight - has taken most of a day).
On top of that, trying to navigate the minefield of acceptability is exhausting me, and there are times when I choose not to do anything out of simple exhaustion and/or overwhelm/shutdown.
The net effect is that I may not post, or I may limit the spread of posts by, for instance, not using hashtags; - there is a staggering amount of bigotry online - particularly since more refugees from the notorious platform I mentioned above have moved over. I have experienced transphobia, homophobia, and witnessed racism & white supremacism - none of which is an argument for getting off social media, but rather, supporting moderators and doing more to learn about issues and sometimes competing needs and calling people out.
As an example of the latter, I recently posted about rewilding by Norway on a remote island (from a "Good News" subscription that had often seemed ... strained, and which I no longer receive), and had the issue of greenwashing by Norway, as well as discrimination against the Sami, pointed out to me. I knew about the issues the Sami were facing (one of my favourite singers is a Sami woman, and I met some Sami people at the Parliament of World Religions in Melbourne in 2009, but not Norway’s greenwashing.
That last point also leads in to the issue of the place and form of activism.
Engaging with and changing opinions online and through real life discussions is vital (and our successes in doing so at TransGender Victoria in the 1990s was highlighted at the recent launch of a history on Transgender Australia - see here) - but, as being shown by the “Anti-YES” (aka “No”) campaign, some people will never change, and, under all circumstances, personal safety is paramount - including psychological wellbeing.
There is also the issue of skill sets.
My skill sets are not well suited to social media - I would come near last, I suspect in any react-athon challenge, but I am better at writing considered, referenced emails and blog posts.
Hence, I am going to continue focusing on my blogs and emails for acts of activism, but include social media as a source of news links, perspectives & opinions, etc to inform my writing - and some light relief/humour, some social interaction, and loads of cats.
Social media is unlikely to ever be an effective form of social contact for me - the platforms I've been on start well enough, but I drift into human rights territory ...
Real Life social contact it will be - and I am starting to do more of that when I have the energy and health to do so.
Finally, and related to the previous item, there is the continued use of notorious social media platforms (such as this one) by government departments - i.e., the spending of tax dollars on supporting extremism. This is a direct payment by a democratic government to anti-democratic bigots, and thus is as undesirable as paying schools to produce anti-LGBTQIASB+ bigots who don’t know about, don’t care, and intend to break, anti-discrimination laws ...
Both need to stop.
Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:
- there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”;
- I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below, and there’s also Instagram and Mastodon.
Vote Yes for the Voice in Australia - see this backgrounder.
Finally, remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, and to mind our Mӕgan.
