Post No. 2,952 - When good governance becomes (or is) a façade instead of actual good leadership

Recently our national government announced changes to rental laws that will address a rental problem that is causing pain and hardship to people. 

As a response to a real problem, that is clearly good governance, but is it good leadership? 

In this case, I would suggest it is neutral on the leadership issue, as it does not directly act to change the attitudes and lack of skills of people that enabled the problem to occur, but it is indirectly having an impact on those. 

Examples of what I consider to be both good leadership and good governance are the introduction of car seatbelts and breath testing, and banning smoking - all of which required changes to societal values in order to be effective, which was achieved. 

Bad leadership and bad governance has been illustrated by the ban on Equal Marriage and the use of a postal survey to fix that harm (with the arguments that effectively supported religious bigots forcibly imposing their warped perceptions on the rest of Australia being particularly obnoxious), every past practice that has required a subsequent apology (although this apology was a brilliant example of good leadership and good governance, and this was similar), and the failure to address the landlordism created and sustained by various tax breaks in Australia - which has created our current housing crisis (and, on similar problems, see here, here, and here).

The Voice Referendum started off with good governance (addressing real problems) and good leadership, but Dutton withdrawing support (bad leadership and bad governance) empowered the racists, and it was lost. 

Prime Minister Albanese reversing the good leadership (values ahead of those of religious/cultural bigots, and thus would require education/change) of LGBTQIASB+ supportive ALP policies was bad (actively harmful) leadership and arguably maybe good politics, with the subsequent backflip lifting it into competent governance but with considerable political damage leaving it as, at best, neutral leadership (see also here). 

The recent overturning of a successful negotiation on environmental matters was bad governance, bad leadership, and arguable with regards to political votes. 

And that is when the problem of good governance is most likely to become a façade for good leadership - when decisions are based on votes or economic matters - as such arguments typically, in recent decades, have favoured the ultra-wealthy and corporations at the expense of everyday or ordinary people.

We need politicians with good skills/capabilities at governance combined with the principled commitment to progressive values that enables good leadership - and we clearly have several of those in the current national cabinet (e.g., see here, here, here).

More are needed there, and elsewhere in life. 

But above all else, we need people to recognise and accept that efforts towards change (especially education and debate) need to start early - well before, for instance, elections ...

Possible flaws 

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. 

Note that I am cutting back on aspects of my posts - see here. 

(Gnwmythr is pronounced new-MYTH-ear)  

Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).

#PsychicABetterWorld   and   

Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-ShareAlike basis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/  

 

Post No. 2,951 - a commentary on a (violent) streaming service police procedural [Content Warning - discussionon violence, links to articles on SA]

As a first point, I’m not going to name the series that triggered this post, as it is but a fairly recent one in a long series of such series and movies. 

My main point is that the series is being, in my opinion, deliberately and blatantly (although many others will/may miss that) emotionally manipulative towards a viewpoint that violence is the “only”/s way to “solve”/s problems / keep people & things “safe”/s / “heal”/s emotions / etc. 

That is utter amathiac rubbish. 

At most, violence is a short term response, sometimes necessary to ensure safety (e.g., police using violence to restrain or stop [including kill, if necessary] a shooter), and I note the line in “The Imitation Game” to the effect that people like violence because it makes them “feel good”, but, in a longer term, violence: 

• creates powerful ties of hate/resentment at being humiliated/desire to “get even” (i.e., revenge/vengeance) that can and does last through multiple lives (and that includes people who are subjected to the death penalty, which does NOTHING to address the problems/flaws of character of any person genuinely convicted [many aren’t] of a crime that led to it being imposed); 

• exemplifies and normalises (aka desensitises) harm both as a concept and as a practicality, which is a warping of individuals’ and groups’ souls;
  

• reinforces existing systems and societal expectations/“norms”, etc (including patriarchy, toxic masculinity, and internalised sexism/victim blaming) that is extremely harmful to all caught up in it.

There is evidence of how much more effective nonviolence is in the political arena, the costs of wars and human rights violations have been documented, and spiritual movements have been talking about and promoting peace for millennia (although sometimes that is tainted by problems such as spiritual bypassing).

Violence is not only wrong (except when genuinely BPM protecting others), it is in the long term ineffective and actively harmful/regressive - even if used to protect people (which means taking people alive will result in a better outcomes over multiple lives, if that can be done).

But entertainment industries are failing to point that out ... 

To be clear: depiction of violence is likely going to be necessary at times to illustrate the harm of violence, but how that is done is vital (as an example, consider the comparative discussion on how two series handle [Content Warning] violent depictions of SA here, here, here, and here).

/s - tone tag for sarcasm

Possible flaws 

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. 

Note that I am cutting back on aspects of my posts - see here. 

(Gnwmythr is pronounced new-MYTH-ear)  

Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).

#PsychicABetterWorld   and   

Copyright © Kayleen White 2007-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-ShareAlike basis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/