By Eve Fisher and Andrew Pollard
What if everyone started telling the truth? In my 20s I had a VC Holden with a plastic crate holding the driver’s seat forward and a bumper sticker on the back with those exact words. When the car died I tried to save the sticker by gently peeling it, a futile exercise obviously, much like trying to answer the question.
Let’s extend the concept a little. What if everyone owned their problems for just a day? Imagine that. Everything always seems to be somebody else’s fault. It’s an endless blame game; a loop of excuses and antagonism. And very little truth. The blame game doesn’t work though. It’s a fool’s errand, entirely absent of reason and logic. Because if nobody is responsible for anything, how did the world end up such a mess? Of course it must be the elite or the opposition, the rich or the poor, the black, the white, the gay, the straight. Surely someone is to blame. The Ministry of “They”.
Left and Right politics is dead. As dead as integrity, as redundant as common sense and as nullified as the human spirit. There is only true and false, honest and dishonest. To continue to speak in such terms as a clearly defined left or right is infantile. And inaccurate. It’s all populism now. As centre as it gets. A tawdry dog and pony show.
Morality comes first. Or it absolutely ought too. Without it we are little more than savages, are we not? Not a shining example of success in the human enterprise. Our precious state institutions have become a den of cheats, thieves and liars. But what do you expect? Behave like a herd, expect to be treated like cattle. Our situation is that grim.
We’ve become so disillusioned because there is the expectation we won’t be represented and our needs won’t be met. There is the anticipation we will be ripped off and this cynicism is justifiable. We don’t expect anything to change, because nothing ever does. The negative psychological impact is beyond measure. It’s been the Albos and Scomos forever. A choice between grifter A or looter B. No choice; the ultimate dilemma.
It’s no wonder we’re becoming disengaged. It’s understandable that our national morale is diminishing by the day. It’s not irrational that people are tired and frustrated. And afraid. Aren’t we tired of being afraid? Of living in such uncertainty. Afraid of losing ourselves, not just our homes or jobs.
We live in a soft police state. We’ve lost our right to freedom of speech. Or rather, we gave it away. And that’s the worst part, it’s justly deserved. Because we choose to reside in a panopticon, where everything is visible. We are the ones who ultimately police each other. We necessitate the need for the law, through our inauthenticity, through our warped desire to censor each other and through our inverted system of values where influencers have more power than parents. Our society is decaying as a direct result of our personal failure to do the right thing.
While everyone talks about policies and promises no one is talking about values and how they are lynchpin of society. Or at least they should be. So what if everybody started telling the truth. It would be a psychological disaster. We are in the middle of an ever-growing moral crisis and experiencing a truly shocking societal atrophy. No one can trust anyone else anymore, or even themselves. We are about as far removed from our ‘fair go’ cultural myth as you can get. It is an attitude that is entirely anti-Australian. Our civilisation has become decidedly uncivilised.
Eve Fisher is an independent candidate for Western Victoria Region upper house in the Victorian state election.
Andrew Pollard is a thinker, ideas generator and Eve’s husband.
Read this story on Medium. https://medium.com/@eve.h.fisher/left-and-right-politics-is-dead-0bf5c13e8207?sharedUserId=eve.h.fisher
