Making Sense of the Modern World

Like a lot of people my age, I find most things about the modern world completely baffling. For example, I have no idea why so many people watch reality TV shows, I can't figure out why Apple feels the need to completely replace its operating system every 2 weeks, and why goalkicking in the AFL continues to get progressively worse while all the other skills in the game have improved out of sight since the 1970s. And don't even start me on bands that were formed after 1991 (Powderfinger and the Black Keys excepted).

However, the most troubling thing I have been battling to understand is the rising tide of populism in the western world, and what is liable to happen if it continues. Even a cursory examination of history suggests that if populism continues unchecked things are unlikely to end well, and unless governments take steps to address and expunge its root causes I worry that we could end up with a conflagaration that will make Hiroshima look like a damp squib.

It was therefore fortunate that this week that I was able to go to 3 events which got my synapses wired the right way and helped me gain some more understanding. The first was a lunchtime presentation on the very subject of populism, the second was the Midnight Oil concert on Wednesday night and the final one was a VACCA charity ball on Friday night. How these 3 are linked is not immediately obvious but bear with me for a bit.

I hadn't seen the Oils perform since Boondall in 1990 and it was eerie how little they and the resonance of their music had changed. Poor Jim Moginie was confined to his seat all night due to tearing his hamstring off the bone a few nights earlier, but the signature Peter Garrett dance moves were in full swing, and the guns on drummer Rob Hirst were super impressive for a 60 year old. But what really hit home was the relevance today of songs that in some cases were 30 years old. Numbers like "Redneck Wonderland", "Beds are Burning" and "No Time for Games" could just as easily been written yesterday as One Nation looks set to sweep the Queensland election, Aboriginal affairs are pretty much ignored in Canberra these days and the pressure on school age children has arguably never been higher. You have to wonder what Garrett is thinking when he belts out these songs in 2017: "You fools ! Have you learned nothing?"

Of course there were the usual Garrett grabs between songs covering everything from Adani, climate change deniers, and the gay marriage vote. However while it was all very "PC" that was OK as I generally agreed with the sentiments and its good that he is finding his voice again after the debacle of the last few years. I find what happened to Garrett in his time in the Federal Parliament to be one of the most dispiriting things ever to have occurred in Australian politics. The fact that this articulate, passionate and intelligent man with so much to offer in public life was systematically shredded by the despicable Kevin Rudd and the ALP machine is a scathing indictment on Canberra and is symptomatic of the terrible mess it finds itself in today. But more on that later.

I got invited to the ball by one of our work contractors and while corporate things on a Friday night can be a pain in the neck, as it was supporting a worthy Aboriginal charity my wife and I went along. The night started off well with some interesting indigenous performances but as the speeches started up and were repeatedly thanking the traditional owners of the Melbourne Museum land as well as castigating the British settlers at some length I found myself getting quite agitated and angry. For heavens sake, how about thanking the actual owners of the Melbourne Museum who donated the room so you can have your charity event? And yes while Aborigines clearly suffered at the hands of the British, as a descendant of those settlers I resent being made to feel unwelcome in my own country. It's also not a great idea to insult someone when you're trying to empty their pockets.

These are clearly not sentiments Mr Garrett would endorse and being critical of Aborigines in any sense is certainly not very "PC". So as a result I bit my tongue until we got in the cab home where I was free enough to express what I was thinking without having a bunch of rotten cabbages thrown at me. And this, I'm afraid, is where the whole political correctness thing becomes problematic.

I'm not sure exactly when this started - probably around the time Rodney Rude's career started to wane- but for years now there have been certain taboos about what you can and can't say about certain things in polite society. Some part of this no doubt is due to desire on the part of people to be more civil and tolerant towards one another. But the fact remains that quite a lot of people in the world today hold opinions that are obnoxious to the vast majority of people, and unfortunately just "tut tutting" at them and telling them they shouldn't express those opinions doesn't stop them having those opinions. In fact, doing that just aggravates them more. What's also problematic is that these sorts of people vote, and in case you haven't noticed, against all polls and expectation, they just elected Trump, threw England out of the European Union and gave the Nazi party a toehold in the German Parliament again.

The key thing I took away from the lunchtime presentation on Tuesday was that this flight to populism is all happening under the noses of the so called political establishment, and they still don't get it. I haven't read Hilary Clinton's book on the election loss and don't intend to, but if she is scratching her head looking for reasons why, I'll give her a few now.

Put simply, the system under which western governments and economies have worked since the GFC is broken. It used to be that some of the benefits of economic growth trickled down to the workers, but one of the statistics from the presentation was that of the wealth gains in the USA made since 2008, 98 per cent has gone to the richest 2 per cent. Small wonder Bud the truckie from Kansas City is angry, he hasn't had a pay rise in 10 years.

On top of this, you've got all sorts of technological and geopolitical forces at work which are largely beyond the control of governments but which nonetheless are affecting their constituents and making them very agitated. Companies are sending jobs off to low cost countries and a lot more low skill jobs are being lost due to automation. Technological changes are happening at a rapid rate and leading to some great productivity gains but again, these gains are all accruing to corporations and not their workers.

Ordinary people get worried about these things, particularly when the cost of living keeps creeping up but their income remains static - or worse, they get replaced by a robot or a Bangladeshi on $5 per day. They are looking for someone and something to blame for their predicament and also want their government to do something about it, but all they see is more of the same and they feel like they are not being listened to. Or worse, Hilary calls them "deplorables" and her small "l" liberal supporters try to lecture them on what they can and can't think. Then along comes someone like the Donald or Pauline who speaks their non-PC language and suddenly... we are where we are today.

The issue of course is that populism or populist leaders are never the answer to people's problems. The modus operandi of a populist leader is depressingly familiar wherever you look: promise simple solutions to what often are complex or intractable problems, and attack select groups of society in order to appeal to the worst instincts of your supporter base. Typically the groups in the crosshairs are migrants; Muslims or other religious minorities who are invariably depicted as terrorists; experts, usually scientists or medical professionals; people who support any form of gun control, no matter how unintrusive; any media outlet that isn't run by Rupert Murdoch; and the Chinese, for having the temerity to have aspirations of becoming a modern first world economy. The frustrating stupidity inherent in all of this is that none of these groups are responsible for the predicament people are in, it's the 2 per cent of fat cats who've made off with 98 per cent of the money.

Of course, screw ups happen on a regular basis when populist leaders are in charge because usually they are uniquely unqualified to hold public office. Think about the last time One Nation held a position of influence in Queensland. Almost from day 1 they were wracked by a series of scandals that were outrageous even by Queensland's impressive standards. By the next election, people woke up to the fact that they were incompetent and all their seats were lost. Despite spruiking himself as the consummate deal maker Trump has proven so inept at dealing with Congress that he can't even get the despised Obama-care laws repealed. Plus don't get me started on dealing with international diplomacy via Twitter.

So, what's to be done? Well firstly more conventional governments need to wake up to what's going on and understand the root cause of populist leaders' rise. Then instead of patronising their supporters and calling them "deplorables", they would do well to engage properly with them and educate them about things like why it's a bad idea not to immunise your children or not to listen to the advice of people who know what they're talking about and why voting for someone who has a deep and abiding hatred of foreigners is probably not the way to go in a country as multicultural as Australia. It's amazing sometimes how people will respond when you listen to them and show them a bit of respect. This of course requires a degree of patience and empathy on the part of our political leaders which might be beyond them seeing none of them seem be able work out something as simple as what country they are from. But hey, it's worth a try. 

Also it can't hurt to sling these people some cash, that can usually win back some votes. I'd raise this money by levying a $10 million dollar fine on Apple every time they change their operating system for no reason, and a $5 million dollar fine on TV networks every time they broadcast a fatuous reality TV show. That ought to balance the budget in no time.

Anyway, I'd better go now and watch the news to see what stupid stuff Trump has got up to today. Populist leaders may be scary but even I have to admit they are entertaining.

2016 - The Year of the Ignoramus

Like most of you, I have just returned from a much needed Christmas break. The period away from the office provided an opportunity to reflect on the year just past and to try and figure out how the hell all the things that went on the world happened. Because while a lot of longstanding sporting droughts got broken in 2016, the year was momentous for a whole lot of other reasons which I think it will be remembered for long after people have stopped talking about the Cubs, Bulldogs and Leicester City. Most concerningly in public life in the western world, it was a year where stupidity and ignorance came to the forefront, the consequences of which I fear are going to play out fairly quickly in 2017.

Of course, the public mood that gave rise to things like Brexit, the election of Donald Trump and the rebirth of One Nation has been prevailing for some time. The western world has been going through a sustained period of economic austerity relative to the period before 2008, and people are understandably frustrated that what wealth has been generated has accrued to a relatively thin stratum of society. Also the rise of Asia and particularly China at the expense of historic powerhouses like the USA has been confusing and difficult to swallow for many. I can't comment about Europe and the USA, but in Australia the fact that a succession of governments since 2007 just can't seem to get anything important done and have focused inordinate attention on relative minor issues such as gay marriage and stopping refugee boats drives me insane. However, despite these frustrations, I would seriously question whether things really are that bad relative to the war years or the great depression, and therefore whether western democracies punishing governments by making a series of ill-considered voting choices is really a good idea.

2016's elections were unusual in that people seemed determined to abandon the establishment and plump for maverick candidates promising outcomes that were at odds with orthodox thinking. It was almost as if the more ignorant, outlandish and inexperienced the candidate was, the better. Also what I found particularly puzzling across the various campaigns was that facts were almost an optional extra, to the extent that an alarming description of today's world as "the post-fact world" has entered the vernacular. Certainly an inordinate amount of scorn has been heaped on economists, scientists and other experts by Trump and his ilk when they have produced reports contradicting what they were saying.

The problem however with ignoring facts and the advice of experts and putting unqualified and ignorant people in charge of things is that it isn't viable longer term and is prone to make things much worse than people think they already are. It's interesting that people now seem prepared to elect inexperienced and volatile people like Trump to run the country, whereas if the same approach were taken in say business or any other areas of society, the behaviour would be shut down pretty swiftly. Could you imagine BHP appointing say Shane Warne as its CEO instead of someone with years of experience in business? The shares would plummet. Similarly, would you happily board a Qantas jet whose maintenance over the past year had been overseen by Pauline Hanson instead of a qualified aeronautical engineer? Of course not, you would run a mile. Yet when we get people with no experience in public administration and who quite often have had chequered careers in their chosen field, somehow people have convinced themselves that they are going to make a better fist of things than the mainstream candidates. Interestingly, despite the fact that she has no scientific training whatsoever, Pauline recently had the arrogance to declare after a 30 minute snorkel that the Great Barrier Reef is going just fine and that what all the scientists are saying coral bleaching is a load of rubbish. Lord give me strength.

If history and common sense are any guide, now that ignoramuses in Australia, Europe and the USA are effectively controlling the agenda, the next 2 years are not going to go well. Here are what I see as some of the future consequences of last year's electoral decisions:

• Trump will ignore advice from the State Department (after all, with his zero experience, he knows better than all those expert diplomats, right?) and continue to deal with sensitive and complicated foreign policy issues via Twitter. Eventually a couple of ill-advised tweets will lead to both a major breakdown in relations with China and re-ignite tensions in the Middle East so that the USA gets drawn into more lengthy conflicts into the region, sending the federal deficit spiralling. Despite this, the Republican Congress happily waves through more tax cuts, meaning no money is available for Trump's much vaunted stimulus programme which was meant to create jobs for all the white middle aged battlers who voted for him. The number of mass shootings in the USA escalates dramatically as frustrated white middle aged-battlers take out their frustration on mosques, foreign embassies or any public building within range of an AK-47.
• A Trump, One Nation-esque party will secure a substantial share of the vote at the upcoming German election. Despite her well-meaning but ultimately unpopular attempts to help the Syrian refugees and keep the EU together, Angela Merkel will lose office and under pressure from the far-right group, the new government in Germany will initiate a withdrawal from the EU causing it to collapse completely. The whole of Europe will then enter a 20 year recession as former EU member states scramble to sort out trade arrangements with the major world economies, under which they wind up getting screwed due to their lack of bargaining power.
• Malcolm Turnbull will remain hostage to the likes of George Christensen, Pauline Hanson and Tony Abbott, who emboldened by their Sydney shock-jock mates, will continue to destabilise the government, dispute basic science and be openly offensive to anyone who isn't of the Christian faith or has dark skin (hey, but these days that's to be applauded, right, as it's not being politically correct?). Turnbull eventually resigns in frustration and decided to return to his investment bank to make $50 million per year. In desperation the Liberal party turns back to Abbott but then they realise too late that he is unpopular for a reason and Labor wins the next election by a landslide. Then they too decide to knife each other in the back for the next 3 years instead of governing.
• Amongst all this, business confidence crumbles, central banks in the west are compelled to keep rates down to try to stimulate economic activity, and people's superannuation takes a beating as stock markets go down or at best track sideways. 

If this happens this will of course all be unfortunate seeing it could all have been avoided if governments in the west had just performed a little bit better since the GFC and people thought just a little bit less flippantly about who they want to run their country. However, history suggests that people only learn lessons the hard way, and so maybe we need to let the people with the "L" plates drive the car for a bit. After they crash and burn we might just realise that ignorance in political leadership is not a virtue, it is a major drawback, and out of the wreckage we might get some great leaders emerge, just as they did in the aftermath of World War 2.

Whatever happens, 2017 promises to be another interesting year. I just hope a rogue Trump tweet or 4 means we don't get to see the end of it.