ARE WE TILTING AT WINDMILLS?
In seeking an alternative to the mainstream are we just tilting at windmills? Change is part of the human condition and it is best that we accept these changes. And besides, it is argued, these changes are essential. Such an assertion is missing the point. People must be masters of change and not the servants nor worse still the slaves of change. It is every citizens right to be permitted to be part of the Australian conversation and each of us must also recognise our responsibilities as custodians of the land, landscapes and cultural heritage of our bio-region. How we exercise these rights and responsibilities is a personal choice we need to make. In saying this it is essential that we inform ourselves of the issues and challenges that society and the environment face. Custodianship requires the utilisation of not only skills but also imagination and wisdom. Perhaps it is the latter two of these that are missing or in rather short supply from all levels of governance in Australia at the present time. It is through appropriate custodianship that we collectively manage the winds of change.
As a youth I discussed change and technology with my father. His observation was that the promises that are made never seem to materialise . Some 30 years after these discussions I have witnessed this phenomena and I don’t feel that I’m Robinson Crusoe. Perhaps more like Man Friday – oppressed by the shackles of the technological revolution and its imperialism. Earlier generations would be horrified by the erosion of our rights, of our governance, and our enslavement to materialism. 200 years of battling to achieve an independent, democratic and an egalitarian society has been traded in within one generation.
‘It’s the economy, stupid’, they tell me. We are all working to improve the economy. Technological change is producing a new economy. Each day we are bombarded with ‘information’ on the economy, on the latest and best thing-a-me jig that will improve our life to no end. Meanwhile back at the oasis the developing world is slipping further into impoverishment, another group of tribal peoples lose their land (and therefore their culture), a war dismembers a generation and the kids are in the park sticking needles in their arm.
Anyway, stupid here thought it best to go and seek out economy. Phoned up a few friends, did a huge literature search and got the guts of the situation. Stupid here set off on a journey taking in the city, the country and that old icon the outback. I found pollution, land degradation, the destruction of viable rural districts, the extinction of innumerable species, indigenous peoples and their societies in extreme disadvantage and the rise of global totalitarianism. The weather’s looking pretty shonky and can someone tell ‘honest’ John the billabong’s now a muddy pond. At a pub in Coen I asked if they had Eftpos –‘haven’t seen him today’ was the reply. Was economy with him I thought? (or is eftpos feminine?) But alas my search for the Holy Grail of the contemporary world has been futile. Economy escapes me.
This thing called the economy is a construct – it only exists in the mind. Economy is as now common to contemporary culture as the dragon was to earlier cultures. The dragon, a symbol of the ability of humanity to soar like an eagle or slither as a reptile, is a synergy of our concept ‘the economy’. The windmill rotates with the winds of change and it is a dragon after all.
No, we who seek alternatives to the mainstream are not tilting at windmills. We are seeking viable sustainable lifestyles and livelihoods that respect humanity, the environment and ecological systems that support life. We will soar like eagles and oppose the dragon economy and its destructive course of change.
-Gary