Winton & Lenore: Add.
Winton & Lenore: I thought I'd bring. Since I've been promising to say something about strategy and tactics
Winton & Lenore: to do with the crises that we're facing
at
Winton & Lenore: climate change, environmental dispoliation, and social inequity.
Winton & Lenore: I thought I'd bring the
Winton & Lenore: an introduction to this issue forward, and
Winton & Lenore: I'm not going to be presenting any final answers or anything but
Winton & Lenore: I want. I'd like to start by introducing you to
Winton & Lenore: a very reliable
advisor
Winton & Lenore: I've got in my brain. and his name is Nicolo Machiavelli.
Winton & Lenore: He's dead now, but but he still speaks to me.
Winton & Lenore: Machiavelli is a member of a very long
Winton & Lenore: lineage in political philosophy called civic republicanism.
Winton & Lenore: You can trace it back beyond Aristotle to
Winton & Lenore: probably Pericles funeral oration during the Peloponnesian wars in Athens, but certainly includes
Winton & Lenore: it. It it, and includes quite a few of the Greeks like Aristotle.
Winton & Lenore: and it all goes right up to the present day.
Probably
Winton & Lenore: the best living example of it is the
Winton & Lenore: popular American political philosopher, Michael Sandel, who
Winton & Lenore: was out here in recent years for the Sydney Film Festival, Sydney
writer's festival.
Winton & Lenore: anyway. met
Winton & Lenore: what this tradition is all about is precisely raise public how.
Winton & Lenore: which is Latin for public affairs, literally public things. But
Winton & Lenore: public affairs. and and the basic proposition of civic republicanism is that anything that concerns the public
Winton & Lenore: should be transacted, transacted by the public in public.
Winton & Lenore: and this was essentially a working principle in Athenian democracy.
It involved active citizenship. Citizens were expected to remain abreast
Winton & Lenore: of issues facing the community and to vote on them and to discuss them in the agora.
Public places.
Winton & Lenore: So this was the concept of freedom
Winton & Lenore: that civic republicanism is on about. It's a positive freedom to express views and take action
Winton & Lenore: collectively over issues facing the community facing.
Winton & Lenore: But whatever collectivity we're concerned about.
Winton & Lenore: so this is an active freedom, a freedom to
Winton & Lenore: take action, to say things, to be part of
Winton & Lenore: decision-making quite different from the the rival conception of freedoms, a liberal conception of freedom which means simply
Winton & Lenore: freedom from freedom from
Winton & Lenore: arbitrary interference. So you could have.
Winton & Lenore: you know you. You could have liberal freedoms in a totally autocratic
regime.
Winton & Lenore: But there's no way you could have Republican freedom in an autocratic regime. So
Winton & Lenore: the opposite from the Republican point of view, the opposite of the kind of
Winton & Lenore: set up there they and they
Winton & Lenore: advocate is tyranny. Tyranny is
Winton & Lenore: the bad guy in this
Winton & Lenore: way of looking at
Winton & Lenore: political art
Winton & Lenore: and tyranny essentially means that you've got
Winton & Lenore: okay.
A tyrant
Winton & Lenore: who privatizes
public public affairs.
Winton & Lenore: who regards
Winton & Lenore: the community and its assets as his private faith. And he doesn't have to.
He doesn't have to consult anyone else. He doesn't even have to tell him what he's doing.
Winton & Lenore: Okay? So that that is what the counterpole
Winton & Lenore: to
Winton & Lenore: to civic republicanism. It's also pretty much associated with.
Winton & Lenore: Patriotism. Again, going back to Pericles. Famous speech, famous funeral duration.
and you find it most
Winton & Lenore: civic republican figures, including Machiavelli.
Patriotism!
Winton & Lenore: And they have a very strong.
Winton & Lenore: very strong, emotional connection
Winton & Lenore: to what they conceive of as being their
there
Winton & Lenore: home polity.
Winton & Lenore: and like like the Greek thinkers who have been looking at.
Winton & Lenore: they have a strong sense of
Winton & Lenore: partial agency.
Winton & Lenore: That there is a constant, a constant struggle going on in, and as make it really between for tuna
Winton & Lenore: meaning fate, or you know. the intractable conditions that you face
Winton & Lenore: virtue. So virtue is, you know, speed, courage, strength.
Winton & Lenore: all those things whereby you can. You can
squeeze back for tuna and create
Winton & Lenore: a window of opportunity to get things done that that you need to get done.
Winton & Lenore: And so Machiavelli, really and this is part that most people miss about Machiavelli is this was his. This was really
Winton & Lenore: his starting point. He was in some ways perfectly conventional.
civic, republican.
Winton & Lenore: and He himself was a
Winton & Lenore: he. He was a prefer. He was a political professional. He was a public servant in
in Florence
Winton & Lenore: during the end of the sixteenth into the fifteenth beginning of the sixteenth century. and.
Winton & Lenore: as you probably all already know, he wrote one of the world's most notorious books called The Prince. and by the Prince he didn't mean, you know.
Winton & Lenore: someone with the title prints like
Winton & Lenore: Prince Harry or someone but a ruler.
Winton & Lenore: Someone with real power.
And so
Winton & Lenore: his his training was that he was. He was a senior diplomat and advisor to the Council of 10 in his native Florence.
Winton & Lenore: in an extremely turbulent period in Italian history. Well, you had a lot of would be princes and established princes who were constantly fighting each other.
Winton & Lenore: There were constant territorial
expeditions, and attempt to take over others other people's territories.
Winton & Lenore: There were French and Spanish armies in their
Winton & Lenore: in the mix. So it was. It was a dangerous and extremely
turbulent time.
Winton & Lenore: and he was employed by the the rulers of Florence, the Council of 10
Winton & Lenore: to go out and figure out what was going on.
Winton & Lenore: because essentially around Florence there were 2 forces
Winton & Lenore: at Loggerhead, one was led by
Winton & Lenore: one of these princess, called Cesare Borgia.
Winton & Lenore: Cesare Borgia had a sister you might have heard of, called Erepsia Borgia. She was probably the world's most famous poisoner.
and and
Winton & Lenore: Cesare himself kept a strangler at court to deal with any enemies that fell into his clutches. and their father was the Pope
Winton & Lenore: Alexander the Sixth.
who basically bankrolled what they did so you could get an impression. The board ships were probably
Winton & Lenore: the worst of the bunch were there plenty of others around who were in in the same game. So
Winton & Lenore: the the Council of 10 sent
Winton & Lenore: Machiavelli off 2
Winton & Lenore: to join Cesare's court.
Winton & Lenore: ostensibly to try and negotiate a few deals. Now Cesare was against another, and a coalition was opposed to trying to stop him because he was
Winton & Lenore: on the offensive the whole time, and and Machiavelli was a very smart spy.
Winton & Lenore: and he he gained Chester's confidence. He pretended to be his friend.
and Shezero was a great narcissist, and enjoyed
Winton & Lenore: having this as a professional. listening, keen on his every word, flattering him. and so
Winton & Lenore: make you very carefully watched every move that says I made.
Winton & Lenore: and remembered every utterance he uttered.
Winton & Lenore: and every second night he would write up a very acute report.
Winton & Lenore: and at midnight at the back door would be a bloke on a horse who would take the report back to Florence.
Winton & Lenore: So the the people influence had an extremely professional account of what was going on the balance of forces, because
Winton & Lenore: they didn't know what horse to back.
Winton & Lenore: and therefore Machiavelli was essential to them. Understanding what was going on. That was Machiavelli's
Winton & Lenore: fieldwork before he wrote the Prince.
Winton & Lenore: What history forgets is that while he was writing the Prince a bit later he was also writing a book called Discourses on Livy
Winton & Lenore: Libby was
Winton & Lenore: a great Roman historian
Winton & Lenore: around it
Winton & Lenore: time of Christ, who had
Winton & Lenore: had a meticulous study, particularly of the fall of the Roman Republic
Winton & Lenore: and the rise of the Roman Empire
Winton & Lenore: around 50 Bce.
Winton & Lenore: So in in his discourses, Machiavelli makes absolutely clear what his. what his
course is.
Winton & Lenore: and it he wants to see
Winton & Lenore: Italy united.
Winton & Lenore: He wants all these grubs thrown into the
Winton & Lenore: consigned to the dustbin of history. He wants that foreign armies thrown out, and he wants to establish Italy as a unified, proper, orderly republic.
Winton & Lenore: So when
Winton & Lenore: some character, Mitt, Matseni, and Co. In like
Winton & Lenore: nineteenth century, 18 seventies actually managed to unite Italy.
Winton & Lenore: His name was on their lips. He's the great patriot.
Winton & Lenore: Great, if you like. Patriot saint
Winton & Lenore: of Italy. It says that if you. if you go into the humblest Italian home there'll be 2 books
Winton & Lenore: on the yeah, on the shelf. One will be the Bible.
Winton & Lenore: the other one will be
Winton & Lenore: Il Pinchebe. The Machiavelli's the Prince.
Winton & Lenore: That's yeah, is the importance he has in Italian life.
Winton & Lenore: anyway.
Winton & Lenore: the Prince is was a contribution to a genre that was in circulation in Europe at the time, and they were called mirrors, and they
they were
Winton & Lenore: handbooks or manuals.
or rulers who imagined themselves to be
Winton & Lenore: ordained by God
Winton & Lenore: to rule. This is a divine right of kings, and this was a manual on how to be. These manuals or manuals be how to be a good Christian ruler.
Winton & Lenore: you know the Lord is merciful, but he's also just, and could be firm.
Winton & Lenore: And it was, of course, a a license for absolutism.
Winton & Lenore: So, but it was also these were with. These were kind of ways of disguising the the sheer brutality and rawness of how power was exercised. So these mirrors were
Winton & Lenore: pictures of
Winton & Lenore: wise, godly.
Winton & Lenore: decent rule is.
Winton & Lenore: who were
Winton & Lenore: fictional figures. What lay behind the mask was something else.
Winton & Lenore: and this is. And so Machiavelli wrote in that genre.
Winton & Lenore: But what he wrote was absolutely shocking. He just exposed the whole racket. and his primary
Winton & Lenore: focus was on Cesare Borgia.
Winton & Lenore: He just he just
Winton & Lenore: you know, exposed the whole thing.
Winton & Lenore: and it's written. What is also shocking about the Prince is the tone of it.
Winton & Lenore: It's it's written with absolutely no affect. no moral
Winton & Lenore: comment, no ethical judgement.
Winton & Lenore: If you could imagine a book written.
Winton & Lenore: how to write it, how how to how to Run a sheep station?
Winton & Lenore: It is written more or less in that kind of idiom. So you know
Winton & Lenore: the book on it. Sheep, husbandry might say.
Winton & Lenore: remember to dip your sheep against fly strike once a year in the Prince. It's
Winton & Lenore: if you've ever, if you've overrun somebody's territory. Make sure you kill him.
Winton & Lenore: because otherwise they'd come after you again and make sure you also kill all these closest relatives because they might be out for revenge, and you'd spend your whole time
Winton & Lenore: watching you back and things pieces of advice like I you will find that you have to do really nasty things to make, to.
Winton & Lenore: to gain interest and and preserve your power, and you can do some nice things. So you do the nasty things quickly, and you do the nice things slowly, because people will forget the nasty things you didn't so quickly, and then and the other, the nice things you do will stay in their memories. And he also said.
Winton & Lenore: If you, if you manage to get the people to love you, that's terrific, but don't rely on it.
Winton & Lenore: It's better to be feared than to be loved. and of course the divide and conquer rule, and so on. And this is all said, absolutely deadpad
Winton & Lenore: next. And this, of course, is what enraged all the established power holders, not only in Italy
Winton & Lenore: but throughout Europe. The book immediately found its way onto the Vatican's index of
Winton & Lenore: forbidden books, and many and centuries later it found its way onto Stalin's index of forbidden books in the Soviet Union. So
Winton & Lenore: you know, if you've got 2 guys like that trying to shut you down, you know you're onto something.
Winton & Lenore: So
Winton & Lenore: the.
Winton & Lenore: The the thing that is interesting though, is, if for those who manage to get to
Winton & Lenore: the last chapter, that the tone changes dramatically.
Winton & Lenore: the the chapter is called
Winton & Lenore: Appeal to take Italy and free it from the barbarians.
Winton & Lenore: So who are the barbarians? It's these grubs like Cesare Borgia?
Winton & Lenore: And he's who keep tearing Italy to pieces. And of course the foreign armies have to be kicked out too. So this was a very
Winton & Lenore: passionate appeal
Winton & Lenore: to yeah, to so to progressive people and to revolutionaries. To say, this is what you're up against.
Winton & Lenore: This is how these guys work.
Winton & Lenore: And
this is what you need to do.
Winton & Lenore: So there's an issue. There's an there's a fascinating paradox here
Winton & Lenore: that he's saying that you need to liberate. Note that the chapter heading is Liberate Italy.
Winton & Lenore: and that means you have to deal with these characters. He he had no time
Winton & Lenore: for what he called ana
ethics.
Winton & Lenore: He'd seen one of those in
Winton & Lenore: in Florence in the case of Savanna roller, so
Winton & Lenore: kind of power-hungry monk.
Winton & Lenore: who
Winton & Lenore: held sway for quite a while through his wild rhetoric. But in the end his enemies said, You know he's got no backup. So let's try, and for heresy, and burn him at the State, which is what happened
Winton & Lenore: to saven er rollers. So Machiavelli took that on board.
Winton & Lenore: If you, if you're going to be a prophet of something, make sure you've got the the muscle, the back up
Winton & Lenore: to make it to make it work.
Winton & Lenore: So among the many. So you find that you know through our books following centuries.
Winton & Lenore: people, people are loathed and hated Machiavelli. If they were figures of power
in in England he was known as Old Mick, and
Winton & Lenore: and he there was a kind of
Winton & Lenore: a kind of familiar name for the devil. So, Nick I was after
Winton & Lenore: after my friend
Nickelodeon.
Winton & Lenore: But the progressive people, the revolutionaries, loved him.
Winton & Lenore: They he was their man, and one of the people who
Winton & Lenore: who really used his work to great advantage, at least on paper, was Antonio Graham, she
Winton & Lenore: who was the early twentieth century Italian revolutionary thinker.
and
Winton & Lenore: Graham. She added a kind of coda to
Winton & Lenore: Machiavelli's work of what he called
Winton & Lenore: hegemony hegemonia.
Winton & Lenore: which which was a reference to a tyranny that works through suggestion through influence.
Winton & Lenore: It it doesn't require direct violence.
Winton & Lenore: And so you know it. It's it's a classic way of understanding how the catalyst class maintains power by hegemony by
Winton & Lenore: producing an ideology which makes
Winton & Lenore: the interests of the few look like
Winton & Lenore: the interests of everybody. That is a kind of hegemonic power. So what's
Winton & Lenore: What does all this mean in terms of our present time? What? So what I want to suggest to you is that the reason why we have these current crises
Winton & Lenore: is because it's the. It's the work of a tyranny
Winton & Lenore: that is. that is, slightly, looks slightly different. but isn't in essence different
Winton & Lenore: from what the civic Republican movement has been talking about for the last 2 2 and a half millennia.
Winton & Lenore: the the whole business of making public affairs into
Winton & Lenore: it matters a private
Winton & Lenore: private power. private decision making.
Winton & Lenore: So you know.
Winton & Lenore: if ever there was a public affair.
Winton & Lenore: it is climate change.
Winton & Lenore: But who is making the decisions around?
Winton & Lenore: How? The how? My, how many, how much greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere?
Winton & Lenore: It sure isn't us. It sure isn't the public.
Winton & Lenore: It's in the boardrooms it's in. It's in, particularly
Winton & Lenore: the banking houses of Wall Street, the city of London, and so on.
Winton & Lenore: and the way in which the hegemony works is through is is through neoliberalism which began.
Winton & Lenore: which was established really in the 1980 S. In the
Winton & Lenore: co-terminus Regimes of Maggie Thatcher in Britain, and Ronald Reagan in America.
Winton & Lenore: Which produced the Washington consensus. I'm summarizing here
the Washington consensus
Winton & Lenore: of the into the Imf International Monetary Fund, the World Bank. the World Trade Organization, and the US. Treasury, with their relay stations in the Bank of England
Winton & Lenore: and the European Europe, the European Central Bank. So these all established 2
Winton & Lenore: 2 2
Winton & Lenore: invisible forms of hegemony. The one is to do with the forms of calculation.
Finance.
Winton & Lenore: neoliberalism is essentially a an ideology of finance capital.
Winton & Lenore: and this means that investments have to be have to be
Winton & Lenore: approved on through maximising return on investment.
Winton & Lenore: and the effect of of successful
Winton & Lenore: corporative decisions is
Winton & Lenore: maximizing returns on investment which in turn increase the value of
Winton & Lenore: shares
Winton & Lenore: so increases in share value is what
Winton & Lenore: is what corporations are aiming at
Winton & Lenore: and at the national level.
Winton & Lenore: They're aiming at the increase in in gross domestic product.
Winton & Lenore: These are all absolutely abstract concepts that have nothing whatsoever to do with the survival of the planet.
Winton & Lenore: Equitable distribution of goods, or anything like that, purely. purely
Winton & Lenore: forms of calculation
Winton & Lenore: that
systematically exclude
Winton & Lenore: any of these considerations. To do with
Winton & Lenore: environmental destruction. and to do with the equitable distribution of
Winton & Lenore: wealth, income, and life chances globally, nationally, locally, suburb by suburb.
Winton & Lenore: So
Winton & Lenore: so the question is,
Winton & Lenore: how you how you break that. How you break down, how you break down those
Winton & Lenore: systems of calculation, as the and
Winton & Lenore: I should mention at the at the organisational level. There's also a subset of neoliberalism called new the new
Winton & Lenore: public management. And it's the intention is to make public management like private management.
Winton & Lenore: to make public institutions function as if they were corporations.
Winton & Lenore: I've had personal experience of this in university life, where.
Winton & Lenore: you know, disciplines, academic disciplines, and faculty suddenly became
Winton & Lenore: profit centers in terms of the way the university accounting worked, and you could have a really good research center or a really good
Winton & Lenore: disciplinary
Winton & Lenore: unit which was academically successful, internationally
acclaimed.
Winton & Lenore: But if it wasn't turning a profit. it was closed down.
Winton & Lenore: and that, you know. Certainly it happened to me at Macquarie University, and it's a
Winton & Lenore: familiar story. I guess in in academic life.
But so.
Winton & Lenore: lastly, I just want to come. So I guess I'm putting that framework out to indicate that
Winton & Lenore: we have to be aware of these things, we have to be aware what we can be to be genuinely subversive
Winton & Lenore: of these forms of calculation, this form of governance, of new public management, which is
which is entirely focused on numbers.
Winton & Lenore: It's hierarchical and authoritarian!
Winton & Lenore: How we can subvert
Winton & Lenore: all those ways in which our world is organized and the way
Winton & Lenore: decisions
Winton & Lenore: are being made that affect and that that affect the crises we're concerned about.
Winton & Lenore: But I just wanted in in closing.
Winton & Lenore: And before I and I invite Lenore to.
Winton & Lenore: I'm back to to say something
Winton & Lenore: if she wants to it firstly,
Winton & Lenore: What I've said has got it is on top of the obvious importance of mobilisation. I mean back to. you know. good old fashioned civic republicanism. It's important to have a mobilised citizenry
Winton & Lenore: to take to to
Winton & Lenore: claim control of public affairs. And that's what people are obviously doing, and in various actions, and
Winton & Lenore: on the on behalf of the climate.
Winton & Lenore: the environment
Winton & Lenore: and so forth. But the other one is to bear in mind that a really interesting distinction that
vacuumlly made between liberation
Winton & Lenore: and freedom.
Winton & Lenore: that that the action of liberation is to get rid of the grubs and and get rid of the dictators, get rid of the tyrants, but that does not guarantee freedom.
Winton & Lenore: and we can see, you know, from
Winton & Lenore: in modern history than the liberation movements that have succeeded
Winton & Lenore: in overthrowing a tyranny. Russian revolution, Chinese revolution, all the national liberation.
Winton & Lenore: movements involved in decolonization.
Winton & Lenore: not delivered freedom. So freedom is in the. In the republican conception. Freedom is the dispersal of power. It means power is spread
Winton & Lenore: across the
Winton & Lenore: across the citizenry, or in or at least
Winton & Lenore: it. At least it's decentralized. And so this so
trick is
Winton & Lenore: in Machiavelli's view to have
capable of bringing town
Winton & Lenore: a tyrant. But then dispersing. and democratisation is a wave achieving that if you, if you can do it.
Winton & Lenore: the problem is, course, that the the leaders, the the liberators.
Winton & Lenore: often quickly turn into the new tyrants. So that's that's and Maggie Valley was on to that problem.
Winton & Lenore: and certainly one we need to bear in mind
Winton & Lenore: you want to say anything, and I mean if we can carry it on to the next discussion. Session, too. But
Winton & Lenore: hmm
the work.
Winton & Lenore: Well, we've got 10 min.
Sylvia.
Winton & Lenore: Sorry.
Then we'll dig into it.
Winton & Lenore: Oh, I can do. Would you like to get in? Would you like to get into it later on. It's a it's okay.
Good.
Winton & Lenore: This is the head of
Winton & Lenore: Loveline. Now, feature power. Sorry
Winton & Lenore: I don't know.
Winton & Lenore: When Winton and I started having a a conversation about
Winton & Lenore: the issue of. So the the issue of what can we do has come up so many times already here, and the issue of we've got to fix the system versus we've got a personal responsibility.
Winton & Lenore: we winter and I have slightly different
Winton & Lenore: orientations on that. And we started
Winton & Lenore: discussing it, and then Stephen said, Why don't we have this conversation with the group?
Winton & Lenore: So we thought Winton and I might start by just
Winton & Lenore: thrashing it out a little bit, having a dialogue about it. He says debate. I don't want a debate, I think debates are where you take positions, and yeah.
Winton & Lenore: you know. defend them. I'm I'm genuinely interested in
Winton & Lenore: thinking together and coming up. What I would love at the end of this retreat is for us to walk out of here feeling like, Okay, I've got a sense of what I can do
Winton & Lenore: and so to explore Winton's thinking on it.
Winton & Lenore: thinking on it, and then explore after that together on it. So
Winton & Lenore: that's what we thought. And that's where I'm thinking we've got 7 min until afternoon tea. So maybe we
Winton & Lenore: break a little bit early rather than starting the conversation and then coming. Yeah, stopping in 7 min.
Winton & Lenore: When's the next session? We can.
Winton & Lenore: Yup.
Winton & Lenore: thanks. Does the book just been which have a review
looking at the vaccine
Winton & Lenore: to get massive conservative, allow
Winton & Lenore: 60, 50 years. What's succeeded on what happens?
Alright.
Winton & Lenore: The conclusion story we have people
Winton & Lenore: was that where people had a plan for what they were going to do next, and how they were going to do it.
Winton & Lenore: Then there was a chance of success without that. By the time you worked it all out amongst yourselves it was too late. Someone else had taken the running, and I wonder whether the democratization sharing the power
Winton & Lenore: second part of what you described isn't at risk of the existing system simply reforming and strengthening its position.
Winton & Lenore: Well, the the existing system is is pretty anti-democratic. When you think about it, I mean the the most of
really really important decisions taken. I've taken
Winton & Lenore: outside
Winton & Lenore: the conventional political arena.
Winton & Lenore: So democratisation is itself a subdivision. Now, if if you introduce workers.
Winton & Lenore: you know
Winton & Lenore: industrial democracy or something like you're already on the way out of of of the system, but at the
Winton & Lenore: I'm not sure that the system is as strong as it looks. It's I've just been reading a book by Wolfgang Streak.
Winton & Lenore: who, I think, is yeah.
Winton & Lenore: a great expert in the area, who's saying essentially that
Winton & Lenore: that
Winton & Lenore: neoliberalism is is on the ropes.
Winton & Lenore: It seriously undermined itself by causing
Winton & Lenore: global financial crisis in 2,008, which was entirely its own doing.
And it had to be massively bailed out by
Winton & Lenore: States, which ended the whole myth of the small State. And now, with the pandemic. you know there isn't. There are no more small states left even in.
Winton & Lenore: you know, seriously now, liberal countries.
Winton & Lenore: So I you know what strick is arguing is. We're actually going into a transitional phase. We but we're not trans
Winton & Lenore: trend transition transitioning
Winton & Lenore: into something recognizable. Now this, it's a bit like
Winton & Lenore: the transition from feudalism to capitalism, you know. Feudalism was breaking down.
But nobody had it. and blueprint of a new capitalist society, it just
Winton & Lenore: it just evolved, it just grew. And
Winton & Lenore: so
Winton & Lenore: you know, I'm not sure about the the point about mass movements, I'm thinking. I'm thinking particularly of the anti-war movement during the Vietnam period, which was
Winton & Lenore: the beginning of it.
Winton & Lenore: of enormous radicalisation in the left, and it. and it sure brought into the war. So it did achieve its. It didn't achieve
Winton & Lenore: anything further because it really didn't have anything else in mind. It was more things like Occupy Wall Street black lives matter, those kind of fairly, quickly rising and quickly fading yeah movements that we've had. And his point was that
Winton & Lenore: essentially
Winton & Lenore: once the noise died down.
Winton & Lenore: no one had a positive program to take forward, and therefore, when people went home, there was nothing else to come out for. Yeah, it's absolutely right, I think. Absolutely right.
Winton & Lenore: Just a very quick one.
Winton & Lenore: Last time I visited Macaveles in trails in Florence I don't remember
Winton & Lenore: the the context of them having any media to deal with and back in the fifteenth and sixteenth century.
Winton & Lenore: So when you talk about quite correctly, the subset of the calculations being the
Winton & Lenore: privatization of the public service, which is anti what Tiberius set up in the first place, when we come back after afternoon. T. I'm wondering whether we also need to be thinking about the subset of what potential role media could or should play in the future.
Winton & Lenore: Absolutely. Yeah.
Winton & Lenore: I might add that one of the books is
Winton & Lenore: that inspired me to give. This talk was
Winton & Lenore: written in by a Swedish
Winton & Lenore: journalist and writer called Andesh Earnbach.
He wrote this book called The Secrets of Power. an essay on Machiavelli.
Winton & Lenore: and it was I was in Sweden at the time. a working in a research institute there.
Winton & Lenore: and this book was dropped like a bombshell into the
Winton & Lenore: into the political discussion.
Winton & Lenore: If the book got rave reviews and the Social Democratic Prime Minister got up on his hind legs and said.
Winton & Lenore: if Machiavelli was alive in Sweden today he would be a member of our party.
Winton & Lenore: and and immediately the Conservative
Winton & Lenore: opposition leader said, That's nonsense. He would be a member of our partners.
Winton & Lenore: and every one then agreed that he should be nominated to be Swede of the year.
Winton & Lenore: So
Winton & Lenore: yes, these ideas have had a really
Winton & Lenore: powerful effect on
Winton & Lenore: you know. People had forgotten about Machiavellian. Suddenly there he was in the headlines again.
Winton & Lenore: and very quick, just following up on that. Why was that? Was it because he described how powerful
Winton & Lenore: really works? And it was all factual. Why? Why, I think it was because
Winton & Lenore: It came across as a as a suddenly, as a sympathetic figure, but also the the way in which you
Winton & Lenore: talked about liberation versus freedom, and so on, I thought, be
Winton & Lenore: really interesting points of controversy and debate and discussion in in in the media there. I mean that Swedish newspapers a bit like you know French ones in that. They've they contain philosophical
Winton & Lenore: discussions.
Winton & Lenore: It's not just, you know, who's been murdered recently. It's it's
Winton & Lenore: Really, you know.
Winton & Lenore: Thrashing out basic issues that are quite in a
in a refreshing way.
Winton & Lenore: Umptus, when there was a question on line. What was the name of that book that you said dropped like a bombshell?
Winton & Lenore: Well, it it, the translated. It is the secrets of power. It's not. It doesn't exist in English. I don't think
Winton & Lenore: a an essay on Machiavelli.
Winton & Lenore: A fortnight ago I went to a talk
Winton & Lenore: in Port Macquarie by a man called. I think his name is Mark Dusseldorf.
Winton & Lenore: He's just written a book on the tools that people in power use to stay in tools and his his whole talk was about how.
Winton & Lenore: if we can do something to disable the tools
Winton & Lenore: that people used to stay. But so so one of them, for example, is is use of the media, and I think there were 7 of them. I bought the book, but it's on. It's on my list to get to, so I haven't read it. But it was an interesting idea that power is maintained by various
Winton & Lenore: means, and if you can actually chop away at those tools. Those means. Then you've got another avenue of of bringing those structures down. Yeah, yeah, I think that's that's sort of
in line with Machiavelli, too. I look it's
Winton & Lenore: It's 30'clock. Perhaps we should break down
Winton & Lenore: back to this in half an hour.
Winton & Lenore: Des, you were going to ask a question.
Winton & Lenore: I will ask a question.
Winton & Lenore: Just throwing into the into the part terms of
Winton & Lenore: the act.
Winton & Lenore: and the seeing it
Winton & Lenore: actions within a like. Again in a global way.
Winton & Lenore: because a lot of these problems obviously are not
Winton & Lenore: just Australia alone.
Winton & Lenore: But we. We are part of the problem both from a climate perspective and from an economic perspective.
Winton & Lenore: But maybe you can some thoughts on dealing with cultural differences. So if I look at, say Russia, for example.
Winton & Lenore: where nothing much has changed since Tsarist times, and the kind of the society falls very comfortably.
Winton & Lenore: the Tsar through to Stalin to put in today and continues to function that way. So this is these, these, these whole measures you were talking about, freedom from. But
Winton & Lenore: the
Winton & Lenore: is Isaiah. Berlin wrote an essay many years ago about freedom from and freedom to and and the freedom to, are often limited, or people's perception of freedom is limited.
Winton & Lenore: So it's just a comment. Or would you want to?
Winton & Lenore: That's just a comment. Take it. No.
Winton & Lenore: 2 6 point s. 2,
Winton & Lenore: various cultural strap back the critique
Winton & Lenore: it even within, because houses very much. A
Winton & Lenore: she'll be right. Society, so people will.
Winton & Lenore: Will will jump up down from barricades.
Winton & Lenore: Yeah, I'm not sure that. And kind of cultural change or lack of change is the right box to put the Russian problem. It just seems to me that it was just another case of
Winton & Lenore: a liberation that was achieved.
and there was a period when there was.
Winton & Lenore: it looked like there was going to be genuine democracy, genuine freedom in the
Winton & Lenore: literally Soviet period when there were Soviets, which you know, workers and peasants councils. But they were all shut down when
Winton & Lenore: when the you know, as the regime became more authoritarian, and particularly after
Stalin took over. I mean that the whole
Winton & Lenore: as the whole, the word Soviet, just became a kind of relic from when when all power is concentrated in the poly bureau and the old bureau, and so on. So II think it's a it's an
Winton & Lenore: it's a bit fatalistic to think of it as being a problem of culture. I think it's a problem of institutions and failure to
Winton & Lenore: carry through
Winton & Lenore: on on the democratic angle. In that case.
Winton & Lenore: But
Winton & Lenore: I think we'll go over to Lenory now. if you want to have the
Winton & Lenore: sure. So why don't I just sort of introduce our
Winton & Lenore: topic for discussion? So
Winton & Lenore: the key issue that we would like to discuss. And we think you would, too. Is this one of
Winton & Lenore: what do we do?
Winton & Lenore: But in the sense of to what extent do we have to change the system.
Winton & Lenore: and to what extent
Winton & Lenore: is it about us individually making our choices as individuals
Winton & Lenore: correct me? If I'm wrong if I say this incorrectly, or represent your view incorrectly, Winton, but where? Where? We were yesterday afternoon, talking about this, Winton was much more emphasizing the system.
Winton & Lenore: you know. And the system is the problem. We've got to change the system. And
Winton & Lenore: my tendency at this moment, my current thinking, my working theory
Winton & Lenore: is that it's both very much both
Winton & Lenore: and I. So I do agree that we need to find a way to change
Winton & Lenore: some elements of the system.
Winton & Lenore: and I'm hopeful that actually. we are already finding ways to do that.
Winton & Lenore: and I'll talk tonight. I think it is about one way in which I've been involved in that
Winton & Lenore: but I also equally
Winton & Lenore: think this question about what can I do?
Winton & Lenore: Has to start with me and my life and my individual choices.
Winton & Lenore: and in this day and age.
Winton & Lenore: as a consumer and as an investor with superannuation funds. And what have you?
Winton & Lenore: That I actually
Winton & Lenore: that those those decisions really matter.
Winton & Lenore: and so have I. Am I on track so far?
Winton & Lenore: Yes. Would you like to make any clarifications? Look? I don't think we're disagreeing about the need for personal change
Winton & Lenore: and for personal activism. But I that
Winton & Lenore: you know, we both agree that the system has to be changed, I'd probably say.
Winton & Lenore: and it has to be subverted because we don't have an alternative system at the moment to go to. But that may not matter. I mean, it might well be
Winton & Lenore: that the whole structure of globalization, which itself is a political project of neoliberalism.
Winton & Lenore: the whole idea that every one would march to the same drum
Winton & Lenore: emanating from Washington was an idea.
Winton & Lenore: That during the Maggie, Maggie Thatcher and Ronald Reagan period before that, you know, nation states had
Winton & Lenore: considerably more
Winton & Lenore: power and banks and other commercial institutions.
Winton & Lenore: Could had a lot more.
had had a lot more
Winton & Lenore: autonomy, relative autonomy, but more
Winton & Lenore: autonomy. So one of the things that can happen, of course, is to break down
Winton & Lenore: the globalization aspect so that that power is returned
Winton & Lenore: to the local, to the national, regional and local areas. And so they become much more sensitive to public opinion. So that might be, one place to start is
Winton & Lenore: is there? And also at the grassroots? I mean, I think it's it's great. When people set up cooperatives and other enclaves where the system is excluded, it can't. It can't operate.
Winton & Lenore: So
Winton & Lenore: I we obviously have to work on all fronts.
Winton & Lenore: So something that comes up for me in that is.
Winton & Lenore: is it helpful to see the system as evil? Yesterday I think it was when you were talking about historical, aboriginal lifestyles where they worked 3 HA day and then spent the rest of the day
Winton & Lenore: playing and
Winton & Lenore: indulging in culture. And what have you? They also didn't have hospitals to sustain, and research facilities and educational facilities. And
Winton & Lenore: you know, governments to
Winton & Lenore: pay for. And you know, what have you?
Winton & Lenore: We do? So we are. We can't. We're in a system. We're in a system of government. And you know justice system
Winton & Lenore: policing system. And we've got our look at our systems. and they're not all bad and
Winton & Lenore: and we can influence them.
Winton & Lenore: So
Winton & Lenore: I'd be interested to clarify with you. To what extent, when you talk about subverting this system way, are we talking about the same thing when we are talking about the system.
Winton & Lenore: And B.
Winton & Lenore: To what extent do you see it as
Winton & Lenore: something we've got to work with, and we're kind of stuck with, and we just need to improve it versus
Winton & Lenore: we've got a
Winton & Lenore: shut it out somehow, or shut it down somehow.
Winton & Lenore: Look, I don't think the system may not. Whether it's civil or not is sort of beside the point. It's doing what it's doing, and that is
Winton & Lenore: putting life on this planet at risk. But I think the system is not, is not static.
Winton & Lenore: it it has, it has
Winton & Lenore: growing into what it is now an extremely destructive I hegemony. but it it is also very unstable. The whole history of capitalism is a history of instability.
Winton & Lenore: Everything we know, all the economic knowledge we have comes from crises in the system. not how it's it's a bit like in medicine. All we know about the human body is
Winton & Lenore: looking at it when it's sick. And so I think this, I think the system is going to change anyway.
Winton & Lenore: partly because of the sort of things that I was mentioning.
Winton & Lenore: Golf gun strikes work that in many ways. The system is, is beginning to fail
Winton & Lenore: on its own terms, and it is.
Winton & Lenore: and it is prone to crises. And so, you know, when it's it's it's it's not, you know. We don't need to rayify it to this extent that it's that it's a solid thing that we have to kick down. It can. It certainly is something that can be that can be changed. And I mentioned the other night about institutional outflanking.
But which is one way of thinking about.
Winton & Lenore: Where a system is is really not working.
Winton & Lenore: say the reserve Bank of Australia, which keeps jacking up interest rates. If there was no an alternative source of finance
Winton & Lenore: or an alternative way of accumulating capital. Which would
Winton & Lenore: you leave dysfunctional institutions like that, high and dry that people just walk away from them because there's an alternative. They are given another example of
Winton & Lenore: ways in which the system could be changed without
Winton & Lenore: without really, you know.
Winton & Lenore: blood on the street is, if you had a
Winton & Lenore: I'm just plucking this out of the air. But if you passed a law that said that companies with more than a hundred
Winton & Lenore: employees must
Winton & Lenore: retain 50% of their operating surpluses annually
Winton & Lenore: to reinvest in their companies and issue shares
Winton & Lenore: to that value, and the shares are to be held by
Winton & Lenore: by funds
Winton & Lenore: whose whose boards are elected by the people
Winton & Lenore: which people.
Winton & Lenore: but everyone, everyone is on the voting on the electorate electoral rolls.
Winton & Lenore: Okay, that would mean that you would start accumulating
Winton & Lenore: an an enormous amount of economic power
Winton & Lenore: in the hands of the public.
Winton & Lenore: because these companies are making decisions that affect the public, and therefore should be in the public domain.
Winton & Lenore: Nobody's losing anything. There's no expropriation going on.
Nobody's.
Winton & Lenore: you know. destroying the corporate world. But the corporate world is gradually becoming publicly controlled. Nobody. There's no losers.
Winton & Lenore: but the winners are the public who would be then able to say, Well, we're not going to tolerate, you know, in investment projects, etc., that are
Winton & Lenore: damaging to the environment and and it otherwise socially unacceptable.
Winton & Lenore: So a couple of things there. You said earlier in that. get a little
Winton & Lenore: section. That the system has, you know. created the situation where and planet Earth is at risk.
Winton & Lenore: Yes, and
Winton & Lenore: so so are we individually. So when when you say things like that, I think you know, it sounds like you're putting all of the responsibility on the system. But I think of
Winton & Lenore: you know that that woman sitting in a four-wheel drive with a windows down and the air conditioner on. and and I think if I started to mention it to yesterday, an article I read last week about
Winton & Lenore: how, since
Winton & Lenore: between 2,010 and 2,022. And I think this is a worldwide statistic.
Winton & Lenore: Suvs forward ice have become the most popular type of vehicle.
Winton & Lenore: And to me this is actually a really classic case of what we're talking about. So yes, there's some. There's corporates
Winton & Lenore: acting for their own benefit there, because Suvs are cheaper to make. and they can charge you a lot of money for them, so they're highly profitable. So yes, they're acting in a harmful way, because Suvs. So this this article was saying, if we had
Winton & Lenore: now.
Winton & Lenore: if we had kept the average size vehicle that we had in 2,010, and that had stayed like that until now.
Winton & Lenore: our, the fuel consumption of the motor industry. I think they're only talking about new calves.
Winton & Lenore: The fuel consumption would have reduced by 30%. But but below what it is now. if we had just kept the same average sized car as we had in 2,010, yet
Winton & Lenore: the automotive companies have seen. Oh, yeah, we can do what we want to do here. We can benefit ourselves by
Winton & Lenore: heavily marketing these very profitable vehicles that are dreadful for the environment
Winton & Lenore: and human beings. Individuals have done the same thing. They've g10, I like the idea of an Suv, and they're not cheap.
Winton & Lenore: So there's something driving
Winton & Lenore: that decision. They're not being made. They're not being forced to. Yes, it's being marketed to them. Or what have you? But individuals are choosing to buy Suvs more than they did before.
Winton & Lenore: So
Winton & Lenore: individuals, too, are
Winton & Lenore: making harmful decisions to benefit themselves. So
Winton & Lenore: in a way. the corporates and the individuals are doing the same thing.
Winton & Lenore: They're making a decision about in one case what to produce and sell and market, and in the other case, what to buy. which is a harmful decision. and they're doing it because it benefits them
Winton & Lenore: so we can't say that it's
Winton & Lenore: oh. Toyota's false.
Winton & Lenore: and we can't say it's all the individual's fault.
Winton & Lenore: But
Winton & Lenore: both are
Winton & Lenore: saying, bugger, the environment bugger the fact that my decision's about to cause harm. I want it.
Winton & Lenore: Well, this is this. just this issue is a public
Winton & Lenore: affair, its Ray's publicum. And so
Winton & Lenore: We, the people. might want to say, put a hundred per cent. Sales tax on any new
Winton & Lenore: passenger vehicle which
Winton & Lenore: has a greater fuel consumption than 3 litres per 100 kilometres.
Winton & Lenore: How about that? So in this article they actually did talk about some systemic changes that the people who wrote this report on the changes in the motor industry.
Winton & Lenore: They've they've recommended some legislative changes
Winton & Lenore: to do with cars with above a certain level of, you know, below a certain level of fuel efficiency cars above a certain size, because the actual footprint of cars of these Suvs is also, you know, getting bigger and bigger.
Winton & Lenore: So yes, there definitely, there are some, and those are already being recommended.
Winton & Lenore: Then there's the issue of individual choice. You know, we create the market, we we create the demand for it. So how
Winton & Lenore: you know to me this is where Duma practice comes in.
Winton & Lenore: Can I just insert a comment at this point, there's a topic being on a question being raised online about the role of media. And you're talking between system and individual choice. But of course, the media sits in there as part of the system, and obviously influences the individual.
Winton & Lenore: and the statement was, you know, in relation to the immense power of the media. As Winton briefly made in his talk, and how that fits in, and how that could make a difference. The Murdoch Media dictates so much of our societal norms through the way it reports, and this is common knowledge. But nothing seems to change with. This was the statement made, but I think it. It fits into this conversation somewhere. I think
Winton & Lenore: it does. And almost in the same way. there are people consuming the Murdoch Media. You know there are people reading it, loving it.
Winton & Lenore: adhering to it.
Winton & Lenore: And there are people who don't as well. And it's interesting to know I know about this because the media has reported it
Winton & Lenore: so the media again. Be really
Winton & Lenore: uncomfortable if we start talking about the media, as you know the baddies here as well, because they they're also
Winton & Lenore: doing amazing things about, you know, raising these issues and raising our awareness about these things.
Winton & Lenore: So
Winton & Lenore: back to this issue of you know, what can we do?
Winton & Lenore: And my sense is, we look for opportunities to
Winton & Lenore: bolster good changes that are being
Winton & Lenore: suggested.
Winton & Lenore: We look for ways that we can influence the political system.
Winton & Lenore: I remember at your book launch you talked about
Winton & Lenore: media and and supporting independent media.
Winton & Lenore: so I guess the question is, you know, if we're we're a bunch of caring aware
Winton & Lenore: people. And and I see this as an incredible resource for good in the world.
Winton & Lenore: How do we grapple with this? It's the system, and it's our individual choices. And even if everyone in here was driving an electric vehicle by the way. In the last 2 years the fuel consumption has dropped by. It was 4.2 or something in Australia, driven by the growth in electric vehicles.
Winton & Lenore: So just since 2,012 just since 2020
Winton & Lenore: 2,
Winton & Lenore: they're they're now 15 of the new car market. So you know our role as consumer there.
Winton & Lenore: you know, the only reason there's been any reduction in fuel consumption by new cars is because of consumers using their role as consumer
Winton & Lenore: to create a market for something good.
Winton & Lenore: Well, why don't we? And one thing we could do is abolish the advertising industry.
Winton & Lenore: And that would probably reduce the sale of new cars by that 50%.
Winton & Lenore: I've got i've actually got a plan
Winton & Lenore: that's
Winton & Lenore: that that would abolish advertising of things like motor cars. And I just have a a website where people anyone who want to buy a car
Winton & Lenore: could go into, say
Winton & Lenore: the Ford page, and where they get information about the sort of cars that Ford are selling.
Winton & Lenore: None. None of it would be hyperbolic. It would just say it's got 4 wheels and and and an engine, and and it, you know, has a maximum speed of 100 kilometres an hour. And it costs this.
Winton & Lenore: and there'd be other specifications, and then you would complement that with
Winton & Lenore: a beefed up version of choice magazine.
Winton & Lenore: but which which had a review of just as as much as many as possible of all the consumer durables on the market.
Winton & Lenore: and it would be made very available, very cheap. So anyone who is thinking of buying a car
Winton & Lenore: would go to choice
Winton & Lenore: and see what was going from the type of car they wanted, and then check it out against
Winton & Lenore: the forward page on the website.
Winton & Lenore: and there would be no manipulation whatsoever. They could just make a cool, calculated decision on what they were going to buy.
Winton & Lenore: I would compliment that with
Winton & Lenore: that, everyone who's concerned about climate.
Winton & Lenore: yeah. supporting the establishment of a car factory
Winton & Lenore: where they produced a people's car
Winton & Lenore: that would be ecologically sound. It would meet the highest. highest safety
Winton & Lenore: requirements and would be strictly standardized. So there'd be economies of scale. and the car would cost a new car would cost $5,000.
Winton & Lenore: Good luck. With that
Winton & Lenore: I mean marketing unit. So I mean, this is an interesting. It's an interesting
Winton & Lenore: instance of what we're talking about. Marketing. People
Winton & Lenore: put their stuff out there deliberately trying to influence us. and we allow ourselves to be influenced
Winton & Lenore: so, and not everybody does. So it's not like we're sheep, you know. We're it's not like
Winton & Lenore: we're destined to to follow what the marketers tell us.
Winton & Lenore: So
Winton & Lenore: back to the thing of what can we do? I mean, they're, you know all interesting ideas, and I have flights of fancy
Winton & Lenore: sometimes to myself, but realistically so. I'm I'm thinking, from
Winton & Lenore: we've got what 6 years
Winton & Lenore: to really shake things up
Winton & Lenore: on the environment. And if we don't.
Winton & Lenore: it's it's really, really not good for human civilization going forward. 2030, they're saying, that's kind of the year.
Winton & Lenore: So if we were to think about it that way and say, Well, we've got 6 years.
Winton & Lenore: What do we do?
Winton & Lenore: I think those flights of fancy are. Probably they're not going to happen in 6 years if they ever happen. So.
Winton & Lenore: what in your view.
Winton & Lenore: can
Winton & Lenore: individuals do if we think about what can I do to help change the system? And what can I do
Winton & Lenore: as an individual? I mean, we could almost think about it with those 3 concentric circles that I spoke about on the first night? You know. What can I do in my own life? What can I do in my community? What can I do
Winton & Lenore: at a at a global level, like climate change, you know. Issue.
Winton & Lenore: what's your
Winton & Lenore: orientation? In the answer to that question? Well, yeah, I mean, time is very short. It's not 50 years. I think it's yeah. The these days. They're talking much shorter
Winton & Lenore: timeframe. If we to get away from that, you know to avoid it. A tipping point and especially to
Winton & Lenore: avoid going over to. I mean, I think we've lost battle for 1.5
Winton & Lenore: degrees above
Winton & Lenore: pre-industrial levels. But I would say I mean something like a hundred percent tax on
Winton & Lenore: inefficient cost cars that can be put through Parliament next next year. There's no, nothing. There's nothing to stop that sort of thing. So what would we do for that?
Winton & Lenore: To make that happen? We would join a political party. We we would create a have. We started a grassroot movement. I mean, you are a veteran of this sort of thing. We should be asking you. I mean that that was a terrific action. Getting the teals up, is it? It has. It's been a massive step apart from anything else, getting rid of it
Winton & Lenore: environmentally totally irresponsible government.
Winton & Lenore: So I think that that's the beginning of a model of how we should, how we we should be confronting this. So I mean to to continue down that line, and to make it clear to the existing major parties that there, that they will continue to lose votes as they are doing now, if they don't wake up to
these pub, these
Winton & Lenore: popular public demands to radically change things.
Winton & Lenore: And I think the 100% sales tax
Winton & Lenore: on inefficient new vehicles would be a great way to start.
Winton & Lenore: It's just 1 one thing I mean is many other things, obviously, that we're other aspects of this that need to be followed up. But I also to get back to what I was talking about
Winton & Lenore: before afternoon tea. I just think it's important that we keep thinking strategically. And we keep thinking also. This is this is not just about
Winton & Lenore: environmentalists. It's also as a interests
Winton & Lenore: which are converging with ours against the system particularly.
Winton & Lenore: but particularly the way in which
Winton & Lenore: we're treating the global South. the way we we continue to rip off
Winton & Lenore: what what we used to call several countries. We.
Winton & Lenore: for some reason that's
Winton & Lenore: not an appropriate way of talking about them now. But it seems to me that we we still have this in a quality issue
Winton & Lenore: that's going to come down and visit us very, very hard, clickily when we start getting waves of of climate refugees.
Winton & Lenore: which is very predictable.
Winton & Lenore: We really do have a stake in
in
Winton & Lenore: stopping this galloping inequality
Winton & Lenore: on every level, including the global south, global north level.
Winton & Lenore: So there's there are other
Winton & Lenore: other movements, other people who've got concerns that are converging with ours because we're up against the same
Winton & Lenore: forms of calculation, the same globalisation
Winton & Lenore: problem that that is causing
Winton & Lenore: global heating.
Winton & Lenore: Shall we open this up to sure people? Yeah. In fact, Kate, I saw you. Well, 1 s, Kate, if I can. Just. There's a comment that was made here that's sort of relevant, and and maybe might
Winton & Lenore: sports my dears as well. And from Meg or the group in Brisbane. They say I see some benefit in Buddhists, slash secular Buddhists extrapolating from the discussion this morning about creating the necessary conditions to the political action.
Winton & Lenore: and what it would consist of that creates the political, necessary conditions to addressing the current malaise. Is this a political project of the human spirit worth consideration.
Winton & Lenore: Could you repeat the last phrase
Winton & Lenore: is this, yeah. Is this a political project of the human spirit worth consideration
Winton & Lenore: for me? It does. It actually all comes down to
Winton & Lenore: personal responsibility at some point.
Winton & Lenore: Because the system's not going to change unless we make it change. I'm hopeful that it is changing and I think about society broadly.
Winton & Lenore: I heard A. Stat the other day, you know the the Guardian, and it does their essential polls.
Winton & Lenore: And they asked about climate change, and I was gobsmacked. They they were gobsmacked. I think I'm getting this. That's right, they said about a third were saying, Yes, of course.
Winton & Lenore: and we need to do more. And what have you about a third? We're saying?
Winton & Lenore: well, yes, but you know.
Winton & Lenore: what can we do? And about a third were still in denial.
Winton & Lenore: you know. So
Winton & Lenore: to me again that magic one thing. What if we could, if we could encourage people
Winton & Lenore: to grow their awareness.
Winton & Lenore: You know, we could solve this tomorrow.
Winton & Lenore: you know, as I said yesterday, people could all shift their superannuation funds into the there are a couple of ethical ones, Australian ethical. And there's another one.
Winton & Lenore: We could all stop eating meat tomorrow. We could all. We probably can't all drive electric vehicles tomorrow.
Winton & Lenore: But we could all you know. Think about our our footprint
Winton & Lenore: tomorrow.
Winton & Lenore: we could all get involved with our local Federal Mp.
Winton & Lenore: Tomorrow.
Winton & Lenore: I don't know.
Winton & Lenore: Maybe that says bigger task as changing the system. But that's kind of where I focus my efforts.
Winton & Lenore: I don't know. Did you have anything to say about that. Well, I mean, II
Winton & Lenore: I do worry about the personal responsibility, personal responsibility. Because we again, we're I'm looking at the public private
Winton & Lenore: issue in terms of civic republicanism. I guess these
Winton & Lenore: climate change.
Winton & Lenore: environmental dispoliation, social inequity, social exclusion. These are public issues. They they are raised public.
Winton & Lenore: And it just seems to me that we do have to
Winton & Lenore: Cape. pushing the political system.
Winton & Lenore: to recognize that, and to and to rest
Winton & Lenore: the
Winton & Lenore: decision, making power from private hands into the into public hands. That has to be the drift, because, I mean, as long as these things are in the private domain, the profit motive is just going to keep grinding on.
and the advertising industry will go on
Winton & Lenore: telling people that. You know they'll be sexier and happier and more fulfilled if they would be car rather than a small car, and so it will go on and on. The system will self reproduce. It won't stay the same. It will keep self reproducing, and things have to be moved from the private to the public. Remember that
Winton & Lenore: in again looking at it historically. part of the the great neoliberal push.
Winton & Lenore: and it's 40 years old now. It's been responsible for the great acceleration in greenhouse gases and the massive increase
Winton & Lenore: in in climate, turbulence in cyclones. huge storms.
Winton & Lenore: storm surges, and all the rest of it. 40 years you can see it on a
Winton & Lenore: on a grep. So the and part of it was privatization. Everything had to be privatised.
Winton & Lenore: I, you know, in
Winton & Lenore: not just been in Sweden recently, and instead of just
Winton & Lenore: essentially abolishing the welfare state there. What they did is they privatised it all so that the people looking after
Winton & Lenore: old people are not interested in looking after old people. They're interested in a profit. Everything has to turn
Winton & Lenore: a profit which means things, you know. Services like
Winton & Lenore: I add.
Winton & Lenore: just old age care. I've got a special interest in that actually but every other. But education. Yeah, in in Sweden is a huge scandal over.
And the fact that
Winton & Lenore: health, the health system, is collapsing. The education system is becoming.
Winton & Lenore: you know, a series of silos silos between
Winton & Lenore: privatised schools in rich areas and and privatised schools in poor areas, immense changes in the quality of education and every other social service due to
Winton & Lenore: privatisation.
Winton & Lenore: So one of the things we need to do, one of the themes we need to push
Winton & Lenore: as well as the obvious ones, is to get things back into public hands. And there's already that going on. I mean, a number of labor
Winton & Lenore: state governments are are doing that.
Winton & Lenore: I mean, just my local bus service
Winton & Lenore: collapsed into total inefficiency when it was privatized. And so
Winton & Lenore: that that is going to be part of dismantling the system is to return to public ownership that which belongs to the public, the health system, transport systems.
Winton & Lenore: education and and all the rest of it, so
Winton & Lenore: that in itself is going to remove these.
These
Winton & Lenore: functions of society
Winton & Lenore: into a public will, where the citizens have a say the thing about privatizing
Winton & Lenore: social services is that we just become consumers. We're downgraded from being citizens with rights to say what we think and vote the way we want to about them to simple customers, you know. Take it or leave it. This is what you're getting.
Winton & Lenore: so that would be 1 one major theme. I think we ought to be pursuing
Winton & Lenore: Kate. Kate had a question, and then we can come back to someone online after that.
and
Winton & Lenore: just feed that truth to me
Winton & Lenore: and in relation to the Suvs.
Winton & Lenore: If that information were available to the
Winton & Lenore: potential purchases they
Winton & Lenore: and
Winton & Lenore: or readily available. I hear you saying that responsibility and looking it up. But the advertising industry that is is it very
Winton & Lenore: liberal with the the truth and what it emphasizes? And it's about image rather than
Winton & Lenore: actual.
Winton & Lenore: the the truth of it. So it's seduction.
Winton & Lenore: and
Winton & Lenore: so that that's one thing about truth telling, which is a big, big increasing problem in in our public discourse in the media. The odd ever thought that I had was about.
Winton & Lenore: and
Winton & Lenore: advertising campaign to make it joyous and joyful to restore our connection with
Winton & Lenore: the earth and restoring environments, and the lure of
Winton & Lenore: improving climatic conditions and conditions for dear little animals and cutesy insects. And just, you know the the potential for a great advertising campaign. Is there
Winton & Lenore: a bit flippant? Possibly, but in imagination.
Winton & Lenore: And that issue that you raised just before we went, and others have raised, too, of of having a vision, of how it could be.
Winton & Lenore: So the thing about, you know liberated. And then what?
Winton & Lenore: yeah, I have some ideas on that. But let's hear from other people
and you from
Winton & Lenore: this is what I posted that
Winton & Lenore: I think this was the lady that posted that comment before up in Brisbane, and then we can hear from
Winton & Lenore: someone else as well.
Meg: Hi! Are you ready for my question. Oh, cool. So I it wh it was maybe a bit little bit misleading. So I'm Jan, and I'm part of the group that are in Brisbane coming into the
Meg: to this this week. And my, my question really is that it seems that
Meg: with Stephen's talk this morning and and yours this afternoon. You've basically opened an invitation to us, and that invitation is
Meg: is something to do with creating the necessary conditions for change.
Meg: And it seems, therefore, that our role as secular Buddhists
Meg: could be not to focus on individual policies or not even to focus on climate change per se or the nature of ownership. It's actually to focus on
Meg: things which would support peaceful but dramatic change. And I, these are so. That's kind of open to question. But the sorts of things that I'm aware of are
Meg: an international project called
Meg: I think it's called the Open open. No, no. Sorry it's called
Meg: open is about open government. There's another initiative which was a couple of years in the UK. The 5 hundredth anniversary of
Meg: Martin Luther. There were a whole group of progressionists who nailed
Meg: some proclamations to the door of the London School of Economics.
Meg: And it's really about communicating economics to people at large in a really really simple way. It seemed to me that it was an incredibly powerful initiative, and
Meg: people like Mariana Masakato and Steve.
Meg: This is Australian economist. Who's surname escapes me at the moment, and Kate Rollworth, who were all part of that. So I'm just. I'm just curious about what, what, how do we talk about this, and I think that we need to raise
Meg: the discussion from individual topics to a kind of a meta approach which is like about creating the necessary conditions. And that proceeds precisely from how do we create the necessary conditions for our own
Meg: personal development? If if you like, that's that's it's a bit a bit of a rambling, random thought, but that's what I'd like to. That's what I'd like to have some discussion about myself.
Meg: Thank you.
Winton & Lenore: I think that it'd be great idea for people to learn some economics.
Winton & Lenore: I mean. But what economics is the question?
Winton & Lenore: Because the current. the current mainstream economics, economic theories.
Winton & Lenore: neoclassical economics, which is all about making profits.
Winton & Lenore: I would like to see a new economic theory based upon a new theory of efficiency
Winton & Lenore: current. The current. Whenever you hear efficiency mentioned in the economic press, it means efficiency in raising the profit rate
Winton & Lenore: and raising share shareholder value.
Winton & Lenore: I would rather have an efficiency at at core.
Winton & Lenore: an efficiency, criterion, criteria that
Winton & Lenore: measures efficiency in terms of meeting human need.
Winton & Lenore: In both in terms of
Winton & Lenore: spreading, waiting. All human need, not just the needs of rich people. And how production and distribution
Winton & Lenore: would be organized
Winton & Lenore: in order to meet human needs as universally understood.
Winton & Lenore: That is an entirely different conception of efficiency than the one underpinning what is taught in economics
Winton & Lenore: schools now. and it'd be terrific a terrific project.
Winton & Lenore: you know, we could have a new efficiency movement which would be all about. That it. It is the only things that are efficient are things that do not destroy the environment.
Winton & Lenore: and that see that we'll see the the goods and services produced.
Winton & Lenore: right properly distributed to those who need them.
Winton & Lenore: I remember Francis bacon in the sixteenth century. Not that I was around it, but he said something like
money is like muck
Winton & Lenore: all the best for being well spread, and and I think that that sort of idea should go into our concept of economic efficiency.
Winton & Lenore: If on on that new concept of efficiency, what is going on now is grossly inefficient
Winton & Lenore: because we're producing stuff that is not needed and enriching people who are already
Winton & Lenore: obscenely rich.
Winton & Lenore: While there's immense suffering and need unavailability of even clean water
Winton & Lenore: in. You know a considerable percentage of the human
Winton & Lenore: of the human race. So I would like to see a movement around a new efficiency model.
Winton & Lenore: Yeah, I almost think.
Winton & Lenore: is there? Carefully. Thank you.
Winton & Lenore: At the risk of perhaps reiterating some things. II just my. Still, my sense is that everyone in the room here is engaged already and motivated. So when we get into the detail of individual action.
Winton & Lenore: I feel we need to go beyond what many of us, I think, are already very engaged with, which is our daily habits, and what we buy and what we don't buy, and what car we drive, and so on.
Winton & Lenore: to seeing ourselves of agents of change, and and to me that ultimately, and sorry to reiterate this comes down to becoming part of a synergistic team with other individuals rather than just seeing ourselves in our individual state.
Winton & Lenore: And to that extent, climate action network, Australia. There's about a hundred 60 groups under that umbrella. They're spread all throughout Australia. They're campaigning from Federal politics through to local actions, that people are doing things like rising tide, who was so impressive at the Newcastle blockade? Obviously, a whole lot of direct action
Winton & Lenore: movements that are going on. There's political parties or independents and Teals, and so on. I just feel like there's a lot of mechanisms already in existence that people can join and be a part of, but certainly be selective and try it out, and see if this really fits with what what your ideas might be. But I just feel that if we just get stuck in the individual thing.
Winton & Lenore: You know, we have so little time and and so limited energy, and there is so much to be gained by working as teams, and to that extent I'll just do a little plug. Rising tide brought 3,000 people to Newcastle for the blockade next year they're planning. 10,000 be great if everybody that is able is there it wonderfully organized, very.
Winton & Lenore: very secure, incredibly inspiring. And if you then bring back more people, I mean, hopefully, these sort of things roll much more quickly than next year.
Winton & Lenore: But it just feels to me we all need to get engaged, and the mechanisms are there. There's some very good campaigners leading in many of the areas that we've talked about, although some of the things you've mentioned are kind of new in my mind. So let's utilize what's already out there rather than trying to reinvent a lot of things. So there may be some very original and and salient ideas coming out of this discussion.
Winton & Lenore: Yeah, I guess I'm reiterating what Suzy's saying. So that question of what can an individual do to work with climate.
Winton & Lenore: I think that was mentioned last night is to not be an individual. As to, as Susie saying, Join a group, you know, join the mass movement.
Winton & Lenore: and this is not to disagree with everything you're saying. You know that whole living ethically.
Winton & Lenore: etc. It sort of goes without saying whether we're in a climate catastrophe or not, we should be doing those things. Yeah.
Winton & Lenore: and you know I don't want to use the word. Should you know, we're all doing the best we can with what we've got. But you know we're facing a catastrophe
Winton & Lenore: like it's a I don't know if people are reading the science, but it's way beyond one points way beyond 2,
Winton & Lenore: like Guterres. Antonio Guterres, of the United Nations, says we're just on a pathway to destruction.
and that means lots of suffering. lots of suffering, not, you know. The food bowls will be destroyed refugees, anyway. You know the deal.
Winton & Lenore: We're on a pathway to destruction. We can't.
Winton & Lenore: You know, I think discussions about what car we use and what food we eat. So very interesting. But I'm just not interested in that anymore. It's like.
Winton & Lenore: you know. I guess I read too much, but I'm desperate. I think
Winton & Lenore: you know science says over and over again, the scientists I really rely on just say this is
Winton & Lenore: has to be political. It can't be individual, and the fossil fuels trick in South Australia State government put a lot of money into us or learning how to make conversations. And it's all emphasis on the individual.
Winton & Lenore: If everyone had an electric car tomorrow and divested, we're on a pathway to destruction. Fossil fuels have to stop. Sorry I'm sounding like a nutter, but this comes from, you know. Good science.
Winton & Lenore: you know. We have to act politically.
Winton & Lenore: Fossil fuels have to stop if we are to have any chance of a habitable earth
Winton & Lenore: and you know
Winton & Lenore: the the way to do that is a mass movement. And even if you don't want to be in a mass movement, you know it's a democracy. Go to your Mps. If they won't listen to you, have a
Winton & Lenore: have, you know all. Bring a card table, have your coffee table set up, sit outside their office until they will listen to you. Graffiti. Use chalk. If you don't want to be arrested. Graffiti, graffiti there, you know their glass or their to the in front of their office. Insist on them listening to you. They have to represent you.
Winton & Lenore: you know, if you don't want to do again if you don't want to glue on, or but I really ask you to take yourself out of your comfort zone. you know. Really think this is where I'm comfortable. Maybe I will march in the streets. Maybe I will hold a banner we all have to take to the streets. It's really serious.
Winton & Lenore: Sorry. Sorry. Can I just make one clarification because I realize that what I was saying might be taken to mean that I think it's all about the individual, but I see what you just spoke about as the individual as well. It's the individuals who decide to get on board and do something
Winton & Lenore: to join these groups to go and speak to the Mp.
Winton & Lenore: so yeah, I see it as all of the above.
Winton & Lenore: And if we're doing that and still eating meat and driving a suv and blah blah, blah! Blah! Blah! It's still gonna be a problem.
Winton & Lenore: So it's all 3 levels.
Winton & Lenore: This is what some groups are doing. They are educating. And they're the organisations we need to get involved.
Winton & Lenore: The so-called ask us, talking individually that each one of us we need to be thinking about.
Winton & Lenore: How do we mobilize that understanding?
Winton & Lenore: I have. I have those
Winton & Lenore: different opinion.
Winton & Lenore: And the way I see the climate crisis is like a bunch of cycles who have built a time bomb.
Winton & Lenore: and we are desperately looking for somebody to neutralize the bomb.
Winton & Lenore: but only the people who have built a bomb can disembod can neutralize a bomb.
Winton & Lenore: You have seen this movie where at the last 5 min they bring some expert with a a Caesar, and you don't know if he's going to get the right wire or not. So
Winton & Lenore: this is the situation we are in. So let the people who have built a bomb too neutralizable.
Winton & Lenore: I see nothing wrong with increasing the share of the fossil company
Winton & Lenore: to increase their profit if the profit is well distributed, and if they reinvested
Winton & Lenore: this prophet
Winton & Lenore: in renewable energy, which is possible. and to change the load they have on the balance sheet from fossil asset
Winton & Lenore: to renewable asset. and then we can stop the foresight
Winton & Lenore: because the balance sheet will stay.
Winton & Lenore: and we sustain. If you collapse, a balance sheet.
Winton & Lenore: you collapse the finance system.
Winton & Lenore: you collapse the banking system, you collapse the economy.
Winton & Lenore: There is no more money for education. There is no more money, for else
Winton & Lenore: there is no more money for senior people. It's 2,007
Winton & Lenore: magnitude XI don't know if it's 1,000. 100,000. 201,000.
Winton & Lenore: But if we collapse the system. we are going to pay a dear price.
Winton & Lenore: you would say something.
Winton & Lenore: calendar.
Winton & Lenore: This is also slightly against the direction we've been going.
Winton & Lenore: I think we're very bad on communication. We're very bad on series of change. We're very bad
Winton & Lenore: political change.
Winton & Lenore: and we tend to do what everybody does when they're got the wrong theory is they just push a bit.
Winton & Lenore: The pits came to work. I, personally don't think that's the case, and I think that, in fact.
Winton & Lenore: elements of the Dharma are part of what can help us beyond that? Because it's always just. It's not
Winton & Lenore: the only thing in a discussion. But frequently these discussions end up as being us and them good and bad, big and small. All of those things that we know from dharma practice. Just get us stuck.
Winton & Lenore: get us leaving feeling powerless. Then we push a bit harder. Then we annoy a bit more, and there's a cycle which goes around which doesn't
Winton & Lenore: get anyone anywhere. The despair is real.
Winton & Lenore: the situation is real, but part of what we have to learn, just as we have to learn to live with uncertainty. We have to learn to live with despair and be smart in despair. Being smart in despair, means
Winton & Lenore: being able to leave enough space for creative thought, for new ways of doing things which we don't yet know from people we haven't come across.
Winton & Lenore: and also the possibility that we're all going to fail, and the whole thing's going to going to end in catastrophe, which is not impossible either.
Winton & Lenore: So I'm all in favor and in individuals, trajectories towards being effective activists. So again we say, go out on the street, get a shout and push
Winton & Lenore: that works for one person out of 19 people out of 10. Say, No, thanks. I'm going to stay at home. What you need is the small steps, the ways that allow people in the things that are attuned to their circumstances and lifestyles.
Winton & Lenore: and we don't know where it's going to end. I'll give a tiny illustration. I chair the Buddhist Council in New South Wales. I wanted us to have a voice in climate change. So first of all, we joined the religious response to climate change, and I got on the committee there.
Winton & Lenore: but I thought we need to have a Buddhist voice somewhere. I don't have time to do it. There's no one I know. Buddhist community was going to take. What can I do? So for a year every interfaith meeting I went to I mentioned the climate.
Winton & Lenore: didn't say much about it. I just mentioned it.
Winton & Lenore: What I was doing was 2 fold. One was, I was, I hope, the tiny way. And this is about 5, 6 years ago. So we're going back a bit, normalizing this as being seen as a really serious issue, and I noted the nods around the room. It was giving me courage.
Winton & Lenore: except that I could move on, start to do other things was a really helpful, easy start.
Winton & Lenore: And yet outside, pathetic thing to do. Chair of the Buddhist Council, 700,000 Buddhists in Australia, and all you can do is
Winton & Lenore: make it
Winton & Lenore: 30 s mention at a meeting. But actually it was useful.
Winton & Lenore: So I would say out of this 2 things. One is, I think we need to take our data much more seriously as understanding how
Winton & Lenore: change occurs this instance. It's the taint which you've been mentioned.
Winton & Lenore: I think we work towards, and secondly, I think we need to be much more
Winton & Lenore: imaginative and open to people doing things we don't expect that are not taking us out on the streets, and all of those things. We don't know what it's going to end up on.
Winton & Lenore: So that's my little rave, and
Winton & Lenore: thank you very much.
Winton & Lenore: but I do think creating the conditions for change is what we should be looking at.
Winton & Lenore: The change will come from the people who built the bombs. But we need to create the conditions under which the bomb builders will wished to
Winton & Lenore: diffuse that bombs.
Winton & Lenore: We've got one more question online, but I don't know if you want to take that when you come back for your session a little bit later, Lenore. Or now is the option.
Winton & Lenore: Why don't we take it now there's anyone more. Okay, one more.
What else.
Winton & Lenore: Leanne, if you're there?
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): Oh, yes. Hello!
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): Oh, well, okay. So
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): a Winton.
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): I feel very resonant with what you've been discussing with regards to
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): the changes that need to come from the system. Just a little bit of context on the 61 year old woman who's been living in a van for 8 years. So, according to the mainstream criteria, I'm a homeless person
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): but I don't see myself as homeless.
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): I just got an email today from a local group called Housing Matters in the Belling Shire, which is Cambangia country where I where we live.
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): That the Council is now giving go ahead on 31 more multiple occupancies in this area.
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): So that's something that housing matters which is a group of people that have been coming together for several years now to develop
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): alternative housing in response to what I have not heard once mentioned in the conference in its early days. That there, you know, there is a housing crisis. And the way that that's actually being viewed
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): is not the way that many of us see it, and the way that I'm living and the main. Many people are living who
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): are on the ground grass roots movement and we're living it. We are creating a new model. But we can't go forward without the system changing.
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): So we've done all the individual work. We're we're aware people, we
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): we don't eat meat.
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): No, that's a joke, because I don't think not. Eating meat is necessarily a
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): It's not a necessity, because part of this, the way that that many people are choosing to live
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): is they living on the land? It's organic. It's regenerative farming. It's bidemic. The farming people like myself who don't, doesn't. Why not? Landowners? Are available to help other people on the land in exchange for that. I get food. I get a place to park my van. I get a hot shower, and I get wonderful company. So there, there, you know. So I'm really in alignment with what you're saying, Winton.
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): or what I'm
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): I'm sort of feeling that you're you're alluding to. Which is this thing of yeah, I mean, we need to be creative about about designing new new ways of
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): of living and interacting with each other, including the economy which doesn't have to be about a money exchange, because at the end of the day, on a grass roots level, it is about having our needs met. Food, shelter, and, of course, more
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): important, not more important, but equally important, is that sense of belonging within a community, so that you feel that you are valued, and you are able to be able to provide a contribution you're able to contribute. Sorry you're able to contribute
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): whereas at the moment living in a van for 30 years. Oh, my goodness! I could write several books about that experience and what I've seen, the changes, and, as you say, winter, the the the privatization of public space.
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): and the fact that I have to pay $6. Now, if I wanna go and just park my van down at the the estuary here in in Boamby. That's just a a small example. People come banging on my door. Upper middle class males who live in huge mansions alongside the beach. Come and bang on my door, because they think I'm going to be camping overnight in view of in view of you know where they're having their happy hour on the veranda.
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): So yeah, it's it's a really interesting position. And I guess it's more so. The question is.
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): when you say? Well, what are you prepared to do? It's like well.
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): with regards to councils, so many, I mean, that's about the people who belong to a council. And
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): and so it's those those people in that local area who who need to actually develop as you've been speaking about a lot. Lenno Nu Lenore about having more compassion is to be able to go well. Rather than this thing of well,
You know these attitudes, these incredible
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): attitudes of entitlement and territorialism, and all of those things that as the woman I experience every day coming banging on my door because I live in a public place.
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): So there are movements going on as you have been describing
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): Winton, and you know they are happening, and I don't think we need to. As you also mentioned. We don't want the current system to collapse. It's almost like things need to develop in parallel. And the changes is, you know, the change is happening, and it's a flow, and it's a give, and it's a take, and it's a and all of those things. So thank you for allowing me
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): to speak, and I just really wanted to. Give it just to prove or not to prove a point.
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): But there's only so much you can do as an individual. And you know this personal development bit. I'm sorry I'm over personal development. I don't even like the the 2 words in the same sentence.
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): II think it really is about moving into someone else that teams. But it's moving back into the village
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): and in order to move back into the village. You're right, Lenore. People do need to actually look at their own mind
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): with regards to being able to participate
Liane (Gumbaynggirr country): and be aware of their own innate prejudices, which once again I come across every day in my own community and further afield. So thank you for listening.
Winton & Lenore: Thank you very much for that comment. Yeah, I was just thinking
Winton & Lenore: our rulers forget that right to housing is in the UN.
Winton & Lenore: convention on human rights in 1948,
Winton & Lenore: and it's one of those things that gets forgotten when everything is privatised.
Winton & Lenore: 3. I think that'd be my.
Winton & Lenore: Bring this session and
Winton & Lenore: continue later on. We'll bring a session to an end and
Winton & Lenore: continue at a later date. I'm sure we would be continuing throughout the retreat. Actually, could I just throw out there a little for those of you who would like to participate in my little activity tonight my session is going to be on practicing courage
Winton & Lenore: and
Winton & Lenore: if if you want to come and participate in that, the
Winton & Lenore: thing I'd love for you to have in mind is to think of
Winton & Lenore: a situation where you have practiced courage.
Winton & Lenore: and
Winton & Lenore: usually in the service of some, you know, kind or non-harmful goal.
Winton & Lenore: end a situation where you could have. But you didn't.
Winton & Lenore: So if you can think of a real life situation for for both of those.
Winton & Lenore: it'll be useful for our activity tonight.
Winton & Lenore: maybe while yeah. having your free time or whatever.
Winton & Lenore: So it's.