Blogs and Freedom

How many honest, intelligent, caring men in the world does it take to do the dishes?

Both of them.

(from one of the 8586 Australian blogs tracked by the now-defunct Australian webblogs site, by Ozguru)

Australian Webblogs was an enterprise to track the growth of blogging in Australia. It failed.
On international blog news and information tracking sites, the only blogs listed are encyclopedia services. Even education and training blog services have found few people willing to maintain their blogs. The only blog sites that remain active are large corporate sites -- usually because of foreign ownership -- and media blogs by active columnists.
The voice of citizen journalism in Australia is silent.
The core of blogging in Australia remains with young people, ages 15-24. It is no surprise that this is also the age group the most successful marketing projects target.

Thirty-five percent of Australian households use the Internet. Of those, 65% are on some form of broadband. No other country took to the Internet (per capita) faster than Australia. Only 5 years ago, less than 10% of Australian households were on the Net.

Australians do not seek an individual voice. Per capita, it can be said that Australian society is more insular than China, without the legal and technical restrictions placed on chinese bloggers and internet users.
The reasons for this reticence to express individual experience and perceptions might be worth exploring for some social scientist someday.
Expressing one's individual feelings and opinions exposes thoughts to criticism. It means exposure. Exposure means someone can condemn on platitudes and hypocrisy. Expression means one's beliefs and values are exposed and may be used to manipulate or be attacked.
These concepts are the core of personal development and democracy.
Respect for the open expression of another's ideas requires circumspection and reflection, comparing the experience of another with one's own, then seeking new perspectives on one's own assumptions, attitudes, and viewpoints.

I was taught as a child that generalities are not true for even half. In fact, a generality often proves true for far less than that. The only true generality is that generalities -- sayings and cynicisms -- are lies. Lies for cowards to hide behind and appear worldly.
But generalities do shape and mold expressed opinion, the public perception. If you want to change the public perception, you must speak out against the generalities.

That said, I must conclude in general that Australians do not understand their rights and responsibilities as citizens. Australians are happy to let government pass new, ever more invasive, laws -- sometimes at cross purposes -- instead of taking the responsibility for their own actions and words.

It is like a nation trapped in adolescence, with all the insecurities and conflicts of adolescence. When Australians speak, they want to be the voice of a mob. There is far too little respect for individual opinion. Too often, Australians let those who are titled in some way be the "voice of the people."
There is a deep-seated class mentality that dictates the silence of the "working class." Reality in today's Australia is there is no "working class." Anyone, male or female, can be whatever they choose to be. Education and hard work are all that define class in Australia. "Working class" is only an excuse to dismiss one's duties as a citizen.

It is no wonder that the government arrogates itself to treat citizens here like children.
Nor is it surprising that Australians seem to treat each other as children so often; and expect only the most childish responses.

For "the Lucky Country" or "the Biggest Island in the World", such attitudes may have been sufficient. But Australia is growing, and it will have to grow up too. Those labels are best used to attract tourists. If Australia persists in trying to make slogans like that a national goal, then it will fail as a society.

Australia has stepped onto the world stage and presented itself as a leader in international affairs. In order for "democracy, Australian style" to work, it must accept the exposure of petty failures and work to improve from the citizen level.
Government and laws are, at best, the desperate reactionary answer to national problems. -- How long will it take Australia to realize that fact?

When the government has failed the residents of Australia long enough, damaged and offended enough Australians, a mob forms. For most of history, that required books and news articles to influence opinion over years. Even if the media is as slow as government to accept the realities, public opinion will seek the truth at the lowest common denominator: cynicism and resentment.
When this happens over long years, even decades, the government has failed in its "duty of care", and the media has failed it purpose in democracy.

Now the Internet has given new better ideas a voice in hours, not years. And it has had an inexorable effect, despite the painfully slow reactions of government and social structures.

The Men's Rights and Family Rights' movement is an example.
After decades of neglect by playground politicians, the cynicism about the idiotic prejudices of the system gave way, driven by deep rage and frustration, to literally hundreds of groups and websites across Australia demanding the laws and the implementation of the laws regard the realities of family life; and the limitations of the legal system. Australia's experience echoes slowly similar movements across the world. Australia's echo is slow and subdued though, as reflected by the links on this blog.

Yet even with their families destroyed, and individual character slandered, by the courts, Australians cling to a fear of expressing their individual experience and opinions, and to a compulsion to look to government or those ratified by some title to give the effort a voice. Even on the Internet, individuals are afraid to speak their minds publicly. The voice of bitter experience is whispered in small corners of the Net, hidden from public view. When someone seeks to give these bitter experiences public expression, they are quickly abandoned by those who did not have the courage to speak out.
The result is these voices are scattered, fragmented, and easily dismissed by those in authority. Those whom the voices sought to serve flee from them, and condemn these leaders and authors with cynical dismissals that bear no basis in fact, but continue the superstitions and prejudice.

When I began this blog, I surveyed the Internet seeking help from all levels of Australian society, sure that what was happening to me was a grotesque anomaly. It turned out to be a national disgrace that had been accepted by all for decades, and was only getting worse. There was no help available.
That, at least, has changed to a degree. I hope this blog has made some small contribution to that change.

The national disgrace was, and is still, costing lives daily and billions in productivity and health, endangering the future of Australia. This national disgrace is fueled by greed, from the playground politicians to the petty manipulations of greedy ordinary women. A national disgrace that exposed the failings of education, social services and law, the mental health system, and the playground resentments driven by leadership towards the disabled and elderly.

Blogs are only one example of the cynicism and fear that prevents free expression in Australia. But there are many examples and expressions which reflect the results of the pretense of freedom.