[minor language warning: contains a quoted swear]
I'm starting to think that Australians find it hard to discuss values. The plebiscite debacle was a difficult and yet powerful example of what happens when we do. It gets ugly.And I got to thinking, why? Some would point the finger at elements of toxic tribalism - which certainly plays its part - but what other factors are at play?
I wonder if a combination of scientific naturalism and post-modern cynicism is what's tipped things.
First, we fell in love with science. Fair play too, she's a total babe. And the technological devices she gave birth to are as alluring as she and even more accessible. Science-derived tech has successfully increased human power over over reality at an astounding rate. As the ever eloquent Richard Dawkins put it "it works, bitches". And so, when she speaks, we listen. She has become the arbiter of any truth claim. If you want to know if something is true or not - and a quick google won't suffice - you consult 'science'. It's a given.
Simultaneously, postmodernism's influence has pulled the authority out of any and all truth structures that sit outside of science. Stories, truths and interpretations of data - they're all power grabs that oppress those who come up against them. See the patriarchy and Victorian sexual mores as cases in point.
Which means that when we come to discuss issues that aren't questions of science but of morality, we struggle. Well, we struggle if we find that someone has a different value set to what we do. Or even the same value set but a different context that means we understand and implement them differently.
At this point, we have no recourse. Science does not help us (which doesn't stop us from claiming that its results support our side of the debate) and neither will the insights of philosophy or religion, tainted as they are by the power that their proponents are simply seeking to maintain.
Which leaves us in a difficult place in terms of public debate. We need to discuss our values and where we've got them from. But we don't seem to do that much. We don't go there. I've never heard someone discuss where the idea of the right to define yourself comes from, and why we should have it.
For some reason, we don't seem want to discuss the differences in values that underlie the differences of opinion. Those are off-limits.
Which leaves Pauline Hanson's famous catch phrase "I don't like it" being as coherent an argument as any.
