A Vision For Australia

The talk, a vision for Australia, was given to many groups in the 1990's.  After the talk each attendee was given a questionnaire asking what particular areas interested them and, if there was a document which described the Australia they would like, what should it contain.

The result of their replies was condensed into 'I choose Australia'.

Here is the talk:

A Vision For Australia

If we repeat something often enough and get some emotion into it, then we will start to expect it, and it's likely to happen.
How can we use that principle to make a difference to the future of Australia?
I often hear that we as a nation lack a sense of purpose, we lack direction. I get a similar feeling - but that does not make us any different from other countries. I, however, believe that we have something here that can form the basis of a very exciting future and even have a beneficial impact on the world.
But we need a sense of direction, and I am asking you to contribute to that direction.
Most organisations and some people these days have a goal or a mission. It's a statement of purpose that helps guide them in a common direction.
It is my contention that we as a country, as Australians should have one.
I believe we would benefit from a mission, a goal, a vision, a purpose, a philosophy. And in order to get away from some of the hackneyed associations with words like mission statements and so on, I am at this stage referring to the one for Australia as "the document".
I'll suggest a name later, I hope you might think of a good one.

Documents

Going back in history there have been some famous and influential documents.
The Magna Carta
The American Declaration of Independence;
The Habeas corpus;
The French motto - Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite;
The Declaration of Human Rights;
and such as the Rotary Four Way Test.

What do these documents have in common?

They have influenced the decisions of many people and so made an impact on the world
I see an Australian document as a pledge that Australians might make to each other,
that we might make to the world.

I see it as the sort of document that we might use to judge the performance of every
Australian.
It needs to be something that can touch our emotions, something that can excite us and something that we can be proud of.

It needs to come from the grass roots. To be contributed from the bottom up.
I am going to ask you to contribute to such a Document.

But first let me paint you a backdrop to stimulate your thinking.

I'll start with trends.

Trends

Some years ago I came across the Pearl Curve.
Dr Pearl was a statistician who, in 1936, predicted the rate of growth of the then population of USA well into the 21st century.
The curve he drew looked something like this.

To date Dr.Pearl has been proved right.

It was then realised that the true significance of this curve was not that it portrayed the acceleration and decline in the growth of the population of the USA but that it illustrated every kind of growth cycle.
It illustrates the growth of a plant, an acorn to an oak tree, and embryo to an adult, a product life cycle, a company, any organisation, communities, nations, civilisations.

How might that affect us?

Lord Woodhousie calculated that the average age of the world's civilisations has been 200 years.
When we examine the world's 26 civilisations, 16 are dead, and 9 of the remaining 10
have broken down.
Why? What happened - is there a pattern we can learn from.

Oswald Spangler found a pattern which he called the challenge/response theory.
He found that civilisations broke down because they lost the ability to respond to
extreme challenges.

Arnold Toynbee, whose detailed study of history is published in some 20 volumes, took it a step further to explain why they lost the ability to respond to challenges.
He found it was due to:-
A FAILURE OF CREATIVE POWER IN THE CREATIVE MINORITY WHICH BECAME A
DOMINANT MINORITY.

In other words the creative leaders in a society cease to be creative and maintain their position by becoming the dominant minority.
They move from being CREATIVE to CONTROLLING

Arnold Toynbee's study points out that the GROWTH stage of a civilisation is
DIFFERENTIATION AND DIVERSITY.
The DISINTEGRATION stage is STANDARDISATION AND UNIFORMITY.

Toynbee observed that:
PERSONAL LIBERTY IS AN INDISPENSABLE CONDITION FOR ANY HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT, GOOD OR EVIL, WHILE SOCIAL JUSTICE IS THE SOVEREIGN RULE OF THE GAME OF HUMAN INTERCOURSE.

He expands on this by pointing out that SOCIAL JUSTICE leads to RELATIONS BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS and SUPPORTING THE WEAK which, when taken to extremes, leads to the SUPPRESSION OF LIBERTY.
Whereas PERSONAL LIBERTY leads to CREATIVITY and HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT which, when taken to extremes, can DRIVE THE WEAK TO THE WALL
He points out that we have invented DEMOCRACY to maintain a balance between these two sides.

Let me illustrate this:

How does this affect us?
Where are we on the Pearl Curve?
Did we start our rise as a nation at Federation; or was it at Gallipoli; or was it the treaty of Rome that gave birth to the EEC and forced us to reassess our position in the world?
Or are all these just steps that are leading us to a greater challenge?

Let me quote Toynbee again:-

A YOUNG NATION IS CONFRONTED WITH A CHALLENGE FOR WHICH IT FINDS A
SUCCESSFUL RESPONSE. IT THEN GROWS AND PROSPERS. BUT AS TIME
PASSES THE NATURE OF THE CHALLENGE CHANGES. IF A NATION CONTINUES
TO MAKE THE SAME, ONCE SUCCESSFUL RESPONSE TO THE NEW CHALLENGE,
IT INEVITABLY SUFFERS A DECLINE AND EVENTUAL FAILURE.

Wherever we are, whatever we define the challenge to be now, we need a different response from what we have been using.

What can we do about it and where do we want to be?
As a Nation, as a people we need to accept that the possibilities are only limited by out thinking, our knowledge, our information, and our attitude.

I believe as a nation we are about here on the Pearl Curve

and we are in a unique position to put ourselves on a very exciting course - to accelerate a growth stage over a long time - growth in many areas.

To do this we need to set ourselves a challenge, we need a mission - a vision. We need a vision that is greater than survival. Something that will excite and inspire us.

I am going to ask you to come up with some ideas for that challenge, for that vision.

To quote Toynbee again:- "The greater the challenge, the greater the stimulus"

Hybrid Vigour

During my school days I learnt about hybrid vigour.
When you cross two different strains of maize the result is a stronger, larger, more productive and in many cases healthier plant. It's the opposite of in-breeding.

The same thing happens with people.
Not just individuals - but mixing races, mixing communities. The mental stimulus of new ideas and attitudes gives that community, that nation a vigour and creativity with which it accepts challenges and finds innovative solutions to these challenges.

Let's look at history.
During the last four centuries BC the inhabitants of Italy were going through an incredibly creative phase. Many parts of the world are still benefitting from the legacies of the Roman Empire.
Then for 1000 years decadence set in. But during this period invading Goths and Lombards provided the mix for the hybrid vigour that contributed to the re-birth of Italy - the Italian Renaissance and all that has contributed to the world.

The group of Islands known as Great Britain became the melting pot for many different and enterprising races. Let me quote you a verse that illustrates this:

THE ROMANS FIRST WITH JULIUS CAESAR CAME
INCLUDING ALL THE NATIONS OF THAT NAME,
GAULS, GREEKS, AND LOMBARDS; AND BY COMPUTATION,
AUXILIARIES OR SLAVES OF EV'RY NATION.
WITH HENGST, SAXONS; DANES WITH SIVENO CAME,
IN SEARCH OF PLUNDER, NOT IN SEARCH OF FAME.
SCOTS, PICTS, AND IRISH FROM THE HIBERNIAN SHORE;
AND CONQUERING WILLIAM BROUGHT THE NORMANS O'ER.
DUTCH WALLOONS, FLEMINGS, IRISHMEN & SCOTS,
VANDOIS, AND VALTOLINES, AND HUGUENOT,
IN GOOD QUEEN BESS'S CHARITABLE REIGN,
SUPPLIED US WITH THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND MEN;
RELIGION - GOD, WE THANK YE! SEND THEM HITHER,
PRIESTS, PROTESTANTS, THE DEVIL AND ALL TOGETHER;
OF ALL THE PROFESSIONS, AND OF EV'RY TRADE,
ALL THAT WERE PERSECUTED OR AFRAID.

THUS FROM A MIXTURE OF ALL KINDS BEGAN
THAT HETEROGENEOUS THING, AN ENGLISHMAN.

The hybrid vigour created in that group of islands spawned one of the greatest Empires the world has ever known.

The USA opened its doors to enterprising peoples of all races who were attracted to that land of opportunity from all corners of the world. This hybrid vigour created the greatest economic empire the world has ever known.

There are instances around the world where people have mixed and not produced this hybrid vigour. But when you analyse them, those people came with a poor attitude, without hope, and usually against their will. Very often they were not free in their new environment.
This attitude was passed on to their offspring and so through many generations. It took an unusual individual to break out of that attitude and environment.

The vigour I am talking about goes with an attitude of hope and positive expectancy.

This injection of hybrid vigour means that there is always some group developing a string of new ideas to deal with the next challenge. And that's important because as Arnold Toynbee noted:
The Group Which Successfully Responds To One Challenge Is Rarely The Successful Respondent To The Next.

John Naisbitt has devoted many years to the study of community, national, and world trends.
In his book "Megatrends" he talks about a rich mix of people and states that "the richness of the mix will always result in creativity, experimentation, and change".

Donald Horn, in a talk to an ALP non-political seminar, stated "The future of Australian society lies, above all else, in the development of Australian creativity."

What is the significance of that to us?

Over 20% of people living in this country were born overseas.
In nearly 40% of all marriages at least one partner was born overseas.
The vast majority of these people came here willingly, looking for opportunities. They
came with a positive attitude and hope for the future.

Think of the richness of this mix, think of the hybrid vigour, think of the dynamic effect this will have on our Pearl Curve in all areas of our lives - arts, sciences, religion, economy, politics, and society as a whole.

We all have ideas.
The mark of a genius is simply someone who acts on his ideas - people who make a mark on society are those who follow through on their ideas.
In order to tap our genius we need to let our ideas come out thick and fast. Then when we get a good one act on it.

How do you tell a good idea?
Ask three questions about it:-
Is it good for my community, my country?
What effect will it have on the world?
How many people will it benefit?
When you get answers to those three questions that satisfy you, then you have a good idea.
A fourth question may be : Does it excite me?

"AS LONG AS THE SPARK OF CREATIVE POWER IS STILL ALIVE IN US AND WE HAVE THE GRACE TO KINDLE IT INTO FLAME THEN OUR EFFORTS TO ATTAIN THE GOAL OF HUMAN ENDEAVOUR CANNOT BE DEFEATED."
Toynbee

And that brings me to the third point -

The facts don't count.

What facts?
And if the facts don't count what does?

Some years ago the ABC went on strike. As I was unable to hear my normal news programme on the way to work I listened to FM music.
After a couple of days I realised I was feeling different as I arrived in the office - I was being more productive and creative and I was in a good frame of mind.
I had not been bombarded with all the local and international disasters and politicians tearing each other apart. I had started my day with none of the dreadful facts the media are prone to inflict on us.
When I realised what this was doing to me as an individual I was horrified to think what it was doing to the nation as a whole.

I put it to you that the facts only count when we allow them to affect our feelings, or to influence our vision of the future.
Facts are historical, they are as a result of past actions and feelings. Our current feelings are the future.

We hear a great deal about the disaster situations in Australia. These are usually measured in figures - inflation, exchange rates, unemployment, price of commodities, AIDS sufferers, drug addicts - and we allow this to affect our feelings and our vision of the future.

I'll read you a quote from a report entitled 'INVESTIGATIONS INTO CURRENCY AND FINANCE". The eminent men who compiled this report came to this conclusion:
"PERIODIC COLLAPSES (OF TRADE) ARE REALLY MENTAL IN THEIR NATURE, DEPENDING ON VARIATIONS OF DESPONDENCY, HOPEFULNESS, EXCITEMENT, DISAPPOINTMENT, AND PANIC."

This report was compiled in 1909.
So I'm not saying anything new. I'm just emphasising what's been known for a long time.

I often come across people who claim they don't want to generate any more income because it might affect their pension or put them in a higher tax bracket. Just imagine what the feeling about that one fact is doing to the economy of this country. If the facts don't count what does?

Professor Toynbee observed that:
"SOCIETIES HAVE ALWAYS HAD SOME BELIEF, PHILOSOPHY TO ENTHUSE THEM."

Philosophies are exciting, they create hope, enthusiasm, and motivation. They point us towards the future.
Ideas, philosophies and a vision will change the facts.
But so often we focus just on the facts.
We can heed the disastrous interpretation of the facts and declare doom or say "What shall we do about it? What opportunities have we?"
Instead of crying doom about what is, we should be excited about what could be.

Napoleon Hill spent a lifetime studying what made certain people exceptionally successful. He wrote a massive volume on "The Laws of Success" and a popular best seller that's sold millions of copies. He earned a doctorate in the course of his studies.
This is a conclusion he came to:
"THE WORLD IS RULED AND THE DESTINY OF CIVILISATIONS IS ESTABLISHED
BY HUMAN EMOTIONS"

We have been conditioned to believe that our ills can be fixed by manipulating economic factors. If we get the "right" economic factors in place then we have a fix.
It's rather like saying that a dog has four legs and therefore that chair is a dog. But that chair doesn't have a tails that wags in delight, it doesn't have ears that prick up in anticipation, it can't show emotion through its eyes, and it doesn't have a wet nose to nuzzle up against you.
But the fact is they both have four legs.

How often do we as a nation allow these emotions to be influenced by current facts instead of our vision of an exciting future.
How often do we treat the dog like a chair?

Let's say we had such an exciting vision, pledge, purpose or whatever we call it - what could be the catalyst that would move us towards it?

Leadership

Leadership is such a catalyst.

Oswald Spangler wrote:
"A CIVILISATION IS BORN WHEN OUT OF RAW HUMANITY A MIGHTY SOUL AWAKENS AND EXTRACTS ITSELF."

Bergen, another historian wrote:
"SOCIAL PROGRESS IS REALLY A LEAP FORWARD WHICH IS ONLY TAKEN WHEN SOCIETY HAS MADE UP ITS MIND TO TRY AN EXPERIMENT; THIS MEANS THAT SOCIETY MUST HAVE ALLOWED ITSELF TO BE CONVINCED, OR AT ANY RATE ALLOWED ITSELF TO BE SHAKEN; AND THIS SHAKE IS ALWAYS GIVEN BY SOMEBODY."

Who might that soul be?
Who might that somebody be?

Why not you?
But first we need the vision, we need the guidelines.
Your contribution to that may well start something - either in you or someone else.

We need challenges.
When political leaders cease to be creative they adopt a philosophy of "bread and circuses" to appease the people and so sap their initiatives.
These days the circuses have been replaced by TV.

When we allow someone to take away our RESPONSIBILITIES we lose CONTROL.
We can't give away our responsibilities and keep our freedom.

Take away their challenges and so, as Toynbee wrote, begins a "LONG DRAWN OUT LIFE IN DEATH."
We can succumb to the sop that we can have everything - or we can rise to the challenge and create anything.

A true leader throws in a challenge not a sop.
A true leader has vision and dares to move towards it.
A true leader has a sense of mission and the determination to communicate it.
A true leader has integrity.
A true leader is primarily creative.
A true leader knows that the facts don't really count.

We tend to look for leaders in politics. I suppose that's because that occupation has a high exposure. But leaders occur in all walks of life, and there are more leaders out of politics than in politics. There are leaders in the arts, sciences, religions, business, defence forces, and society in general.
And - let's not confuse demagoguery with leadership.

As far a politics is concerned an interesting trend has been observed by Naisbit:
Declaring oneself an adherent of either major political party "WILL BE CONSIDERED A SIGN OF NARROW MINDEDNESS AND LIMITED INTELLIGENCE".

In other words the swinging voter will end up in the majority - we may even end up voting for the person, not the party.
Politicians won't be able to expect people to vote for them because that's the way they've been brought up. They will have to touch them emotionally, to inspire them, to gain their trust.
And that doesn't just apply to politicians - it applies to anyone in a leadership role.

I have quoted a great deal from historians and futurologists.
But what do the great philosophies and philosophers say that might be relevant to a pledge?

Let me read you some quotes:

WHAT YOU DO NOT LIKE WHEN DONE TO YOURSELF, DO NOT DO UNTO
OTHERS Confucius

DO UNTO OTHERS WHAT YOU'D LOVE TO HAVE YOURSELF The Prophet Muhammad

HURT NOT OTHERS IN WAYS THAT YOU YOURSELF WOULD FIND HURTFUL Buddah

ALWAYS TREAT OTHERS AS YOU WOULD LIKE THEM TO TREAT YOU The Bible

YOU CANNOT ATTAIN RIGHTEOUSNESS UNTIL YOU GIVE OTHERS OF WHAT YOU LOVE TO HAVE FOR YOURSELF The Koran

WHAT IS HATEFUL TO YOU, DO NOT DO TO YOUR FELLOW MAN. The Talmud

Let me read you quotes from three eminent men in the same vein……
IT IS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL COMPENSATIONS OF THIS LIFE THAT NO MAN CAN SINCERELY TRY TO HELP ANOTHER WITHOUT HELPING HIMSELF. Ralph Waldo Emerson

CONSCIOUSLY OR UNCONSCIOUSLY EVERY ONE OF US DOES RENDER SOME SERVICE OR OTHER. IF WE CULTIVATE THE HABIT OF DOING THIS SERVICE DELIBERATELY, OUR DESIRE FOR SERVICE WILL STEADILY GROW STRONGER, AND WILL MAKE NOT ONLY FOR OUR OWN HAPPINESS BUT THAT OF THE WORLD AT LARGE. Gandhi

I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOUR DESTINY WILL BE, BUT ONE THING I DO KNOW; THE ONLY ONES AMONG YOU WHO WILL BE TRULY HAPPY WILL BE THOSE WHO HAVE SOUGHT AND FOUND HOW TO SERVE Albert Schweitzer

If all the world's great thinkers, philosophers, and philosophies have come to these conclusions then I don't see how we can ignore them in putting together an exciting vision for Australia.

Let me make some other comments that might be relevant when considering what sort of things could be covered in the document.

Remember: "Civilisation must have a faith"
"A nation without a vision will perish" - I prefer "A nation with vision will thrive".

Can we see a nation -

-Where the "She'll be right" attitude is prevalent because people make it right?
-Where competition is healthy but cooperation is paramount
-Where the individual is free because he deserves that freedom
-Where the people have rights because they have accepted the responsibility earning them those rights.

Should our document include a challenge or two?

The next civilisation will probably be a global civilisation.With the effectiveness of communications increasing daily I cannot see how another civilisation can crop up in a regional area and not span the world. What sort of civilisation will it be? Where will it start?
Is it possible that we might have a major influence on it?

I have talked about historical trends and where we are and could be; I've covered the creative forces that are building up through hybrid vigour; I've discussed the importance of leadership as the catalyst energising and guiding these forces; I've pointed out why the facts don't really count; I've suggested we need challenges; I've pointed out the importance of creativity; I've given you some thoughts on what might form part of an Australian Document.

In what direction would you like to see Australia moving?
What values should we espouse?
How would you like to leave this country when you leave this world?

What would you like to have included in the document and what would you call it.