Patrick Carlyon: Oh Lord, deliver us from our uncivil society
THIS is the new age of civility — or a lack of it — where online it’s OK, apparently, to go tell someone to go hang himself. Better still, put your name to it. Because you’re upset, writes Patrick Carlyon.
Patrick Carlyon
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AFTER throwing chairs and gang mugging Australian players, Filipino basketballers posed for selfies this week. They weren’t afraid of being accused of cowardice. Instead, they wanted to bask as bullies.
An idiot, meanwhile, explained why he had defaced a memorial to a murdered woman. He didn’t consider the wanton disregard he showed for others’ feelings. As he told a TV reporter, he just wanted to make a point.
This is the new age of civility — or a lack of it. The same ethos applies to the dialogue of the internet, when a target is taken down by the baying crowd, which feeds off its misplaced sense of righteousness.
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It’s OK, apparently, to go tell someone to go hang himself. Better still, put your name to it. Because you’re upset. And these days, once you’re upset, civility — as Senator David Leyonhjelm puts it — can “f--- off”.
Leyonhjelm has been Australia’s politics’ answer to a Filipino basketballer for some time now — that, or its James Bond villain.
Once, his notions of libertarianism sounded fresh alongside tired political orthodoxies.
Of late, he has ranted about shagging and bitches, like a crash-test dummy with a neurological disorder, as if rehearsing for an upcoming live tour that ought to be called Sophistry of the Penis.
He has explained that he often tells people to “f--- off”, as though boasting membership in some special club.
“If I think they should shut up, I’ll tell them to shut up,” he has said.
The pity? Even though Leyonhjelm seems like a lonely sod, he’s hardly alone. This is how public discourse largely works now.
Take his political sparring partners, the Greens. They disguise their intolerance with arguments about the greater good. They tell people to shut up by reaching into their very deep bag labelled “BANS”.
Call it “look-at-me” politics. Like Leyonhjelm, it’s bathed in stridency and joylessness — and dressed up as the opposite.
Last week, a Greens senator wanted to ban balloons, though he stopped short of calling to ban children. This week, the Greens turned to another atrocity few had identified — the reading of the Lord’s Prayer at the start of each parliamentary sitting.
Senator Richard Di Natale said the practice, which dates to 1901, was “quite jarring” and unrepresentative of those of different faiths or no faith. He didn’t like it. It had to stop. Now.
That Muslims and Buddhists had not risen to complain about the Lord’s Prayer was beside the point.
Di Natale was drawing on figures that showed declining faith in Australia. One in four Australians did not believe in God or a universal spirit in 2009 — though it’s worth noting that former Greens leader Bob Brown has spoken about aliens being “extincted”.
Levels of faith have plummeted in Australia. About half the nation identified as Christian in 2016, compared with 88 per cent in 1966.
What’s unclear is whether Di Natale has listened to what anyone else wants or to the prayer itself. It offers pointers to politicians — as well as Christians and Muslims — about everyday respect and kindness. Even an atheist can acknowledge this.
To “forgive others” seems like a universal virtue. To ask forgiveness for your own failings implies acknowledgment of your own imperfections. As does the guidance from temptation and evil.
We could all use reminders like these. Except of course if you’re a Green or a libertarian — and you assume that you are more civilised than the rest of us.
Patrick Carlyon is a Herald Sun columnist
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