It takes courage to swim against the populist tide

What once would have been laughed off as some fringe dwelling, extremist view is now being addressed as if it were a mainstream concern. Picture: Jonathan Ng

IF you search the federal government’s information website about Covid-19 vaccines, there’s a list of Frequently Asked Questions that are designed to do as their name describes. These questions are typically compiled with the most common concerns in mind. I’ve drafted or directed the drafting of hundreds of these documents in my career. The premise is simple. You think of every reasonable question a person might like to ask, and you answer it.

Included in the current suite of vaccine FAQs are two that are more than a bit telling; Can Covid-19 vaccines connect me to the internet? and, do Covid-19 vaccines contain a microchip or any kind of tracking technology? The fact that these two questions (and some other doozies) are included in this list tells me enough people are asking them for them to be addressed in such a way.

What once would have been laughed off as some fringe dwelling, extremist view is now being addressed as if it were a mainstream concern.

This isn’t about views on vaccination, rather, it’s a question about how on earth normally sensible people end up thinking they are going to be walking talking mobile hot spots, and any variation on that theme. Furthermore, it’s about how this kind of thinking (some might argue, absence of thinking) has crept in by stealth to parts of our lives in such a way as to falsely demand and command legitimacy.

Whether it’s those who believe that getting vaccinated will turn them into a 5G hotspot, or those who embrace other extremes of ideology, politics, education, doctrine or diet, there is a commonality here. Extremisms. Zealotry. An absolute and fundamental commitment to belief that belies all semblance of wisdom, commonsense, and mental agility. A refusal to admit wrong. An ability to concede ground. An intellectual flimsiness masked in arrogance, parading around as expertise. This is the spirit of the thing; the heart of extremism. The deception is that those who shout the loudest are doing so from a place of truth and fairness. From a place which is measured and well thought out.

Once upon a time, extremes were genuinely that. Easy to spot in their weirdness. Mostly ignored until the irritation got too much, kind of like swatting an irritating fly on a lazy summer’s afternoon.

My observation is that extreme views on all manner of subjects have somehow slithered into every aspect of corporate, public and community life. Don’t protest, we’ve all seen and continue to see it. Vaccination is just one example and there are myriad others. In the more obvious camp, there are those who think children should be allowed to make life-altering decisions about their sexuality at an age where they’re not considered cognitively mature enough to drive a car or get married. There are those who think that every man is a predator in waiting, every woman victimised by her gender since birth. There are those who think hurtful words are the same as violent, physical assault. There are those who think Tofurkey tastes as good as the real thing.

When you stop to think about it, these ideas aren’t that sound but they’re not really on the fringe anymore. They’re quasi-mainstream. Why? Because we’ve allowed it. Perhaps not by design but definitely by default. Perhaps even a certain laziness born of comfort? I’m not sure.

But as I’ve said in these pages before, when hot is cold, night is day, and everything in between it’s usually because at some point along the road, nobody stopped and said, enough.

If that weren’t the case, there would be no space for a shocking, fresh wave of anti-Semitism to take hold and thrive the way we are witnessing in Australia and abroad. If it weren’t the case, schools and universities would be more focused on fact that feeling. On teaching how to think and question, not what to think without questioning. If it weren’t the case, then we wouldn’t judge violence against women more harshly in some cultures and religions than in others. It would simply be wrong every time. If that weren’t the case, then the first response to transgression would be to counsel a person, not to cancel them.

Right now, I think the greatest risk isn’t so much from the obvious and easy to spot, but from the subtle and seemingly innocuous. The things that sound okay until you scratch the surface a little bit.

So, what’s the solution? Firstly, it takes courage to swim against the populist tide. That’s a truth as old as time itself, and there’s a favourite if not somewhat unsophisticated saying that I can’t claim credit for but use often, that at the very least is a starting point. Nothing disinfects like sunlight. So let the heat rise, and let the light in.

Gemma Tognini is executive director of GT Communications.