I think a lot of people would agree with my opinion that Australia (and many other parts of the world) either is or is slowly transforming into a nanny state. Rules, rules, and more safety rules are being piled on top of us, especially in the work place (Occupational Health and Safety – OHS – as we call it). I don’t need to provide examples as I’m certain 95% of people have a story about a safety regulation they deem to be ridiculous and utterly lacking in common sense. I’m certain of this. Some would go so far as to say that the world is going crazy with all this obsession with rules and safety. The famous Australian comedian Steve Hughes would be one of those people:
Indeed, it certainly does seem to me that the world is going crazy with its aversion to risk and its emphasis on safety. Part of it is due to various organisations reacting to pressure from insurance companies who are dealing with more and more ridiculous litigations. That’s a separate story, however. In this post I want to talk about the other cause of all this: our society being afraid of risk.
I think this particularly came to the fore during the COVID pandemic. Some of the restrictions imposed on us at the time completely broke any common sense rules. For example, I recall my state’s health minister telling people going to a football game (at a large stadium) to not touch the ball if it went into the crowd because the ball could spread the virus. When I went overseas to the USA as soon as our borders opened up everybody wanted me to tell them about our “draconian government”.
I particularly recall such a conversation in a cafe in Maryland early one weekday morning surrounded by senior citizens laughing at the stories I was telling them from home. Recall, senior citizens were one of the most vulnerable groups during the pandemic. These vulnerable people somehow could not grasp the necessity for the long and arduous lockdowns and constant government monitoring that we were subjected to. I had similar experiences later in Europe.
Why could these people not grasp our rules? Because they understood that a life without risk is no life at all.
I recently finished re-reading Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. A great (some would even say prophetic) book comparing two different societies: one extremely traditional and conservative in their beliefs and another very liberal (according to what we would term “traditional” values) and controlling in all aspects of life. The former are called the Savages by the “civilised” latter group.
Anyway, there is a great exchange at the end of the book between Mustapha Mond, the “World Controller for Western Europe” of the liberal group and John, a member of the conservative group. John the Savage, who has spent some time in the “civilised” part of the world has had enough of the debauchery and depravity of life he witnesses all around him. But he has also had enough of how much control and monitoring is exacted on society. All aspects of life are overseen, audited, and sterilised for maximum safety. All diseases and hardships have also been eradicated due to the advancements of science.
The exchange between Mustafa Mond and John goes as follows:
‘We prefer to do things comfortably.’ [said Mustapha Mond]
pp. 211-212, Penguin Random House UK, London, 2007.
‘But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.’
‘In fact,’ said Mustapha Mond, ‘You’re claiming the right to be unhappy.’
‘All right, then,’ said the Savage defiantly, ‘I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.’
‘Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.’
There was a long silence.
‘I claim them all,’ said the Savage at last.
In this situation of intense sterility the point has been reached where the individual – who should be a world unto itself, full of potential and personal adventures and endeavours – becomes indistinguishable from everybody else. The individual melts into the collective and goes about his duties like everybody else. John doesn’t want this. He would rather have risk and everything else that comes with it in order for his spirit to roam free.
What is more poignant is that John the Savage opines that from such a world of safety somebody like Shakespeare could never have emerged. Profoundness, maturity and hence real beauty is born from a world of sickness, suffering, loss, and drama (basically the Cross, for Christian readers out there). Paradoxical but powerful words. And hugely important because if we ourselves emphasise safety too much, we will lose out on future Shakespeares.
Our spirits need risk and adventure and everything else that comes with it. I’m not saying here in this post that saving lives isn’t important. It is! Don’t get me wrong. What I’m trying to convey through all this is that other criteria other than “saving lives at all costs” need to be weighed up when considering rules and regulations in our society. We can’t live a completely sterile life.
Moreover, we’re adults, so let us make some decisions for ourselves. But that’s another story and perhaps another post.
To summarise: the human spirit wants risk and needs risk to mature and flourish. So stop taking it away from us!
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