Saturday Morning Musings - Managing the politics of fear

A friend commented after the news from Nice and then the attempted Turkey coup: "The news is really all worrying".

While I have been otherwise preoccupied, the world does seem to have become a darker place. As I write, news is breaking of the attacks in Munich. The story is not yet clear, but it adds to the gloom.

One of the points I have tried to make on this blog from time to time is that we cannot always control events, we can only control our reactions to events.

Take Donald Trump as a case in point. He may or may not become President of the United States. I would have said not, but then I didn't think he could win the Republican nomination in the first place, it seemed inconceivable. I cannot control whether or not Mr Trump becomes President, I can only manage my reactions and responses to the event.

Clearly, if Mr Trump becomes President the world will change. Based just on his statements to this point, there are likely to be significant reshapings in the global alliances of which Australia is part and on which Australia depends. I cannot control that.

As an observer, the showbiz, the performance, side of US politics has always been interesting. Like most of us, I can get caught up in the theatre of it all, responding to immediate events, interested in the game. As an analyst, I have to stand back from that when I am trying to work out what it all means.

As an analyst, I haven't tried to work out the implications should Mr Trump become President. At this point, Mr Trump remains a random factor. I am interested in the reasons for his success, these link to things that I have been writing about for many years if usually from a minority position, but the possible implications of a Trump presidency are not something I need to address just now. I will do so when it seems relevant.

The politics of fear is deeply embedded in Australian politics. I don't necessarily mean this in an extreme way, nor am I referring just to former Prime Minister Abbott. Consider the obsession with law and order as a political theme, one that has been present for a very long time to the point that it has become encapsulated in Laura Order, a term capturing Australia's tendency to slur words together. A later term with a similar derivation is Lauren Forcement.

In Lauren Order you have the fear that there is a problem on one side, crime, and the belief that it is government's job to do something about it. Political parties play to that fear by emphasising Lauren Order, promising that they will use Lauren Forcement to fix the problem. They do so regardless of the reality of the problem. One outcome of the emphasis on Lauren Forcement as a solution has been a rise in police numbers, police paraphernalia and indeed the size of police stations to the point that police stations are the biggest buildings in some towns. A second outcome has been a rise in prison populations.

The use of fear, the appeal for laws and Lauren Forcement to fix problems, can be found across the political spectrum and covers a vast expanse of issues. The climate created makes it really difficult when there is a genuinely difficult problem that is not actually amenable to a Lauren Forcement solution or, if amenable, one where the cost of the solution greatly outweighs any possible gains.  

Total avoidance of terrorist acts is a case in point. It's not possible, while the attempts to do so will certainly impose costs that far outweigh any potential gain.

I said earlier that we cannot always control events, we can only control our reactions to events. Australian TV personality Sonia Kruger is a case in point. She was expressing a genuine fear in calling upon Australia to close its borders to Muslim immigration to prevent terrorism and had every right to do so. Becoming involved in controversy led her to restate her views.

Ms Kruger is not an expert in public policy nor the Muslim faith. Her prescription was actually plain silly, although a reflection of popular sentiment. She was attacked for her prescription, not challenged on its basis. If with a somewhat unfortunate use of wording, she was saying that she was worried about her children and this was her response. One has to respect that.

Outside certain countries, the chances of being killed in a faith related terrorist attack are statistically tiny. In the relatively benign discussion on deaths connected with swimming pools or absence of bike helmets, I argue that our desire to avoid risk has led to regulation whose costs far outweigh any prospective benefits. How, then, should I react when we have an emotive discussion on an issue where, objectively speaking, the statistical chances of harm are very low.

The likelihood of being killed in a terrorist attack in Australia may be marginally higher than the chances of drowning in a swimming pool, although I'm not sure of that. Actually, thinking about it, it's probably lower at this point. In any event, its very low. Why, then, are we obsessing?

It comes back to the fear element and that, in a way, is the whole point. Those perpetrating attacks cannot win in an absolute sense. They have to rely on fear to create the social disruption they want. And here, I think, they may be winning.