Identity can be claimed from labels generated by the medical/psychological industry to name conditions and promote treatments; by social engineers and governments to endorse a narrative to win popular support; and by media to propagandise favoured ideology.
Many succumb to the emotional thrill of being affirmed as right and virtuous. People of good sense take a more measured approach, wading through the treacle of deception, lies and global social coercion to live a valid, productive life.
During COVID we were exposed to the whole deception, now being unveiled by forensic analysis, of what actually happened to manipulate and control so many worldwide and see who profited. A great case of fearful masses identifying compliance as virtue, while influencing the destiny of themselves and others, whether or not they believed the narrative.
Identifying Labels
Evolution of the psychology industry over the last 100 years since Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalytic theory has seen identification of countless “new” mental conditions, so much so that one could feel naked without a label.
That is not to disparage those who struggle with genuine mental health conditions, especially those that make life exceedingly difficult or precipitate drastic results. For them and their supporters, accurate diagnosis, treatment, understanding and support is essential.
What troubles is seeing funding applied to help those genuinely in need being swamped by others claiming the same label to relieve modest or Googled ailments tailored to funding criteria, endorsed by professionals. Especially when the identity claimed becomes a crutch, a reason to stop trying, start relying, towards avoidable destiny. The following quote is illuminating:
Humans construct identities from stories available to them. When the dominant stories emphasise limitation and vulnerability, some people begin to understand themselves primarily through those lenses.
For a young person struggling academically, socially isolated and uncertain about the future, these frameworks can be illuminating and constraining. The person may indeed have ADHD, anxiety, trauma or other legitimate difficulties. Yet there is always the risk that explanations become identities and identities become destinies. The challenge is not that these concepts are false; it is that they may inadvertently reduce expectations of agency, competence and growth.
Further, moral identity with a cause (e.g. Covid, global warming, Transgender, Aborigines, Palestine), well-meaning, emotional and ill-informed as such posturing may be, tends to lend to identity fusion. By that I mean the person claiming moral superiority tends to be offended, prone to hostility and hatred towards anyone with the gall to present an alternative point of view. They take it personally, as if a different perspective is a personal affront to them. Emotional rather than factual, drowning sensible debate, essential in a democracy for reaching sound policy and personal decisions.
In recent experience we have seen schoolchildren chanting in the street for the death of Pauline Hanson fired up on ignorant indoctrination. The mere mention of Trump is likely to cause apoplexy in those with TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome), unable and unwilling to understand the context and intent of global and domestic challenges Trump is addressing.
Similarly, the Royal Commission into sexual abuse found the Catholic Church had failed to protect many in its care, as had other Church and state institutions. Cardinal George Pell was symbolically pilloried by Victorian Police, ABC and MSM outlets as personally guilty for all the sins, despite being the first person to set up a facility when claimants could be heard, supported and seek recompense. After 400 days in prison, the High Court exonerated Pell.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)
DEI, having become pervasive in partnership with psychology, is one of the great disruptive policies of our time, geared as it is towards division. DEI provides the foundation for establishing communism (socialism or other euphemisms) that have proven invariably to fail, at human costs in millions of lives and untold treasure, just not the inclusion specified.
Introduction of DEI has been surreptitious, not voted on, just incorporated into essential social licence to operate in government, corporations and community organisations. HR departments override CEO and financial considerations, biology and majority interests in attempts at identity as virtuous.
Take, for instance, Diversity, of race and gender, though not of religion. Why else would Australia’s best player of the time, Israel Folau, be sacked for quoting Christian scripture on his private social media feed because it might offend main sponsor Qantas CEO Alan Joyce who was gay. By seeking to identify as morally virtuous, Rugby Australia lost Qantas sponsorship anyway, lost their way and lost the public interest. Today RA struggles to win in the media and on the pitch. Go woke, go broke. Virtue signaling so the organization could claim morally superior identity by the elites, ignored interests of the tens of thousands of ground level players and supporters who just want to play and enjoy the game.
Similarly in pursuit of virtuous identity, broke Netball Australia rejected the offer of a $15m donation from Gina Rhinehart because an Aboriginal player allegedly was offended by the donor’s activities amongst Aborigines in the Pilbara. Like Rugby, NA struggled financially and on the court. Pursuing identity as morally diverse, RA and NA chose a failing destiny.
Try criticising the actions of a person of colour or challenge mass immigration policies as Pauline Hanson has and accusations of racism rain thick and fast in emotion charged ignorance. Propaganda of the victim/oppressor identity associated racism and colonialism forever robs the “victim” of responsibility or agency for improvement, while blame loads an unfair burden on alleged “oppressors”. Sensible debate essential to resolution is impossible. Identity as “oppressed” becomes destiny. Why else would Aborigines after countless apologies, Sorry days, annual recompense over $34b for 60 years, still live in squalor, under-nourished, poverty, physical and sexual abuse and lawlessness. Long will it continue when the colonists are blamed and there is no expectation of Aboriginal responsibility for themselves.
It beggars belief that the High Court has rejected application to appeal in the Giggle vs Tickle case, where Sal Grover has fought valiantly to enable women and girls to have safe spaces, online, in sport, prisons, locker rooms and shelters without being confronted by Trans men claiming to be women.
The law as it stands, implemented by the Julia Gillard government, disadvantages a hundred years of efforts to secure rights for women, now subjugated to the virtue of championing LGBTQ+++ rights. People have long accepted gender equality alongside rights of others. Legalising Trans rights over and above all others creates conditions for division. Once more, the hopes and dreams of ordinary people who believe in irrefutable biology that chromosomes determine gender, are dashed in deference to fake identity posed as virtuous and just. Elite sweet talk on social justice identity intends to divide and destroy society towards the ultimate destiny of communism.
NDIS and Aged Care
One big problem of bureaucratic process is that, by necessity, it operates by identifying labels, categories and levels to approve expenditure in line with the day’s interpretation of legislation. Tick a box.
NDIS was established in 2013 to service desperately needed support for severely incapacitated people who were not covered by insurance. State governments absolved themselves of their agreed 50% responsibility for funding the program, leaving the program to be funded federally. Such a pool of taxpayer funds attracted many grifters amongst bureaucrats, providers and recipients, additional to state governments, so much so that the scheme has trebled in cost to $52b annually and growing.
Having won an identity label, relief and benefits accrue. An open-ended application of benefit seems to apply, without expectation that taxpayer generosity inherent in the gift should be firstly, a relief, and secondly, a platform to improvement, so that, with sensible management, need for the benefit should decline over time where feasible.
Comfort and complacency on attainment of benefit risks weakening of responsibility and agency in those identified as needy. Identity associated with the label (autism, disability, mental ill health, etc.) can readily morph into a destiny of ever-greater dependency, complacency, entitlement, with ensuing costs to taxpayers.
Freedom of Speech
Media has played a significant role in promoting identity narratives rather than facts. DEI and COVID are cases in point. No wonder USA President Donald Trump recently has banned CNN and Politico reporters from Whitehouse briefings because consistently they fail to report facts, relying on lies against him, repeating a globalist narrative. Trump knows from experience of defending himself against relentless allegations of Russia collusion, impeachments, court cases, Twitter algorithms, FBI, CIA and MSM, that repetition of a lie, especially for furtive purposes is intended to control the underlying narrative to control the populace.
The idea is not new. Bertrand Russell, in his book The Impact of Science on Society (1953), postulated that the mission to produce an unshakeable conviction that ‘snow is black’ can be obtained through propaganda control to control population. Orwell’s book 1984 knew the power of “right speak” well. Modern communications merely accelerate the medium by which control can be achieved. COVID and Net Zero are recent examples.
Citing Russell:
Mass psychology will make great strides when it is taken up under a scientific dictatorship…Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing elite. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated.
Governments will be able to control subjects securely without police or soldiers.
Australia’s current Labor government with its lies, obfuscation and failure to provide underlying workings of initiatives consuming vast sums of taxpayer money without justification appears to have taken Russell’s analysis as a mandate. Net Zero, impact of increasing tax takes, immigration, housing and regressive IR laws are all maintained without revealing justification. People, property and land are being controlled without police or soldiers, media supporting Australia’s destiny in decline.
Just as readily, each of us, like so many holocaust survivors, has within us the power of thought, speech and mind to nurture creativity, peace, productivity and harmony that will colour our own destiny. Should enough of us pursue generativity rather than power through destruction of many, we can form a coalescence of hope and goodness as our destiny.