I wrote a couple of weeks ago about ‘enablers’; leaders who provide a discourse that can be taken up by others. I mentioned Donald Trump and racism, and the #MeToo movement and anti-harassment, among others. The main thesis of enablement is that people who hold views that cannot be expressed find, as a result of the enabler, that they can express their views. Whether these be proto-Nazism or nascent feminism, the enabled feel able to share their views.
In this blog I want to talk about the opposite to enablement, where old views or practices, deeply held and rarely questioned, flourish while the world is changing around them. I have been thinking about this because of some of my research in the social sciences, but the trigger for today was a headline about the sexual predatory practices of some men at cricket matches.
In essence, it is claimed that some of these men acted like a pack of dogs, feeling up women, taunting them, calling them names and providing unwanted comments on their sexuality. It was also claimed that security guards stood back and allowed it to happen.
I wasn’t particularly surprised at the behaviour. Sports in New Zealand are massively sexist, with men getting 90% of the funding, TV time, attention and admiration. Male clubhouse behaviour has long been reprehensible, I believe. There is the old double standard of the treatment of women in general (the slut-whore genre) and one’s own women (sacred-pure-untouchable).
The leadership around this deplorable behaviour has been, for a long time, equivocal. But change is now occurring at the top, and it was good to see the emphatic statement by NZ Cricket that it is wrong “to accept these anti-social behaviours on the basis that it’s just ‘part of our national culture’”. Indeed, although it is interesting that NZ cricket sees such sexual violence as part of our Kiwi culture.
The recent encore of the Tony Veitch affair, which saw this violent abuser nearly end up back on our TV screens, while he has been hosting a sports show on radio for years (this is not a coincidence), reminds us both that things have changed and that they haven’t.
It is not just in gender relations that ‘part of our national culture’ still marches on. There is plenty of evidence that progressive policies founder when subject to implementation ‘down the line’. There are two areas of my work where I have recently encountered what I now call the ‘murky world between policy and practice’. Which is, I think, essentially the same thing as that ‘part of our national culture’ mentioned by NZ cricket (but never embraced by all).
The first example is the treatment of people by many Work and Income staff. When I was researching grandparents raising their grandchildren, I was astounded at the treatment many, indeed most, of them experienced when approaching Work and Income for the Unsupported Child Benefit. What should have been an interview getting information to ensure eligibility, often became a nearly abusive attack on the grandparents for needing the support. Read my article on this (in Kotuitui) if you want details.
Essentially, the attitudes of staff heavily interfered with the welfare transaction. This is despite clear rules (which are NEVER displayed in WINZ offices) and a lot of money paid to consultants to bring about culture change in WINZ offices. The practice of putting down beneficiaries is alive and well at many of these sites (there were some exceptions).
The second area, and in some ways worse, is trying to bring about change in prisons. The Department of Corrections, at National and indeed Regional levels, is a reasonably progressive organisation committed to reducing re-offending and improving options for rehabilitation. Yet, when I volunteer at a prison, I find that the staff are often far less progressive. In the murky world of the prison lurks a range of attitudes that militate against the kind of change desired at the national level.
It is possible that these views are part of some national culture. It is certain that such a culture is highly contradictory, is not the only ‘national culture’ that exists and is amenable to education (although it takes a bit of time to change such attitudes). Enablers in all fields, presenting alternatives clearly and explaining their benefits, can lead most people to change.
There is the opportunity now for strong leadership on the cultural issues (gender oppression, racism) and the policy problems (in the social and justice sectors in particular) to bring about deep change through committed leadership. It is what Labour did between 1935 and 1940 in particular. Our ministers get the big bucks to lead this change, and I know many of us would be happy to work with them on these kaupapa in 2018.
Dr Liz Gordon began her working life as a university lecturer at Massey and the Canterbury universities. She spent six years as an Alliance MP, before starting her own research company, Pukeko Research. Her work is in the fields of justice, law, education and sociology (poverty and inequality). She is the president of Pillars, a charity that works for the children of prisoners, a prison volunteer, and is on the board of several other organisations. Her mission is to see New Zealand freed from the shackles of neo-liberalism before she dies (hopefully well before!).
Is this relevant? I don’t know.
‘It was unbearable’: Tim Minchin on
life under Trump and the collapse of his $100m movie
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/jan/29/it-was-unbearable-tim-minchin-on-life-under-trump-and-the-collapse-of-his-100m-movie
To quote Tim Minchin
“I know I don’t understand the subtleties of politics – obviously – but just get a fucking leader who can say the right shit … Someone with a good heart, good intentions. Someone who can talk.”
The rot in the fish always starts at the head.
Narcissistic sadism, cruelty, brutality, cultivated ignorance, deviancy etc. These are the delights, for some, that white colonisers brought with them to beautiful Aotearoa/New Zealand. Are those attitudes going to be reflected in our society? In our prisons? In the way we treat those less fortunate. Actually, fuck the word ‘fortunate’. I’m replacing that word with ‘ luck’. Those less lucky.
Can any one define ‘ luck’? What is ‘ luck’?
I can define it as being the lack of it. Some people are just plain unlucky and if we don’t want to witness such miserable people living miserably we must lend a hand, give a leg up. Those who don’t/won’t and argue that they/we shouldn’t? They’re the ones to keep a beady eye on. They’re the ones who will unstitch us as a society.
We need a Prime Minister who can say “ I see you, you bastards! And we’re coming after you! “
Chris Hedges . Another “Loser Pulitzer Prise winner.
There is no mass surveillance of New Zealanders by the GCSB and there never has been. Mr Dotcom’s little henchman ( Greenwald) will be proven to be incorrect because he is incorrect.”
“Those who fail to exhibit positive attitudes, no matter the external reality, are seen as maladjusted and in need of assistance. Their attitudes need correction. Once we adopt an upbeat vision of reality, positive things will happen. This belief encourages us to flee from reality when reality does not elicit positive feelings. These specialists in “happiness” have formulated something they call the “Law of Attraction.” It argues that we attract those things in life, whether it is money, relationships or employment, which we focus on. Suddenly, abused and battered wives or children, the unemployed, the depressed and mentally ill, the illiterate, the lonely, those grieving for lost loved ones, those crushed by poverty, the terminally ill, those fighting with addictions, those suffering from trauma, those trapped in menial and poorly paid jobs, those whose homes are in foreclosure or who are filing for bankruptcy because they cannot pay their medical bills, are to blame for their negativity. The ideology justifies the cruelty of unfettered capitalism, shifting the blame from the power elite to those they oppress. And many of us have internalised this pernicious message, which in times of difficulty leads to personal despair, passivity and disillusionment.”
Most “law of attraction” discourse, like the “prosperity gospel” preached by fundamentalist “christian” preachers like Creflo Dollar Jr. (and his wife Tammy Dollar), is a simplistic version of a much more subtle philosophy about the relationship between habits of thought and habits of behaviour. Of course it’s not true that everything that happens to us happens because of our thoughts, the very concept is borderline psychotic. But it is true that changing habits that harm us, or prevent us from taking up opportunities that are present in our lives, begins with changing the way we think about the world around us and our relationship to it.
Some of MSD staff need the boot they don’t care about the people they treated like shit for the 9 yrs the gnats were in power . I suggest using a big yard broom and there is other government agencies that also need a clean up if they ain’t there for the people then they should f..k of
It is a ‘culture’ which is endemic within WINZ/MSD that must be cauterized or removed completely. 7000 staff need ‘reprogramming’. The only way to do this is to cut off the head, Brendan Boyle by sacking him and then restructure the organisation, at the same time have the 7000 staff re-apply for their roles with a totally new set of employment condition as well, get another union to cover the organisation because the psa are shite. This is the only way & quickest way to bring about a “Cultural- Shift”, change.
A better idea might be to issue a UBI to everyone so no one needs to go to WINS?MSD and the staff can all receive it as well and be suitably unemployed themselves.
D J S
UBI would screw over disabled and disadvantaged while providing rich with pin money.
By definition the term “universal” excludes those who need the most, and thus UBI should be known henceforth as the ironic benefit.
Exactly.
When a diabetic type one youth cant get any meds help from winz and yet can get a transition to work grant to buy a car but not to buy enough meds to be able to work until the first pay day is typical winz bullshit.
sounds good Takere
I’ve said it on previous occasions.
The staff attitude in WINZ won’t change until the Labour-led government gets rid of all the petty National Party hack managers and poorly trained misanthropes that have been running it over the past decade.
Misanthropic attitudes on the part of WINZ staff to service users aren’t new. As a child, I recall my late mother – widowed with a young family not long after WW2 – grinding her teeth in fury at the way the staff of WINZ’s predecessor, the Department of Social Welfare, dealt with her.
In my experience, organisational cultures as deep-rooted as this are very resistant to change. No matter how good the consultants may be who are hired to effect culture change, they cannot reach all the way into the farthest-flung offices, where invidious attitudes are passed from existing staff to those newly-hired.
In addition, a societal culture of negative attitudes toward those who are obliged to use WINZ services, has developed over the past 30 or so years, fostered – at least in part – by the neoliberal enterprise.
Get me going on MSD and WINZ, thanks:
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2018/01/28/msd-release-oia-info-on-failed-mhes-trials-three-years-late-only-upon-advice-by-the-long-underfunded-half-committed-nz-ombudsman/
(Published 28.01.2018)
PDF version of Post:
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/msd-release-oia-info-on-failed-mhes-trials-3-years-late-only-upon-advice-by-the-ombudsman-report-28-01-18.pdf
What a fricking JOKE this country is, honestly, most people seem to be so damned stupid or ignorant, it is not funny.
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