Rethinking Oz: More than policy, the underlying mindset

Do Australians see themselves as larrikins or victims? In this essay, I examine the entrenched assumptions Australians most commonly bring to their understandings of their present and future world. While some contemporary Aussies choose a unique voice, most others have swapped their British legacy for the can-do illusions of the Wizard of Oz.. Will Australia break out of its ingrained thinking to create a new future? Does Oz realise that the attending problems cannot necessarily be solved by the industrialist, short-term thinking that bred them? The present authoritarian thought system reaches back through two millennia of Western civilisation, almost unchallenged. It lacks long-term vision. This industrialist perspective still largely defines the understandings Australians have about their choices for the future, limiting our creativity for dealing with the dilemmas and opportunities ahead. This mindset is linear, exclusionary and competitive. It seeks either to take charge of nature's rhythms or ignore them. An emerging mindset of networking, rather than top–down control, may be starting to clear the smog. This new way of thinking is organic, inclusionary and collaborative—and certainly aware of longer-term horizons. It could replace the buccaneering, conformist mentality with self-responsibility and respect for diversity. Recent attempts to reinvent Oz with long-term vision fail to stand outside the mindset that frames competitive Westminster politics, limited by its institutionalised confrontation and either–or thinking. Oz could well make a “pledge to future generations” when examining alternative mindsets.