Psychic wounds: a hurdle to rational political debate

Is there any way forward? I think there is but it will require a change in the mindset of social justice activists.

Experience shapes perception. If the experience changes, then so will the perception.

You do not think your way through to a new way of living – you live your way through to a new way of thinking.

Two asylum seeker issues show this. First, in the late 1930s Hitler was willing to sell exit visas to countries willing to buy Jews. There were few takers (the Australian representative at the 1938 Evian conference said that "Australia does not have any racial problems and does not wish to import any"). The Holocaust changed Australian perceptions of how badly Jews were treated and since 1945 Australia has one of the largest per capita Jewish Diaspora populations.

Second, after World War II there was a labour shortage. The Chifley Labor and Menzies Liberal Governments both increased the immigration from non-UK/ Irish stock. The experience of the need to recruit workers for the factories shaped perceptions.

In other words, it may be possible to change psychic wounds. But in political terms, it will require a new way of campaigning.