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The import of knowing what you don’t know

By Graham Ring - posted Wednesday, 9 April 2008


Modern methods have failed to deliver a better life for many black Australians, as government quick-fixes crash and burn one after another.

Going back a good while there was a bloke by the name of Socrates wandering around Athens. He was given to yarning up with the locals and more often than not leaving them scratching their chins. Soc was a bright spark, you see, and he had a habit of asking unsettling questions that got up people’s noses. He was widely regarded as a Very Smart Cookie.

Anyhow, one Friday evening, Socrates and his cobbers had ensconced themselves at the local boozer and were having a few quiet ones, exchanging war stories about another hard week of philosophising. “How do you do it Soc?” one of the boys asked him. “How do you keep coming up with those curly ones?”

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At this, Socrates took a sip from his schooner, smiled enigmatically at his mates and told them that it was because “I know that I do not know”.

Then he went off to the bar to buy a round of drinks, leaving the rest of the mob nonplussed.

Now, I may not have got the dialogue or the setting exactly right, but this is pretty much the substance of the conversation. It was all Greek to me initially, but after a certain amount of brain-strain, I twigged to the possibility that Soc was applauding the value of being aware of what you don’t know.

It’s actually a pretty handy skill when you give it some thought. It stops us jumping to conclusions, or thinking that we know all the answers. It encourages us to ask questions of others, and to listen carefully to their responses.

These techniques should be pretty useful in any field of public policy, but nowhere more so than on the troubled terrain of Indigenous affairs. Imagine the benefits which would accrue if governments could be convinced to think more carefully before they acted?

Federal governments in this country are prisoners of the three-year electoral cycle. The third year is always spent in “election mode”, which means that they have little more than a miserable 24-month window to put a score on the board.

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This sudden-death arrangement might work okay in some policy areas where the levers just need a little bit of tweaking, but when it comes to Indigenous affairs, things are a bit more complicated. Let’s face it - 200 years of horrendous bungling cannot be put right in 24 months.

Sadly, settling down to the hard slog of slow, careful work carried out in full consultation with Aboriginal people is not seen as a realistic option. Instead, governments of all political persuasions seek silver bullets, magic elixirs and quick fixes.

Without exception these half-baked plans are born of great expectations - and most expire in their infancy. Or worse, they linger and grow weaker, eventually dying a public death, and confirming for the sages of the suburbs that, as far as Indigenous Australia is concerned, there is no answer.

Consider the example of the late, unlamented Shared Responsibility Agreements, or the teetering edifice that is the 99-year community lease. Ponder the wisdom of prescribing housing mortgages for remote communities where the vast majority of residents live on welfare.

These are just some of the rotten apples from the most recent basket of “act before you think” policy failures.

And for these failures, ministers must carry the can. To be brutally honest, I was never a great fan of Mal Brough. But unlike many, I believe that he genuinely wanted a better life for Aboriginal people in Australia.

The tragedy was that he not only lacked the expertise, he lacked an awareness of this fact. Consequently he spent too much of his ministerial career galloping gung-ho down dead-end streets.

As old Socrates might have put it “he didn’t know that he didn’t know”. Had he been in the vastly more advanced position of recognising that he didn’t know, he could have started his search for answers by talking to the folk most likely to be able to provide some thoughtful advice - the Aboriginal people themselves.

Perhaps policy-makers in Indigenous affairs should begin their days by contemplating the staggering amount of public money that is squandered in this sector, and then solemnly intone Socrates’ wise words: “I know that I do not know.”

They could do a lot worse.

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First published in the National Indigenous Times, Issue 149, on March 20, 2008.



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About the Author

Graham Ring is an award-winning writer and a fortnightly National Indigenous Times columnist. He is based in Alice Springs.

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