A summary of the speech delivered by Hugh Mackay, prominent Australian social research commentator and author to the Communities in Control conference 2004.
Australians are battling through four different revolutions – which are having great impacts and fostering radical changes on our community and society as we know it – according to the address given to the Communities in Control Conference by Hugh Mackay, Australian social research commentator and author.
However Dr Mackay said while some of these impacts are not positive, he felt there were some strong and tangible indications that these changes were also bringing about a strengthening of community in Australia – particularly among young people.
Dr Mackay described the four revolutions as:
1. Economic: Including issues like the widening gap between rich and poor, the swing from full-time to part-time work, the reduction in job security and downsizing - the last three leaving many uncomfortable about their workplace.
2. Information Technology: Many not being able to cope with the staggering growth in use of IT and the changes it has made to our lives. Dr Mackay described as a "hoax" the concept of a "global village" – where "flaming" or hurling abuse across cyberspace because of one's relative anonymity is now a problem. He said another issue was the loss of human contact through the use of email, with a counter-revolution of people demanding face-to-face contact.
3. Multicultural: The fact that Australia's diverse and pluralistic way of life can leave some uneasy about the country's increasing ethnic and religious diversity.
4. Gender: The change in women's views of their role, status and responsibilities has implications on family, community, politics, retail life and the workforce. This also has implications on men who have realised this revolution was not a "blip on the radar" and is not going to go away.
Dr Mackay asserted that those revolutions were the driving force behind radical changes in Australian society, including increased divorce rates, falling marriage rates, drastically falling birth rates and an increased age when marrying for the first time or having your first child.
This has led to a shrinking household in Australia – something which Dr Mackay believes has the potential to see in Australia the natural herding instinct of humans strengthen communities: "The typical domestic herd in Australia used to be about seven or eight either because we were having more children or because we had more generations under the same roof but once you get down to households of one or two you can't talk about herds, these are not herds," he said.
"So what happens to the herd instinct? And here we come I think to the first bit of good news in all this. That is to say that the herd instinct is not dead we are herd animals. The herd instinct is looking for somewhere to be satisfied. And if it's not going to be satisfied in the domestic arena then obviously we look out in to the community."
Dr Mackay added that the relative disengagement of people, who are more and more often turning away from the "big picture" – the political agenda, or world or national issues – to become more inward looking, could bring about negative implications of prejudice, less tolerance, less compassion and more selfishness. But it could also see a heightened desire for community.
"In amongst that catalogue of complaint about the gap between our values and the way we're actually leading our lives constantly re-emerges this word community. We feel as if we should live in a community, yet we don't know our neighbours. We yearn to live in a safe neighbourhood where people are at least on nodding acquaintance with each other, where you recognize the people across the road and round the corner and at the park but we haven't quite got there yet," he said.
"But it's part of what I think is a significant reappraisal that's going on right now amongst many, many Australians who are saying life doesn't have to be like this; work doesn't have to dominate my life, I don't have to be so stressed, I don't have to spend two hours every day going through my emails and I don't have to feel like a stranger in my own street or my own suburb."
Finally, Dr Mackay felt we should be encouraged by the rising generation of young Australians, who he asserted have realised the most important resource they have is each other: "Sure they walk around with their mobile phones clamped to their ears or more particularly ... do that text messaging thing with such facility," he said.
"They are constantly using the technology but what are they using it for? They're using it to augment their relationships with each other when they'd much rather be face to face.
"This is a generation who are connected; who are more tribal and whose message to the rest of us is: if you want to live with some sense of comfort, some sense of identity, some sense of security in such a turbulent, ever-changing world and living with changes that will tend to fragment us and keep us apart, you'll have to work at getting back together, you'll have to work at making these connections."