Commentary
We all recognise the power of peer pressure.
It’s part of human nature to run with the pack—at least most of the time—and to be nervous about striking out too far on one’s own. This is the herd instinct of animals raised to a human level. It’s part of our DNA.
That doesn’t mean that we aren’t sometimes brave enough to stand up against the majority view. We all have some brave moments, but we often fall short and feel ashamed afterwards, knowing that when a friend was in trouble we weren’t quite gutsy enough to resist and face the bullies.
You know the feeling? We’ve all been there.
But peer pressure is a cosy thing compared to what’s often going on now. Pressure has morphed into force.
The woke movement (not an ideal term, I guess, but you know what I’m talking about), with its silencing, its fear-mongering, its un-platforming, and all its other techniques of repression, has raised the stakes. Fear stalks us.
A couple of recent experiences brought this home to me.
The first was a meeting of experienced teachers and educational professionals when the issue of “transitioning” came up.
The increase in tension was almost palpable. The language used by the speakers was evasive and hesitant.
One said that more attention should be paid to the environment (if that’s not evasion I don’t know what is!).
Another went to great lengths to avoid using language that actually described the situations teachers encounter—he stuttered his way through euphemisms and motherhood (er, sorry, parenthood) statements, all based around caring, kindness, and such generalised vacuities.
Another speaker, a parent, told us that her primary school daughter had been told by her teacher that one of her friends in class had transitioned and had to be renamed.
The daughter was worried: “What does this mean? will I get into trouble if I call her by the wrong name?”
All concern seemed to focus on the transitioning child, with very little sympathy for her perplexed classmate. The simplicity of children struggles to grasp the cautious diplomacy of adults. Diplomacy, do I mean, or fear?
After the meeting, one participant asked me what my “take” on the meeting was. I reacted at once by saying that I thought we were all frightened. He said, “That’s exactly what I thought!”
We both agreed that there had been an elephant in the room, a big one too, and that we were all (he and I as well, of course) too frightened to tackle it.
Signage denoting a unisex bathroom can be seen at Melbourne Airport, Australia, on Oct. 31, 2023. Susan Mortimer/The Epoch Times
Driving home I reflected that fear explains almost everything that happens in schools nowadays. We’re all afraid of saying the wrong thing, of upsetting our colleagues (who are also afraid, but can’t be completely trusted—they could join the pack against a lone transgressor).
We’re scared of the children we teach, and of our colleagues, and now we’re scared of the law.
You see the same thing in the media.
Senator Lidia Thorpe’s utterly ridiculous speech to the National Press Club in August was received in silence, or even with approval.
No one there was bold enough to complain about her vulgar, coarse, junior-high-school-theatricality. Nor to question why this woman of predominantly Irish and English descent could have the hide to speak for the Aboriginal community, and to do so with such vengeful anger.
Afraid to Speak and Stand Up
The second incident.A senior academic and head of school was stood down on the still-to-be-defined grounds that the workplace he managed was “unsafe.”
Now the term unsafe nowadays has a new meaning: it refers to a situation in which one might be faced with opinions and ideas that are uncomfortable or distressing. Trigger warnings may even be required to defend the intellectual and emotional purity of those who encounter these dangerous views.
I had no role whatever in this matter, but I did subsequently attend a function at which some of the disgraced academic’s students were present, and I learned that they very much liked and even admired him, and knew of no evidence at all to justify the complaint.
But—and here’s the crunch—they were afraid to speak up for him or otherwise appeal on his behalf.
Some of them had gone so far as to start a petition, but they were afraid to lodge it. The plan to defend him was stillborn.
This is incomprehensible to me. As students in the 70s we would have signed any number of petitions without anxiety—and indeed with a certain bold bravado.
Climate change protestors are seen marching and changing as they carry placards in Melbourne, Australia, on Nov. 6, 2021. Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images
If it’s true that when we demonstrated against the Vietnam War we were being secretly photographed by ASIO, we didn’t really care, because the stakes were lower then. We knew we'd get some kind of a job when we left university.
We weren’t crushed by fears of climate change either—though I distinctly remember a transient anxiety about the possibility of global cooling.
Nowadays, there are still students who protest loudly and publicly, but only when the cause they support is consistent with the “orthodoxy” of the Left. Everyone else is afraid to speak out.
The two instances of fear in action that I have related touched me deeply.
I was keen to write this stuff up but struggled to do so without revealing too much detail that could embarrass those involved.
There you go, I’m afraid too. That’s what this crazy world is doing to us.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
