Escape from Dingo Island

One of my fascinations is game creation. Escape from Dingo Island is a first attempt to put out there a very simple game I created  to teach some children I tutor and my own oldest child some basic maths. That maths is simply addition to ten which is regularly taught in early primary. In this game however students have to find if any combinations of numbers make ten from jumbled number sequences. That's a novel approach to the problem and involves adding multiple numbers in different combinations.

The game is also co-operative and positively themed which makes it suitable for kids in prep or year one. (You aren't even escaping from scary dingoes in the game but instead are helping animals including the dingoes escape from an island to safety.) This means it probably lacks the darkness and conflict that might appeal to older children some of whom could still benefit from practicing the skills it needs. That's a common challenge in education, how to combine age relevant themes and individually relevant levels of skill, which don't always match. Comment below if you want to suggest a version of this game that tells a different story to better engage older kids.

I'm linking to the game as a downloadable PDF file but I am also trying something new. It wont be a regular feature of the site (and it may not happen at all if I can't figure out how it works) but I'm asking for payment. I'm using a model I remember from my days loading free-ware off a floppy disk; try before you buy. Download the game and if it helps your children with their maths or if you like it so much you implement it across a whole school then pay the suggested price. If it isn't very useful then pay nothing.

And stay tuned because I'm still mulling over my thoughts about discernment and where I left my last post.

Download link:
Escape from Dingo Island

Suggested payment amounts; choose one from the drop down menu.

I intend to make one or two copies $5.00 AUD I intend to make 5-15 copies. $20.00 AUD I intend to make over 15 copies. $50.00 AUD

Then click this button to pay through pay-pal.

The right side of history; A trope about discernment.

Martin Luther King removes a blackened cross from his front lawn.

A while back I discussed the use of tropes; predictions and mental shortcuts based in story telling. For this blog post I am going to expose a trope of my own. It’s a trope particularly relevant to the question of discernment raised in the last post.

Firstly a reminder that tropes are good. Everyday we have to predict the future which by virtue of it being in the future we can’t directly observe. For simple questions like whether the sun will rise tomorrow we may not think we need tropes but in the face of a counter claim from a Doomsday cult for example we will still use tropes to reject the doubts they raise. Tropes are our way of “knowing how this story ends”; we locate the events in front of us inside a type of story we have seen before. In this case a failed Doomsday prediction. There is therefore no need to investigate every allegation from everyone.  Tropes save us a lot of time.

Equally tropes are not so good. Tropes can make enemies of people who might in fact be friends when we apply our knowledge of “where this will end” over-cautiously.  Imagine refusing a genuine gift because it was “too good to be true.” Tropes can also merrily lead us into trouble. A good con-artist will encourage our tropes and allow us to play the hero or even the con-artist ourselves in line with our expectations. Our tropes are basically our prejudices with all the pejorative connotations that word deserve.

I use the word truism to describe the building blocks of a trope. Truisms are statements about the world which we accept as true. They may be rigorously tested or blithely assumed. They are not always conscious and making them conscious can be a great way of exposing a tropes flaws. The truisms which my trope is composed of are probably the best way to investigate it and can be laid out as follows. You can use the points to find where you depart with your own trope about discernment (treat them as wild claims rather than careful arguments).

1. There are clear Kairos moments in history. Kairos is a term I’m borrowing from theology where it describes a time in history when “the church”  - those people who profess to be the people of God – must make a decision which will critically decide the legitimacy of their claim to this identity. The position of the Anglican church on Apartheid in South Africa, or the position of the Lutheran Church on the Nazi party in Hitlers’ Germany form classic modern Kairos moments.

2. Kairos moments don’t just occur for the people of God. There are moments in the life of any institution including the broad institution of humanity when certain decisions become morally critical. Notwithstanding some losses in the translation from church to nation we can see the land-rights movement or even the royal commission into child abuse as kind of Kairos moments for the community of Australia. A Kairos moment is like a fork in the road. The relationship of an institution to its most fundamental legitimacy is at stake.

3. In a Kairos moment the path of righteousness is not clearly lit. It is obscured by rational and reasonable sounding counter arguments. White people supporting Apartheid in South Africa pointed to neighbouring countries in which corruption and violence seemed even worse under black rule. Mark Twains famous depiction of Huckleberry Finn shows him comprehending freeing his friend Tom from slavery as stealing him from the woman who owns him.  Even the oppressed can’t be certain of their tactics or timing for change. The resisters in the Warsaw Ghettos could never be sure that surrender wasn’t the wiser choice of action. Our choice in a Kairos moment might cost our life and the lives of many others and for nothing. Our pursuit of what we think is righteousness might ultimately condemn us as unforgiving, or naively soft for all we know in the moment of decision.

4. Just as the right call in a Kairos moment is unclear in our approach it is painfully obvious in hindsight. Nowadays even the staunchest western conservative, unwilling to bear the thought of a woman bishop, would not question a woman’s right to vote. Nowadays even the sad few who cling to the myth of Aryan superiority deny rather than celebrate the holocaust. Support for slavery or segregation, once half the debate are now embarrassments for the church. This means we can take certain historical outcomes in debates as givens in regard to morality. (I realize this may be my weakest point; matters of justice that may seem settled briefly can easily become contested again eg. the Australian abandonment of our obligations to refugees and does a settled opinion mean anything about its rightness anyway.)

5.  Those who made the right call in historical Kairos moments (and I rely on the above point to claim they can be clearly recognized) share some commonalities in terms of their process of discernment. Maybe they nurtured an intimacy with the people affected by the decision or maybe they could create the distance from the matter at hand to see things clearly. Maybe they emphasis reason or instinct or balance between the two or held basic philosophical assumptions in common. Perhaps by comparing each person side by side we could identity a super tradition or religion each of these right-callers belong to. Whatever it is there is some definition to the process by which they managed to be on the right side of a Kairos moment.

6. Likewise we can see from past Kairos moments that certain processes of discernment were not helpful and served to obscure what we now see clearly. It may be that we can discount or treat warily forms of authority based on their uselessness in past Kairos moments. Alternatively we might just crudely note intellectual vices to avoid.

7. When we stand in a position of ignorance in relation to our own Kairos moments we can borrow from those who made the right call in the past, their process of discernment. We can also skirt past the traps that befell those who made the wrong calls. In this way while we can’t necessarily know the right conclusion to a contemporary moral crisis (and must ultimately step forward in faith) we can grow to trust a path to truth and try to find it in new scenarios.

Before I go any further with this and talk about how I apply my trope to what I see might be modern Kairos moments (Australia’s treatment of refugees for example or the global response to climate change) I want to ask you for your thoughts. Do you agree with the points laid out above? Is the concept of a Kairos moment a helpful historical one? Am I right to have my doubts about point 4? Is there really any common discernment process to be uncovered as suggested in point 5?

You could see in this trope what is alluded to by the common phrase “right side of history”. Perhaps a really fundamental question is whether there can be a right side of history other than victory? I think there can be at least a side of history we wish we would have belonged to if we lived in Kairos moments in the past. We would rather be freeing slaves than slavers for example in the 18^th century. Imagine if we could make even some small measure of improving our chances of being on the right side of history today. I think that’s something worth aiming for.

Discernment

A prayer in progress.

O Holy Spirit of justice
How little my relationship
with you has cost me
I have spent my days
with you finding fault in others
But I did not want to hear
your words to me

O Holy Spirit
Is this why you have abandoned me
To confusion and uncertainty?
Which way are you blowing?
I cannot feel you on my face
The air is still.
I will be still too.
And listen for you.

O Holy Spirit of Justice
I am making my home
in a wrong place
There is blood on the land
that I have stolen
Your hot air dries the ground
about my feet
My garden withers
As it should
But I am listening

O Holy Spirit of Justice
I swear I can walk from this throne
in the land of my forefathers
into the unknown
where I am unprotected
that my life will be full of life
that my life will sustains others
In your faintness I will heed you
Only do not leave me entirely.

I'm posting this poem as an re-introduction to thinking about discernment. Discernment is most simply to "judge well", to tell a tonic from a poison, to gauge the wisdom of a course of action, the merit of a tool for a job, the relevance of advice for a situation.... that kind of thing. Also discernment can refer to distinguishing more abstracted notions such as right from wrong or just from unjust. Whether these abstracted concepts relate directly to pragmatic concerns or whether they are somehow separate to them is also a matter of discernment itself. 

We are all involved in discernment all the time. It is a mark of our age that we like to conceal the moral dimensions of our conversations with the language of science and its objectivity. Debates such as whether children should be "pushed" to "excel" (both loaded words) by their parents, really struggle to hide their assumptions of value. Still even here both sides like to cite statistics and data about long term outcomes. In ages past conversations like this may have depended more on notions of moral debt and duty such as our responsibility to use our "gifts".

This is a re-introduction to talking about discernment rather than introduction. A quick perusal of my old blogs will show a number of times that I have tried to articulate what I think are good general principles of discernment. Going right back to a post from the second month of this blog almost four years ago I proposed something I called Empathy-led ethics. I still hold to the general gist of what I argued then. The same reliance on empathy pops up again in the perception of the ideal which forms the basis of "good morality" in a later post.

One recurring theme of this blog is its concern with fundamentalist (or biblicist) readings of Christianity. Here too the question is about discernment. Does submission to the texts of Christianity divorce us from a more reliable oracle, namely the relationships with people via which we intuit what is good and healthy for them in particular? Is fundamentalisms generation of universal truths imposed upon people after being determined, exactly what morality should avoid? I think so.

Despite these firm views I have a huge question about my own discernment. I think Buddhism has a great insight when it recognises that enlightenment comes after practice. In my daily acts of selfishness and laziness I can't perceive what is truly fair or even possible ethically. My perceptions are distorted by my priveleges and self-indulgence. The more I try to live well however the more I stop magnifying my sufferings and minimising what I can give. The more good I do, the more I can perceive what good I can do. Likewise the more I look after myself first the more I normalise to myself that I am number one and the less giving seems reasonable. The discernment of what is right and just is therefore something quite vulnerable to my actions. In the poem above their discernment is almost lost through misuse. This is a real fear I have for myself.

Because I hold ethical philosophy to be the most important branch of philosophy I am also saying something genuinely revolutionary about philosophy here and potentially to theology as well.  I do believe frankly that a stint of volunteering with people in need will do more to improve your perception of moral truth (God's truth if you like) than either studying scriptures or improving ones rationality. (Once again I have mentioned this before in a blog on killing. ) Seeing and doing are interwoven and we truly risk our ability to see justice while we are involved in injustice.

Philosophy and theology however are not immune to the hierarchies of our world. The person who makes the tea is considered less worth consulting than the academic at their books learning a fourth language, even on matters of tea!  Likewise we make experts of moral philosophy, people who study a lot. We make course on ethics that don't involve any practice. We assume our perception of what is right and just and healthy can be made with our nose in a book, even the Good book. We accumulate ways to perform wisdom without kindness and we never seem to ask ourselves whether this method of discernment has ever worked before.

Please stop teaching my child the difference between a fact and an opinion.

Last year my six year old received instruction in her grade one class as to the difference between a fact and an opinion. She was taught by example;

A horse has four legs. This is a fact.

Horse riding is fun. This is an opinion.

In order to define the difference alluded to above, multiple similar examples were given. Students gradually figured out that anything a person liked or disliked was called an opinion. Anything a person could count or weigh or that would be commonly agreed upon (like the colour of something) was a fact. The distinction rested, as far as I can tell, on the difference between the category of things for which we admit multiple right answers (opinion) and the category of things for which we admit only one (fact).

Of particular concern to me is the value discrepancy my child seemed to pick up between opinion and fact. I perceived a hidden message that opinion was “just” opinion while a fact was something much more real about the world; A person “feels” an opinion with far less certainty than they “know” a fact. I don’t see why my child should at the age of six consider the fun-ness of horse riding as somehow belonging to a less real category than the four-ness of horse legs. Is the declaration of the beauty of a sunset less real than a matter of fact description of its colours? To make such a case would require a whole host of philosophical assumptions that I doubt were adequately explored in her class.

This automatic insertion of judgment in philosophical conversations is common; when people are considered to be animals they are often not just considered animals, they are considered just animals instead (a profound difference).  It’s very possible that teaching my child to devalue opinion in relation to fact wasn’t the teachers’ intent. However any dichotomy tends to settle itself into a hierarchy, especially if a particular order of importance already has currency. We live in just such a culture that privileges the objective above the subjective and in school more than anywhere. Consequently the value discrepancy my child learnt was a predictable outcome.

This begs the question, was the purpose of this lesson meant to inform this hierarchy? Is it part of some social skills curriculum with the intent to ensure children permit each other to have different opinions while accepting they cannot choose the facts they like? I’d rather my child was taught social skills by empathizing with others feelings. I’d rather my child was encouraged to support all her opinions with reasons and to expect the same of her teacher – no need to restrict this to “facts.”

Regardless of these preferences it is a form of wishful thinking to believe in a model of truth and the world because of its implications for social behaviour. At least we can choose to engage in this wishful thinking as adults. Is it morally permissible to teach a model of truth to children for its social benefits without admitting that agenda? The Village, directed by M. Night Shyamalan explores that question. For a range of reasons I don’t think it’s either desirable or necessary to do so.

Hearing my child come home with a respect for fact over opinion wasn’t my only concern with this lesson. The distinction is also incorrect; an opinion is not the opposite of a fact. What makes something an opinion is just that someone believes it. All opinions, in order to be an opinion, are my opinion or your opinion or someone else’s opinion. They belong to someone. There is no such thing as a category of statement which is an opinion in isolation from whether someone believes it. The statement “Horse riding is fun” describes a subjective quality of horse riding which is only an opinion if it is my opinion or yours or someone’s. It is not an opinion by virtue of any independent or intrinsic quality of itself.

Even more importantly there is no kind of statement that we can declare is not an opinion. It is now a common opinion that the earth moves around the sun, just as it was once a common opinion that it didn’t. It is an opinion that horses have four legs. Whereas the statement that horse riding is fun is an opinion about the subjective quality of fun involved with riding, horses has four legs is an opinion about the objective quality of number of legs involved with a horse. But the latter is still an opinion. Someone, possibly almost everyone, believes it. It is their opinion.

Failure to understand this meaning of opinion sets children up for failure in any scientific endeavor. Science is not the process of discovering facts which are magically not anyone’s opinions. Science is the process of forming one’s own opinions based on observations. Unlike the concept of an orphan fact, a scientific opinion has to be owned by the scientist who takes responsibility for their observations and fairness towards them. This responsibility is the moral crux of being a scientist.

This personal responsibility enables scientists at their best to do what scientists do best. They can change their opinion. The importance of retaining this attitude does not lessen when an opinion is rarely contested, even as rarely contested as horses have four legs. Yes, you can get away with treating commonly held opinions as if they weren’t opinions at all. You can even prosper, as no doubt the witch hunters of the inquisition did, but you won’t be meeting the responsibilities of the scientific method. To do that all statements must be recognized as opinions - differing by the degree to which they are supported and informed, but never fully transformed into facts.

My last objection to the teaching my child received is to the notion that opinions have multiple right answers. If we include in this category of opinion descriptions of fun, beauty and yumminess it may seem obvious what we are saying; people will not always agree on these things. I personally might even accept that people will never agree and that we might be better of not trying to achieve agreement in these areas. I am however aware of the huge ramifications that spring from accepting that there is no case for agreement ever to be made – particularly in the case of beauty.

Many of our moral and ethical ideas relate directly to some sense of beauty. A school yard covered in litter is aesthetically less pleasing than one kept clean, and students are encouraged to appreciate that. A forested mountain is considered more beautiful than a clear-felled one. If beauty is entirely in the eye of the beholder then it becomes possible to simply argue that one person’s preference for nature is the same as another’s preference for a shopping centre. Less obviously our admiration for a life spent seeking truth and justice rather than one spent submitting to arbitrary authority is also about principles of beauty. We only have to look at a life like Malala Yousafzai’s to feel inspired and in awe. Is the art in her life-choice equal to that of her oppressors?

http://goo.gl/XKODxO

We should teach this possibility to kids, but not as a forgone conclusion. Let them explore how the permission of multiple (infinite?) right answers to certain types of questions is contestable with curious implications. For example, ask them why they think a butterfly is pretty (if they do) and whether a person who disagrees about that is wrong. That there are certain questions which we do not and can never know a definitive answer to is itself an opinion – something someone believes. So too is the idea that other questions have one right answer. Like all opinions these claims should have to be supported by reasons rather than simply declared a fact,

The Benefit of The Doubt Review

Tony Abbott is Australia's Prime Minister. Despite believing that Australia was “nothing but bush” prior to English settlement he is also the Minister for our Indigenous Affairs. Famous for knighting princes, his mastery is the policy pronouncement from left-field; the “captains call”. Captain here could be in reference to Captain Ahab but our less focused Tony seems to have a new giant mammal in his sights every week. Only a complete lack of negotiating skills ensure that none adorn his wall as trophies.

The latest Quixotic challenge of Tony's is to revoke "the benefit of the doubt” which as captain he feels we can no longer afford to extend. But Tony has been timid in his proposed cuts to this archaic pillar of reason and retrograde courtesy. Only certain groups are to have their benefit of the doubt revoked; asylum seekers, applicants for citizenship and the recipients of welfare benefits.

These three seem like odd groups to target first; applicants for citizenship because sensibly governments encourage citizenship. Citizens, while being entitled to certain rights and protections, are also expected to invest in their new nation and are under obligation to care for it, specifically in Australia by voting. Generally it is preferable to have permanent residents take up citizenship rather than retain what might be an interloper's identity.

This love of country was presumably Tony Abbott's own motivation when, at the age of 24, he took up Australian citizenship (albeit without forfeiting British citizenship). For the six years before then Mr. Abbott could only utilise Australia's colonial legacy of permitting all British citizens (with a residence of six months of more) Australian voting rights anyway. Could such disadvantage give him special insight into the problems of stateless persons who seek citizenship here?

Welfare recipients and asylum seekers certainly wouldn't be among my other first targets for any rationalisation of the benefit of the doubt. They are clearly the most reliant on it. If we are to presume that all welfare recipients are welfare -cheats or that all asylum seekers are disgenuine smugglers of themselves then frankly lives will end. Here the “benefit of the doubt” is hardly surplus but provides the basic air to breathe. In fact without the benefit of the doubt we may as well just replace the categories of welfare recipients or asylum seekers with “criminal”.... oh. Yes, I see.

Still, if we consider the benefit of the doubt as a sort of fat in the conceptual budget of our compassion then arguably the most needy have already had their bacon trimmed. Instead I want to suggest to Tony Abbott a range of other areas where benefit of the doubt seems to be wastefully and disproportionately accorded. Some of these are sacred cows of the political establishment so this is a call for Tony's trademark boldness and innovation.

1. Politicians

We all know that politicians lie. Sometimes they even warn us not to take them seriously as they will be speaking “off the cuff” at any given time. Still large amounts of the benefit of the doubt is handed over to them at every election. This costly resource is spent so flagrantly that completely fraudulent costings can emerge mid-campaign with benefit of the doubt to spare.

We can soften the blow by commenting on how little explicit electoral violence there is in Australia. But the peacefulness of our voting doesn't change the fundamental economics. We are decades deep in deficit in our benefit of the doubt spending on politicians. An increasingly disillusioned electorate suggests this is unsustainable.

If the benefit of the doubt spent on refugees and welfare recipients is a leaky tap then the waste on politicians is a burst pipe. By withdrawing generosity to the needy we may indeed have a tiny bit more to fill our electoral swimming pool with but for how long? Frankly claiming to be interested in the people treating Australians like mugs and not looking at politicians is like having an energy policy that ignores the sun.

2. Tycoons

When Alan Bond financed the America's Cup win in 1983 for us nobody could question his patriotism. When he was jailed in 1997 for embezzling $1.2 billion we almost didn't forgive the larrikin, even removing his Order of Australia. It was as if the benefit of the doubt for Australia's ultra-rich might be permanently damaged. But this was to prove a mere hiccup in the love of a nation that can barely stop itself from officially becoming a squatocracy.

Kerry Paker's famous declaration,“Tax me if you can, I'm the gingerbread man.” (or something similar) was a moment of honesty about the obligation all truly wealthy people feel towards their nominal nationality. Despite this, Australian governments baulk at addressing our internationally renowned supermarket and media concentration, or negative gearing or our reliance on coal on the advice of our most wealthy citizens. After all they probably only want what is best for the whole country.

In 2010 the mining oligarchs in Australia ran a campaign informing people that a tax on mining super-profits was bad. Few noticed the conflict. 22.2 million dollars was spent in six weeks. Few complained it was a distortion of democracy when the Labor party dropped the teeth from their policy in response. We extended the mining magnates the benefit of the doubt when they declared their involvement “patriotic”. We continued extending when they patriotically donated 1.9 million to the opposition before the 2010 election for the promise to scrap the mining tax altogether.

There have been some reductions in the benefit of the doubt afforded the corporate sector lately. Big tobacco couldn't convince the High Court that it was an artist in a soviet gulag when made to convert to plain packaging. But to stop here would be foolish. James Packer, (a “huge Tony Abbott fan”) and Rupert Murdoch (of the “Australia Needs Tony” front page fame) still make regular policy contributions and co-write our trade agreements. There's enough fatty generosity here to make soap for the nation.

3. An Open Tender Process

I'm beginning to suspect Tony that you may be a little too close to some of our major benefit of the doubt budget holes. In fact you seem a little free with your own benefit of the doubt. Your decision to be a glowing character witness for a priest charged with sexual assualting a 14 year old boy in 1997 is hardly the sort of tightened spending we're aiming for. Especially not considering he was defrocked shortly after or that you continued to defend the Catholic Churches response to sexual abuse up till 2013.

An open tender could also reveal those areas which get the benefit of the doubt so freely that we don't even estimate our expenditure. The Queensland police force perhaps? ASIO whose powers and expenditure are increasingly without any oversight? Andrew Bolt? There are hefty unaddressed accounts for these institutions in terms of the public benefit of the doubt.

The danger is a truly open tender could go nasty Neighbour could nominate the benefit of the doubt granted neighbour. Shopkeepers could suggest “schoolbags must be left outside” signs become mandatory. Frozen berries will never be sellable again. Ministers may have to wear body-camera's when meeting party donors. Your new anti-terrorism measures will be viewed as fear-mongering by a desperate snake-oil salesman about to be tarred and feathered.

This blog post is itself a prime example, Tony. It's mean spirited compared to most of what I write. Should we really judge you just for being a belated citizen or even for your loyalty to an old friend and pederast? For that matter shouldn't we move on from such old history as your broken promises from almost four whole years ago?

If I haven't been measured and calm Tony, if I've been overly concerned that you treat me like a mug, then its partly on your recommendation. You may want to reconsider; is the benefit of the doubt something we really can ill afford? How will you survive without it?

It Hurts My Heart.

Recently I have had the privilege of teaching some year 10 students about the Holocaust.We used a range of sources including the personal stories collected by the United States Holocaust Museum.

One student described what we were learning with " it hurts my heart". My first thought was that she was being trite but she was genuine and the sentiment didn't deserve any condescension from me. Its perfectly valid to express an emotional reaction by describing it as an injury to one's soul.

I have an affection for the net-born concept of "feels" which describes a similar idea. There's a short history of the term at knowyourmeme.com well worth reading, but to summarise ,"feels" are overwhelming empathic emotional reactions. It might be hard for Generation Xers to accept, but "feels" is not being used cynically to describe the manipulation of one's emotions. "Feels" is not a reference to schmaltz. To confess to "Feels" is to admit real emotion; to make oneself vulnerable to the ridicule of cynics.

In 2014 there have been a great many things which should have "hurt my heart" or "hit me right in the feels"; the bargaining in Australian politics over children in detention or the tragedy just before Christmas in Cairns for example. But brutally honestly, while those events have affected me, they have also seemed all too common elements of a nigh endless testament to our inhumanity and isolation from each other. To an extent they have washed over me. I wasn't overcome with emotion.

Partly my heart is occupied. I have two kids and there is a very bare minimum of two times a week lately that I have endured vividly imagining their deaths. Electricity, choking, traffic, tree branches; I'm not pretending it's a scientific list of risks. I have no idea if this rate of dire imaginings is"normal"- I'm sure some parents will feel I'm lucky to be so stress-free. Of course we worrying parents keep these thoughts to ourselves and as for any suggestion we shouldn't worry so much, such mastery over doubts and fears sounds peachy. Do you have a method other than intoxicants?

The youngest of my two kids is eight months, crawling and putting anything she can in her mouth which no doubt triggers sensible fears. Also I'm tired because of the eight monther's unimpressive sleeping patterns. When I'm tired, it's alternatively silly humour and free floating anxiety time for me. These are the plausible explanations of my morbid speculation.

Maybe though this is also how I deal with these terrible tragedies affecting other people's children. Maybe every news report about a murdered or abandoned baby that I don't have time to feel overcome with emotion about pops up again in some terrible fantasy about my own kids and whether I or their mother can really be trusted with their care. Maybe the reports of refugee children languishing in conditions worse than prisons watching their parents learn that Australia will never let them call its land home cause me to doubt that I can always keep my children free and safe . Maybe I learn from these stories that misfortune doesn't equal rescue; the rescuers are too scared and selfish to help. Woe to my kids if I ever slip the wrong side of safety.

When I worked with young people as a counsellor I developed an adage, "Everything is about ourselves." One homeless youth loved to talk to me for hours about some issue of political history. They were using the principle of consistency to explore who they were and what rights and responsibilities belonged to them. Regularly young victims of violence who would be sent to me only after they had repeated that violence on others would spout challenging rhetoric about how the victim asked for it. They wanted me to tell them whether they likewise had deserved the violence they had received.

It's terribly selfish for me in my privilege to hear about the real suffering of other children and react with anxiety for my own essentially safe kids. It's the same selfishness that means a young homeless kid wanting to talk about slavery in American History is really talking about their own plight, although we can be more forgiving of them. It's a selfishness that you might accuse concepts like "Feels" or the phrase "hurts my heart" of admitting to. They describe a terrible circumstance in terms of our pain in hearing of it.

But I think this selfishness is in recognition of a profound truth. There goes me; there in that other person's suffering is what is permissible to happen to me... or my children. I can't say it is wrong for me to be forgotten in a foreign prison but okay for it to happen to you, just as so many young people I've worked with can't say it's not okay to bully others until they can also stop taking responsibility for the bullying they have received. Like it or not we are making-sense-of-the-world machines and applying consistency is key to how we do this.

It is possible to make this selfishness a positive drive. We can commit to upholding agreements like the Refugee Convention precisely because it makes us feel safer and it protects all children, including our own. We can advocate for mental health support services, public housing or a disability insurance scheme because it alleviates our own anxiety about the way we might fall through the cracks, and again for our childrens' sake.

I want to admit with the astonishing honesty of "kids nowadays" that my heart has been hurt by the tragedies that have punctuated 2014. I enter 2015 not perfectly coping with the feels.

A Sock Puppet Christmas Carol.

Every year since moving to our new house (this was the third) we have celebrated Christmas with a party and a play I author. They are always shambolic having had no real rehearsal before the day. For example this years main character progressively lost his puppets eyes; the only features distinguishing him from a sock in fact.

The play we did was an adaptation of Dickens' Christmas Carol. It is a much abridged version with certain philosophical and political changes. Death for example hasn't the sting of Dickens version and Scrooge is actually a big fan of Christmas. I struggled to identify what really could reform my Scrooge. See what you think of my solution.

The Ghosts were played by my partner (Christmas Present) and daughter (Christmas Past and Future both). The rest of the characters were done with sock puppets. This is why scenes are written with only two characters other than the ghosts on stage at a time (two hands =two sock puppets).

______________________________________________________________________

Scene 1.

A Sign is held up progressively revealing….

• Do you believe in Christmas?
• Do you really believe?
• Really?

(Audience coaxed into responding to each sign)

 Scrooge (enters): At Chucky D’s we believe in Christmas.  That’s why we’re slashing the prices on all our toys for an ultimate sale the night before Christmas.              Come on down from dusk Christmas eve until dawn on Christmas day and our bargains will help you ‘believe in christmas’.

Assistant: Cut!

            You were marvelous, sir, marvelous.  This is our greatest campaign ever!

Scrooge: Right.  What about that hold out manager? The one refusing to open tonight.

Assistant: He’s still insisting that none of his staff want to work – they’d rather spend time with their families.

Scrooge: Right.  Fire that manager and promote someone else. Any of the other staff not volunteering to work Christmas night will be out of a job too.

Assistant: Great decision, sir, very strong but – umm – the manager is Bob Cratchitt.  He’s worked for this company since your father’s time.

Scrooge: Cratchitt, eh?  Exactly. He’s worked for this company forever.  A winner wouldn’t do that.  A winner would have worked for himself and moved on.  Fire him.  Do him a favour.  People like him like defeat.  They feel noble in it.   (yawns).  Now, leave me.  I’ve been working round the clock.  I’m going to grab a power nap before the sale starts. 

(Ghost of Christmas past appears)

Scrooge: Who are you?

Ghost CP: Tonight, Ebeneezer Scrooge you will be visited by three ghosts, who will show you the real spirit of Christmas.  I am the first, the ghost of Christmas past.

Scrooge: Hang on, I know what Christmas is about.  I sell toys and tinsel and candy.  Christmas is when you make lots of money.  That’s my Christmas.

Ghost: We shall see. How about we take a look at one of your Christmases from a long, long time ago.

(waves arms/spins to whisk him back to past).

Scene 2

Bob Cratchitt (younger) is carrying a present towards a young Scrooge and a Christmas tree.

BC: Master Scrooge, your parents asked me to place this under the tree for you.  They are very sorry but they won’t be here for Christmas.  They have too much work in town.

Scrooge(older): Hey, I know that guy.  He’s Bob Cratchitt.  I just fired him today.  Why is he so young?

Ghost: This is forty years ago.  Why, you’re only 9.

Scrooge (younger): Well if they’re not here I’m going to open my present now.  (tears at present) Oh, What? Its that fire truck I wanted.  No fair.

BC: What’s wrong then.  If you wanted it….

Scrooge (younger): You’ve got to put it together before you can play with it.  Jimmy at school got one and he said it was really hard.  His parents had to help him.

BC: I’ll help you if you’d like.

Scrooge (younger): Would you? Wow.

(The two put the truck together complimenting each other on their skill.  When it’s built, they play together happily).

Scrooge (Older): Man, did I love that truck.

Ghost: Was it just the truck that made you happy Ebeneezer?

Scrooge: Sure it was.  I think I called it Rosebud.

Ghost (to audience) : What do you think, everyone?  Was it just the truck that made him happy?

Scrooge: Bah, what do they know?  (Ghost disappears)…. Hey who was I talking to? Some crazy dream that was. (Goes back to sleep)

Scene 3.

Ghost of Christmas Present – Wake Up Ebeneezer

Scrooge – Who are you?

Ghost – I’m the Ghost of Christmas present.

Scrooge – Oh not this again. What old memories will you drag up?

Ghost – I wont be taking you anywhere to the past. However we can visit anywhere in the now. Why don’t we check in on that Christmas sale you’ve been promoting?

(Line of people outside chucky d’s)

Scrooge – Wow. Lining up already before the sale even starts. And they said I couldn’t do it. …. But I did. Hey this is Bob Cratchetts store right? So he buckled and opened after all.

Ghost – Oh no. They promoted his replacement. Bob Cratchetts Christmas is somewhere else.

(Whoah)

Bob Cratchitt – Hey Wally, Hows it going? Do you want a Christmas food parcel? We’ve got heaps.

Wally – Bob, I didn’t expect to see you hear today. Figured you’d be working at the big sale.

Bob – Not for me Wally, How about you? I heard you were working too?

Wally – Yup. Got me a job. Still money doesn’t quite stretch to cover Christmas. I’ll be paying off some presents till half way through next year I reckon. Not that I’m complaining. As that Chucky D’s ad says “I believe in Christmas”

Bob – Grr. That Ad. That Ad makes me so mad. Why all Scrooge cares about is making money and he doesn’t care how many people have to go broke to make it happen.

(Woah) Bob and Wally disappear. Replaced by Scrooge.

Scrooge – Oh I get this now. This is all some sort of corny morality show. You want me to feel guilty that that guy spent all his money at my stores. I’m not responsible for his decisions.

Ghost – You seemed ready to take responsibility for all those people lining up for your sale.

Scrooge – (not listening) I know your plan. Make the successful feel guilty for the losers.

Do you know where Id be if I believed any of this? I ‘d be handing out food parcels with

Bob Cratchitt. Instead I’m living in a mansion watching my money grow.

Ghost – Well then back to your piles of wealth. There will be one more ghost to visit you. The Ghost of Christmas future.  Perhaps they will change your mind.

Ghost of Christmas Present sits down.

Scene 4.

Scrooge (Alone) – Right. Where are you, Ghost of Christmas future? I’m ready for you.

Bring it. I know you’re game.

I’m not Scared!!

(Ghost of Christmas future appears.)

Scrooge - Are you them?

Ghost just points –

Scrooge – You have something to show me? What?

(Older Scrooge appears)

Scrooge – hey its me! I look good.

Older Scrooge – Today is my birthday. And thanks to modern medicine and all my money I am still going as healthy as a young man.

I’m really proud of this year what we’ve achieved. 12 Christmases in a year. 12 Christmas eve sales!

When I suggested that we increase the number of Christmas in a year some people said Bah Humbug but this year we proved that you can have a Christmas every month. And if anyone says Bah Humbug to me my answer to them is Ca ching! Ca Ching! Because profits are up, up, up.

Aagh… (Older Scrooge has heart attack) Oh a heart attack.

Scrooge – Is that supposed to scare me? That I’ll die one day in the future? Of course I will. Everyone dies but I’ll die rich and famous.

Hmmm Maybe I’ll start eating healthier but you haven’t convinced me to be some goody two shoes.

And what about Bob Cratchitt? Whats his future Christmas like?

(Ghost of Christmas Future points and Older Scrooge is replaced by Cratchitts nephews.)

Older Siblings – Mum and Dad want us to visit Uncle Bob in the Hospital for Christmas. They say it will probably be his last one. It’s not fair,  if we do that we’ll miss the big sale at Chucky D’s.
Uncle Bob is really boring anyway. He never gives us anything good. I mean one year he gave us poems. Seriously. Lets tell mum we’re not going.

Scrooge – Ha, that’s hilarious. Bob Cratchitt dies all alone on Christmas while I die rich and famous. What’s that tell you about who gets Christmas best? Eh?

Littlest kid – I want to go to see Uncle Bob. He’s nice and it would make mummy happy. I don’t want to go shopping instead.

Scrooge – That means nothing. He’s too young for my advertising. Wait till he grows up I’ll get him too . I will. I’ll get him too.

Zzzzz ( Scrooge goes back to sleep)

Scene 5.

(Scrooge is tossing and turning)

Scrooge: I’ll get him too. I will.

Littlest kid: I want to make mummy happy. Uncle Bob is nice.

Scrooge – Aaagh. What a terrible nightmare! I will get that little kid. Even after I’m dead my company will go on . My ads will get him and every other kid even after I’m dead. But…. I don’t want to get him.
I don’t want to change him at all. Why don’t I want to change him? Why?
I… I  want to be like him. I remember what really made me happy when I was a kid. It wasn’t the truck. I want to make people happy like that too. I’ve got to get to the shops.

(Scrooge runs to scene of people at the shops…).

Scrooge - Stop everyone. Go home. Stop shopping. This isn’t what Christmas is about. Christmas is about making people happy, your mums and dads and friends… and you don’t need presents to do it. You just need to spend time with them.

Kids, Kids…. You know best. Can you tell them? Tell them to Go home and enjoy Christmas.

Bob – Hey there buddy are you OK? Need a place to stay? Hey its you Mr. Scrooge.

Scrooge – Bob, Oh Bob. I’m so glad to see you. You’ve got your job back. Or wait you should be in charge of me. Teach me everything you know about the real spirit of Christmas.