What facts do you believe to be true? Are you 100% positive that those facts are in fact, ‘the truth’? Are they true for everyone? Have they always been true or once upon a time did you believe that something else was true. I onced believed that the tooth fairy was real, much like Alice, my 7 year old, does today. She has even collected (some well placed by me…) evidence to prove the fairy’s existence. In her mind, the tooth fairy is a fact, I mean who else would want your tiny baby teeth?
The thing about facts is that we believe that they’re true until we don’t. Spoiler alert, the tooth fairy isn’t real but everything about it feels real and ‘the truth’ to Alice. This is quite an obvious example but what about more adult-like beliefs such as political alignment or how we run our families or our expectations of others in the workplace.
Why do you believe the things you believe? For most of us, as children we believe what our parents do. As we morph into adolescence our intake is influenced more by our own experiences. School, friends, social media (much to a parents annoyance) all start to change and hopefully challenge what you believed to be true.
We’ve recently had to have conversations with the kids about not believing everything you watch on YouTube. While some of the content could be ‘true’, lots of it is absolutely absurd garbage that you need to question. We’re trying to install critical thinking in our kids because self assessment and reflection is a tool that they need to be able to use without us and should be using everyday for the rest of their lives.
Regular and consistent self reflection is the only way to make sure that the facts we believe are the most recent and up to date versions of themselves. Some facts get put away in a safe, never to be challenged or improved upon again. I very much put Trump in the ‘complete douchebag box’ long ago until I listened to Julie Bishop talk at the Committee of Ballarat Roundtable dinner last month, about his leadership style. Despite despising the man, he owns his style and it's (annoyingly) very effective and influential to a big chunk of America.
Trump might not be the best example because I still believe he is a complete douchebag so maybe I can use the example of my trip to Langi Kal Kal Prison earlier this year when we spoke to inmates about their fears of being released back into the community. Prior to this experience, I had little sympathy for a sex offender re-entering my community but after meeting a few, my beliefs changed. Their successful reintegration into our communities is a measure of our resilience as a community.
The Langi experience changed what I believed to be true. This year (especially) I have changed my mind about many things that I once believed to be true, including my own opinion of myself. The more this happens, the more I have begun to question all sorts of things I see and hear. I have started to hold my beliefs with a lighter grip. I also believe we should be able to change our minds when we have new evidence presented to us.
This is the core difference between science and religion. Religion is based on a set of unmoving (and in some cases, unreasonable) ‘facts’. Science works on the presumption that we know nothing so we start with a hypothesis which we set out to either prove or disprove. Science challenges the facts until it can prove them as close to ‘true’ as possible but even then if someone disproves it later on, then the scientific community will change their position. It’s evidence based truth.
If the most accurate endeavour of ‘science’ is allowed to change their minds then why not politics? Why can’t a local councillor change their position on a topic once they have gathered more evidence and listened to more perspectives? Why can’t an MP loosen their grip on a campaign promise after discovering that they may not have believed the right ‘facts’ in the first place?
How do we even make the right decisions when ‘decisions’ themselves are all so different? Deciding what takeaway to get on Friday night is vastly different from deciding if we should employ someone else at HUCX. However they’re both decisions that need to be made. So how do you make good decisions if we’re not 100% sure that the facts we have are true?
This is a question I’ve been seriously considering as I toy with the idea of local government. What evidence is there that I’m a good decision maker because ultimately that is the action point of being a councillor. Without sounding like a wanker, I’m pretty charismatic and have a great story to tell but that doesn’t mean I know how to make good decisions, especially if I’m advocating on behalf of a community that believes in hundreds, if not thousands of different truths.
When Julie Bishop was asked how she makes big decisions she shared the following four questions she asked herself.
1. Compared to what?
2. At what cost?
3. What’s the evidence?
4. What could possibly go wrong?
Not all decisions need this level of scrutiny but we often underestimate how complex decisions are, especially in local government where there are less frameworks in place than Federal and State governments. There will always be opportunity costs and unintentional consequences and that’s when you make the ‘right’ decision. Even deciding if we get HSP’s (Halal Snack Packs - chips with meat on it Mum) or pizza tonight requires a certain amount of consideration by all members of my family. I normally get outvoted pretty quickly by Matt and the kids when it comes to HSP’s and I have to be ok with that - or in this case, cross the bench / road and get some Vietnamese instead.
