This interview was revealing in five key respects
1. Perhaps predictably, the interview was markedly gentler, and less probing, than an interview with David Seymour only a week before where similar issues were discussed. There is no prima facie case for a different (and less probing) approach to be taken here.
2. The interview markedly failed to push anywhere hard enough on issues relating to funding and the nature and intent of the recent hikoi.
3. The interview failed to seek clarity when issues were brushed aside with vague and sweeping statements, or by use of Maori words without seeking equivalency (or approximate equivalency).
4. The interview failed to dig into statements that, to any reasonable and educated mind, bordered on racism and incitement.
5. And perhaps most tellingly of all, when simply unable, or unwilling, to articulate a response around questions of transparency, the interviewee responded that "her truth" was quite sufficient for her, implying that it should also, then, be quite sufficient for anybody else.
No person unwilling, or unable, to respond to questions that the public has every right to ask is suitable for public office. No journalist unwilling to push to achieve this end is doing justice to their role.
The "this is my truth" statement was the pivotal statement in this interview. A proper answer to this statement would have given critical context to everything else that was brought up, and go to the heart of issues of credibility and ultimate intent.
The "my truth" statement should have been followed by "What exactly (and I mean exactly) do you mean by that?"
The WOKE assertion that truth is subjective, that no objective truth exists, that it is simply what each individual defines as such, creates no common ground for discourse, no basis for reason, no yardstick for measuring the merit of an idea, and no boundary to excess.
While truth can be hard to define we know how it looks, and we know where it leads.
The denial of objective truth erodes trust in our institutions, leads to a decline in morality, destroys relationships, and creates confusion. Most of all, it makes people (and institutions and belief systems) accountable to no ideal higher than that which can be conjured up in a moment, and cast aside when its purpose has been fulfilled, and the damage done.
The Maori Party needs to be accountable for the statements they make, and for allowing these to be exposed to the light of day so that they might be properly weighed in the balance.
Caleb Anderson, a graduate history, economics, psychotherapy and theology, has been an educator for over thirty years, twenty as a school principal.
12 comments:
The corporate apartheid agenda will be supported, not stopped.
Presumably RNZ, the description would fit most of the now interminable many maori interviews. Even more so then mere others, RNZ staff very aware of the threat of cancellation.
You'll be waiting a long time for Jack tame (correctly pronounced "Tarmay") to offer any objectivity on anything maori. Or for any of our woke media to follow suit.
"My truth" simply means "my ideology which yields freebies for me when I use it to instil a feeling of guilt into any fool of European ancestry".
The only thing 'truthful' about it is that it works as long as the neo-marxist pseudointelligentsia rule the ethical roost.
Postmodernism is well and truly ensconced in our hard one, civilized democratic society.
It is the single most determining ideology that will destroy all we know.
And yet, to continue your train of thought, Mudbayripper, 'post-modern thinking is actually 'pre'modern in that it proceeds from an unshakable ideologically-driven belief system and makes empirical data fit (or just simple makes it up). It used to be religion that was associated with this 'premodernism', now it's neo-marxism and its handmaidens such as feminism.
why isnt Tame being asked these questions?
He needs to be accountable, to explain himself...
Another untouchable. But why is National not cleaning out the media? They hold the portfolio in the Coalition. Constant negative coverage does not help them.
The change channel button when Jack Gotcha comes on has been my means of dealing with Jack .
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I would probably agree with much of what Barend says about religion and its institution s. However coming from a Huguenot and non-conformist back ground I cannot relate to his overarching condemnation of all Christianity and Christians. Much of Protestantism believes in the priesthood of the entire congregation and biblical truths freely and individually interpreted with freedom of conscience.
Jesus called the religious clergy of his day 'a nest of vipers' and hypocrites . There have been atrocious behaviours but also highlights in Christianity with men like Martin Luther King and William Wilberforce. The English founder of the Free Speech Union is of the Anglican Clergy and an academic.
While Growing up , I frequently heard that abandoning Christianity would result in the growth of Marxism which is what has happened.
I've got no problem with most modern mainstream Christians, Gaynor. Indeed Western civilisation owes a lot to Protestantism because of its emphasis on the individual rather than the group. I would go so far as to say that without the Reformation there would not have been an Enlightenment.
Barend ... couldn't agree more with your point that the reformation made the enlightenment possible ... despite their obvious differences. Well done!
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