Improving the Transitions for Adolescents, an extensive report compiled by an eminent group of researchers after reviewing the relevant literature, advises lawmakers that their job is to ‘strike a balance between protecting young people from harm and allowing them enough freedom to learn from their mistakes’.  A balancing act most parents will already be familiar with.

Whilst there is no new earth shattering news to report, the group may be hoping that, at the very least, the government heeds the recommendation that interventions must be evidence based rather than as the result of advocacy from pressure groups.

Evidence though, can come in a variety of forms.  Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone, argue that what they call our broken societies and economies result not from the problems of any particular individual or group, but from the growth of inequality.

Take mental health for instance, a significant focus for the Improving the Transition group.  The Spirit Level shows that a much higher percentage of the population suffer from mental illness in countries where there is income inequality and New Zealand is high on this list.

Income inequality, where there are huge gaps between rich and poor, is a difficult issue to face when we have swallowed whole the notion of the individual being largely responsible for determining their own destiny.  It is tantamount to saying that the way we have been structuring society is fundamentally flawed.

Entertaining this idea leads to an examination of what constitutes a reasonable life for everyone, not just those that can fend for themselves through difficult times.  It raises questions about the authenticity of scapegoating groups that we consider particularly troublesome instead of considering that we might all be part of the problem.  A politically risky undertaking for any government.

Instead, what normally happens is that the problems of a particular group are highlighted, in this case youth.  Taskforces are formed, research undertaken and reports produced in the hope that their problems can be solved outside of the driving issue of inequality.

Wilkinson and Pickett say, ‘The unstated hope is that people – particularly the poor – can carry on in the same circumstances, but will somehow no longer succumb to mental illness, teenage pregnancy, educational failure, obesity or drugs’. (p239)

Being not right in the head is often solved for teenagers as they age and their brains develop.  Being not right in the head as a society takes longer to fix.

The contrast between what we say we want and what we do irritates at an individual level most days. A white lie here, a cover up of behaviour we’re not proud of there are the inconsistencies of human existence. To see these enacted on the international stage makes us uncomfortable, as the Archbishop of Canterbury said this week.

Freddy edged up to his mum looking for the comfort her lap would provide. She held him close, breathing in his boy scent. This was her testosterone-fuelled rocket in the making who needed more than political side stepping right now.

‘You know that time when you were hitting Ben in the backyard because he’d tried to hurt you?’

‘Yeah’, he mumbled as she stroked his hair.

‘And you went on hitting and hitting even when I told you to stop?’

‘Mmm.’

‘What did you tell me about how it made you feel?’

‘It was awesome, cos I felt like I’d made him hurt for what he’d done to me.

‘And we talked about how there were other ways to fix problems didn’t we?’

‘Yep and then I got grounded and felt like it was kind of unfair seeing as he started it.’

Mary laughed. ‘Honey, you’ve no idea how much you sounded like the President of the United States just then.’

‘But mum that’s different. He’s the President. Can’t he do anything he wants?’

‘No he can’t. There are laws in the world that we’re all meant to go along with and if we break them we can be called to a court to explain our actions. A bit like we try and do at home when things go wrong. Everyone gets to tell their story and then we decide on what happens.’

‘Did the Osama man break those rules?’

‘Yes Freddy, he did and the right thing was to get him to court to explain why he hurt other people.’

‘Then why didn’t the President take him to court mum?’

‘I don’t know Freddy’, Mary replied. He slipped off her lap, content for now until the next confusing adult assault on his worldview.

Explaining to kids the irrationality of adult behaviour is challenging but in Obama’s case it’s almost an impossibility as the killing looks, according to Geoffrey Robertson, QC, ‘increasingly like a cold-blooded assassination order by a president who, as a former law professor, knows the absurdity of his statement that “justice was done”’.

Concern about bullying could be just a vote catcher when the use of power over tactics is glorified in John Key’s workplace. Any hint of scandal and the parliamentary hunting pack snap at the heels of the MP under suspicion, going in for the kill as the politician is left abandoned. The dismembered carcass is served up on social media channels for a quick snack before the evening news picks over the remnants.

Knowing how to kill is an essential skill for the defence force. Despite civil disaster assistance, sparkling uniforms, big boy toys and flash advertising campaigns, its central aim is to apply the maximum amount of force on the enemy. That’s why teaching soldiers to kill is a central plank in military training.

Lieutenant General Jerry Mateparae, our new Governor General, was leading the army when it worked with government agencies to introduce service academies into new zealand schools. According to the ministry of education, these military focused programmes encourage students to stay engaged in learning by providing a motivating and disciplined programme.

Learning how to be self disciplined, to be able to recognise and manage your own emotional ups and downs while accepting the differences in others are important life skills. However, there’s a kind of alice in wonderland insanity at large when we expect anyone to develop these skills for life while being led by military role models.

John key is right; a conversation is needed about bullying. To be more than political game playing it will need to acknowledge that the use of power as a tactic to control others is so subtly threaded through every level of our society that it is valued without question at the highest house in the land.

Speedy re-establishment of inner city businesses will be a significant recovery factor according to Richard Ballantyne, Executive Director of Ballantynes department store, a Christchurch institution and one of its biggest employers.

While Ballys can weather the storm, he is less optimistic about small businesses, some of who may be forced to leave the city to generate income.   However it happens, less business means more unemployed.

For some employers there is an earthquake support subsidy of $500 a week for fulltime employees and $300 a week for part timers.  This is more than the unemployment benefit but only payable for six weeks.  The usual benefits will be available after that, says Sue Rissman, Canterbury’s regional commissioner for social development.

Like the rhetoric that surrounds welfare, this statement has elements of truth.  It’s true that the unemployment benefit is available but only if you have less than $4,300 in cash resources.  So that nest egg you’ve been saving for a respite getaway break from Christchurch will have to be plundered before signing on.  Once you’ve achieved that, you must be available for any seasonal work in the area.  I suppose the clean up could qualify as seasonal.

Judging by the level of support from Kaitaia to Bluff, we wouldn’t tolerate this kind of hard-nosed approach to welfare for quake stricken Cantabrians.  After all, we know that these hard times are not their fault.

The Christchurch Methodist Mission, providing a cradle to grave service for 3000 clients, points out that benefit payments as a proportion of the average wage have continued to fall since the 1970s.  In part, this is because we swallowed whole the idea that there is a welfare dependency crisis.  The reality is that we are being moralistic, concerned as our forebears in the 1930’s were, about the distinction between the deserving and the undeserving poor.  A distinction lost on the poor themselves as they struggle to pay the rent, feed and clothe themselves.

Recovery, as any addict, long term unemployed or solo parent on a benefit can tell you, is about much more than pulling your socks up or being work ready.  Interconnected layers of economic, social and familial factors all need to be in alignment, and stay that way for lasting progress to be made by even the most determined.  This is how it needs to be for Christchurch and for anyone facing hard times.  God help us if we ignore that.

Judging by talkback radio, brought to me this week by the house painters in my neighbourhood, most callers are adamant they know the difference between right and wrong on this and every issue, even if their wrong is my right.  Injustice is a hard act to fathom when you have no mutually understood blueprint for guidance.

In the wake of resistance to oppression in Egypt, Tunisia and the Sudan, Tim Muldoon wrote about the ways in which society glues itself together.   He holds that the social contract theory, which has become a western norm by design or default, has serious flaws.  These are apparent because of who is, or more importantly, who is not involved in the contract.   It’s no surprise to find that the prejudices of the most powerful dominate, leaving others marginalized or excluded.

He suggests that the ancient natural law model may be more compelling.  This model argues that human beings can discern basic laws or truths of existence in the same way that we can discern electricity or gravity.  In religious language this would be called God’s law, pointing to a world that is beyond human greed, manipulation and prejudice; a world that at our best, we instinctively desire for others and ourselves even if we’ve given up God.

Karen Armstrong, religious writer and former Catholic nun, recognized that a basic truth of compassion ran through the major religious traditions, which could be harnessed to transcend religious and political differences.  She used her 2008 TED award to develop the Charter for Compassion that calls on everyone to make compassion a ‘clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world…to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings – even those regarded as enemies’.  A tough call for countries with repressive regimes or even for us in New Zealand with our exploding prison industry now shackled to the three strikes and you’re out legislation.

In this election year, we have an opportunity to step back from individual selfish demands that drive populist politics, in order to seek a higher good.  We could do this by standing the Charter for Compassion alongside the Treaty of Waitangi, using it as a framework to inform our political decision-making.

Like the Treaty of Waitangi, it wouldn’t make individual decisions easier to make, or sort out Lisa Kingsford’s immediate problems, but it would offer a tool to help us understand what compassion and justice beyond legal redress mean, and how we can make a humane society grounded in those ideals.  In the process, we might even find that Godtalk has wide community value when it helps us explore these easy to say but hard to implement concepts.

Rowena Orejana’s article, ‘Who cares?’ offered an overview of the problems faced by families of autistic children, some of who have multiple disabilities.  Respite care is a lifeline for their families who, like all workers, need breaks to relax and refresh.  However, once a child turns 17, age appropriate respite care becomes harder to access.  West Auckland appears to have particular problems that parents, advocacy groups and the Ministry of Health are now focused on.

The trouble is these kinds of ongoing resourcing problems don’t attract much interest, unlike a mining disaster.  While the friends and families of the Pike River miners suffered enormously, somehow the way that story was reported and we responded to it tilted our world on its axis so that everything else became irrelevant.

We live in a world of rolling disasters. Big stories made gargantuan by journalists streaming live through Twitter before the 6 o’clock news creates ad wrapped, bite sized packages for us to swallow whole.  The effect is to leave us wrung out and compassionless for anything other than the big story. And truth be told, our concern is short-lived, only operational until we are diverted, at this time of year by the annual glut of consumerism that masquerades as Christmas.   That’s why aid agencies always have to act fast on the back of gut wrenching visuals.

Despite the wrap and snack approach favoured by the mainstream media, long-term human problems are harder to digest.  In the middle of changing nappies on an incontinent elder, visiting your brain damaged uncle imprisoned for assault or picking up your sister’s autistic kid who has been bullied at school again, we are entitled to ask desperate questions about how long we can hang on to our shredded threads of sanity.  We might even wonder what role our community has in giving us a hand, even though we haven’t got a hope in hell of making the news.

Last week a Wellington College student did bother when he stood up on the bus to offer an older woman his seat.  This time though the roles and rituals weren’t so clear-cut.  An angry observer reckoned the misbehaving matriarch’s manners needed attention with her ‘Sit down and don’t patronize me’ retort.

Despite Cougartown’s fantasy, the matriarch’s pheromones won’t be signaling maximum fertility as she progressively becomes invisible in society.  Meanwhile, the young man is venturing into the system that promised great things 40 years ago but delivered little real change.  He is hopeful; she may be a reservoir of submerged dreams.  Little wonder it all went so wrong.

Back in the 70’s women were on a roll; roaring along with Helen Reddy as the possibility of equality with blokes beckoned.  We enrolled the kids in crèche, argued that pre-school care was about education and surged back to work.

As the 21^st century rolled around there was mileage to be made out of tough women in tough jobs.  Helen Clarke elected Prime Minister, Sian Elias leading the judiciary, Sylvia Cartwright the Governor General, Theresa Gattung heading up Telecom, our biggest corporate and the Evers-Swindell twins rowing for gold. These were just the high fliers; everywhere you looked there were women achieving what used to be considered impossible.

Shadow boxing alongside the excitement of success skips a nagging doubt that despite the glossy exterior we didn’t change the world one iota.  Instead we might have swallowed whole the delusion of power and privilege.

Dostoevsky said that man (no, he probably didn’t mean women but we’ve reinforced his point by playing along) may consciously, purposely desire what is injurious to himself, what is stupid, very stupid – simply in order to have the right to desire for himself even what is very stupid and not to be bound by an obligation to desire only what is sensible.

In the awkward flurry of upended rituals and roles, we find ourselves standing in a mess of disparate beliefs.  While holding in tension their competing values and our absurdities we might wonder if the deals done to get ahead have been worth it, for Hillary or any of us.

Andrew Ferrier navigated the giant cooperative through the global financial crisis; meeting tough targets set by his board and in the process upped his salary package to a potential $5.11 million.

There’s a great gulping chasm here between Andrew and most Kiwi earners to the point where it’s hard to get your head around the numbers.

To illustrate the disparity in the most basic terms, when Andrew takes a five-minute comfort stop, he’s earned about $200 by the time he’s washed his hands.  This relies on his complete package being paid out and based on a 40 hour working week, which I know won’t be all he works but you get my drift.

Compare that to a tanker driver.  On average, a heavy truck driver salary rounds up to $39,000.  Fonterra reckon their tanker drivers are paid the best rates in the industry so lets assume $60,000.  That would mean $29 per pit stop before tax.

Despite economic arguments that value the self-regulation of the free market, it’s hard to get a grip on just why Andrew’s fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work is so much higher than his truckies.  That is, unless you venture into primate territory.

An astronomical salary, boats, cars, overseas trips and the kudos that goes along with it all establishes the recipient as the pack leader.  Someone to whom deference is owed, who is admired, obeyed, envied and tangled with at your peril.  Once leader, part of the role is to interact with leaders of other packs to build alliances or seize advantages to grow your own power base.  These are challenging and satisfying roles that also carry a significant element of insecurity while you wait for the next challenge in what is a dog eat dog world.

For humans to flourish, they need to be able to interact in a world that can hold the whole range of human experience, joy and pleasure along with suffering and loss.  For this fragile existence to work some sense that we’re all in it together is required.  A bond of trust has to be established that enables the highs and lows of life to come and go, without us being unduly frightened that one group or another is going to dominate the rest, especially in vulnerable times.

However, trust in any community is strongly affected by economic inequality.  It works both ways.  The people who have the most are distrustful of those who have little and might be out to get their stuff.  Alarm systems and CCTV cameras are installed. High fences become gated communities and fending off or containing intruders becomes a major preoccupation.

Some, who see no hope of having anything much tend to lose interest, stop cooperating with society and form rebel groups of their own to try to balance the status quo.  Others believe their lack of success is their own fault and self medicate the misery away while some opt out altogether.

Under the system we’ve bought into, each individual business can pay their staff what they like.  If they want to be good community citizens they could do something about the way they pay, in the same way many have changed existing business practices that are harmful to the environment.

To do that would challenge the entrenched system of domination that we’re all part of, sucked into participation by the prospect that somehow we can make it to the top of the pile.

In the end, it’s not what we’re paid that is the issue – it’s the growing inequality gap between us that matters most, for this is where trust fails and community disintegration begins.

“It’s about being responsible for your actions ”, said my mate, a bit indignant when I mused over coffee that I couldn’t see the point in publishing the names of people convicted for offences.  Weren’t lives trashed enough?  What was the point of allowing us to poke our noses any further into their private pits of despair?

Outing criminal offenders is meant to be about public safety, so we can avoid their violence, shady financial dealings or sexual shenanigans.  This now somewhat questionable position was formed when communities of interest were much smaller, when we probably already had an inkling about what was going wrong in the house up the road and who to watch out for, even if we didn’t talk about it all that much.

The world has changed dramatically.  Now we plaster the internet with everlasting words and images of people who we are, in the main, never going to meet in the course of our lives, and are never going to be in the slightest danger from.  The impact of this wholesale scaremongering is to create communities of fear who are then open to compassionless policies like three strikes and you’re out.

On reflection, I disagree with my mate about the central issue.  It’s about ‘them’; instead I think it’s about us, and our fear.  Realising that trust is elusive in any society, we flail about looking for scapegoats to blame as a way of dampening down our free-floating anxieties.

Unfortunately, fear never goes away by putting up more and larger barriers.  Instead, fear and vulnerability have to be stepped into rather than turned away from.  Doing this by introducing permanent name suppression as a right, rather than a sparingly applied privilege, would have immediate and profound effects.

Instead of having an individual to accuse, berate and metaphorically flog, the emphasis would shift so that we could pay proper attention to the circumstances of the story.  Reporters would be forced to dig deeper, to research the underlying issues that led to the situation and to consider the systems failures that might have played a part.  There could be room to hear the pain from a variety of perspectives.  Philosophers, psychologists, criminologists and even priests, who all spend their lives contemplating the complex shadow side of humanity could be asked to comment sooner rather than later.

Roger McClay and Andrej Schwaab faced powerful forces in their recent court appearances.  The first sentenced for white-collar crime and Andrej for run of the mill violence and mayhem. As in all human tragedy, vulnerability hangs heavy in courtroom rituals, a kind of cloying humidity that binds all the participants into relationships hard to bear or break free of.

Within that confused relationship tangle, we load up the justice system with unreal demands, wanting it to deal to our confusion and fear; expecting it to behave like our varying views of God, to be distant, close, unbelievable, right, fair or just downright punitive.

As the earth shifts at each sentencing, observers and participants alike struggle with the frightening inconsistency of human activity and our unfamiliarity with the rules of legal theatre, which sometimes leads us to say dopey things.

In that vein, the Dominion Post announced that the sentencing gap was widening between the powerful and powerless.  Although spared The Sensible Sentencing Trust’s usual vitriol, the normally measured Kim Workman, Director of Rethinking Crime and Punishment waded into Roger McClay suggesting he should have been made an example of.

Sanity was only restored some days later by Wayne Goodall’s thoughtful piece stating the obvious that the two cases were completely different and could not be properly compared.  While he would have hoped that the judge could have found a better sentence structure for the tragic Andrej Schwaab, Roger McClay had, according to the research, been sentenced appropriately.

Goodall also pointed out that uninformed claims about sentencing are symptomatic of the unbalanced debate around criminal justice, good for populist politics but responsible for creating an insane system we will eventually pay dearly for.

The story that lies underneath the dramatic headlines, uninformed comment or manipulative photography is not about how many buildings have tumbled in Christchurch or even how tragic Andrej Schwaab’s life, or his fellow 10,000 inmates, has been.  The real story is about our vulnerability as human beings and how we deal with that.

Somehow in our development across time we have decided which kind of human vulnerability is acceptable and which is not.  What sort of human vulnerability will lead us to nurturing behaviour, where we’ll all pull together (PM’s included) to dish out hot meals and fluffy blankets and what sort we will shun.  When we head down this path of avoidance, we tend to use every punitive method we can think of to keep the shadow side away in the forlorn hope that we will remain safe from harm.

Crazy though it may seem, opening ourselves to more vulnerability, not less, is an important part of building a better world.  Being vulnerable is when we are most likely to face the reality of the world and our own selves.  When we are bare, shaking, frightened and stripped of our pretensions is when compassion for others and ourselves can grow, just before we rush don the body armour again.

There are no categories of vulnerability however hard we try to make it so.  There is just the human condition in the face of forces beyond our control.  One ancient religious response is to suggest that under those circumstances God is only able to be visibly present in the world because of the way we act.

May that very vulnerable God have mercy on us all.