Someone told me once that he thought that difference would not exist one day and everyone would enjoy the same values and religion, but which values and which religion will be adopted? Humans need a code of values with which to identify, and these do not come solely from nature nor from nurture. Our opinions and values come from a combination of gender, environment, socialising and the power structures that we experience in our lives. We are also affected by our education or lack of it and also by our own thinking. All religions have different levels from fundamentalists at one extreme and non-practising at the other. We also have certain ideals that we want to live by and they affect our opinions. Also, and not least our opinions are often formed and shaped by the media. As for women not being involved as much as men in influencing opinions, one important reason is that they are still considered irrational, emotional and primarily as objects. They are not in positions of power even though they perform the most important roles in a stable society.

Good article.

It never ceases to amaze me how passionately some people will blindly defend certain points of view which fly against all logic and evidence. Sometimes the more unproven and illogical an idea is the more passionately people defend it.

I often see people viciously defending points of view that have been scientifically proven as false.

Take the whole drug issue for example. A few short minutes of net surfing will reveal an endless list of medical experts and studies which confirm that if many of the currently illicit drugs were legally available they would in fact be much safter than tobacco or alcohol (not to mention the social benefits). Yet the prevailing view in todays society is that currently illicit drugs are scheduled as they are based on them being more harmful than alcohol or tobacco - this is factually incorrect. But many people (beer in one hand, cigarette in the other) will agrue it anyway.

The problem is many people base their views on 60 minutes reports and A Current Affair without actually considering the facts.

In such cases I think that one view clearly has a better basis in fact than another. In that sense I think it does become 'superior' or a better quality point of view for use of a better term.

"Why are our laws prohibiting child_sacrifice to pagan_deities not subject to challenge by post modernist moral relativists ? :) Well, the only thing I can point to is the revealed truth of the Bible. Humor me with some other source :) Clearly 'human_concience' did not work for the Jews who worshipped Molech nor for Pol Pot."

...yet

I read recently that in the Netherlands or somewhere a post modernist moral relativistic court has ruled in favour of recognising a paedophile political party. When ethics are eroded from a society and the yardstick is not divine moral absolutes but relativistic rationalisation the wheels keep turning.

Chris Harries:

I Don't share your sweeping statement regarding masculine dominance in the media, nor your list of popular commentators i.e Andrew Bolt, Pilger etc as anything out of the ordinary. It depends on what you read and who's view you eventually side with. One would think with all the visceral drama over discrimination in the work-place, equal opportunity, and women's emancipation, such antiquated, sexist attitudes and popular sentiments still find a niche in this forum ??

Gender bias is an anachronism of the 60's - pity Germain Greer, Kathy Noonan, Quentin Davis don't read Forum.

There's a saying : ' opinions that deviate from the ruling zeitgeist always aggravate the crowd ' !

Psychologist will tell you the Twin-factor is fraught with inconsistencies. It will take another generation to unravel the complexities of Social behaviour in identical twins. We are only now scratching the epidermis. Ironically, that demonic WWII physician Dr Mengele carried out ground-breaking psychological & anatomical research on numerous incarcerated Twins, among his other nefarious diabolical experiments in the Death Camps.The deeper Social Scientist delve into the DNA conundrum, the more complex it becomes.

The Human genome is like an autobiographical record of all our vicissitudes and inventions that have characterised the History of our species and ancestors, since the dawn of life.

Quote: " our National attempts to define a set of criteria ( common values).. all Australians etc." Actually, accentuates our ambivalence defining what exactly is our National character, come persona ? Aust literature is replete with similar innuendoes !Larrikinism, mate-ship, red-necked ockerism, womaniser..what ? High profile persona-grata Dame Edna E, Paul Hogan, Steve Irwan, Caroline Jones, Peter Hollingworth, Shane Warne, Wendal Sailor..Paul Keating..who or what typifies our psyche or National character ? The who's who of National pride and Iconic symbolism, is manifestly bereft of any one person who befits the mythical image ?

As a Nation we suffer chronic-cultural-cringe. It is more important to most - how the World perceives us on prime-time. Particularly the US of A.We have always harboured an Identity psychosis - an inferior complex of gargantuan magnitude. Possibly, reaching

as far back as the First Fleeter's and Sydney Cove's penal settlement days.

Your contentious pick of symbolic cohort's: Mother T and Adolf Hitler defies serious comment. Suffice to say each was born individuals, with ipediments and grossness.

Genetics defines who we are - not education, conditioning or enviornment.

Hitler could never manage an orphanage of destitute women and waifs in the slums of Calcutta, nor would he aspire to. His consumate obsession with Power and World domination was the fatal flaw that lead to his pusillananimous suicide in a Berlin bunker. Whereas MT, possibly embodied with the same passionate zeal would never entertain hurting a fly, much less preside over a fascist racially-inhibited regime with delusions of racial-grandeur, and self aggrandisement fuelling the oven's of Auschwitz with 12 million humanoids, in a profanity that resonates the penultimate in depravity ? From a Historical standpoint the outcome's wouln't be any different.

Everyone who strives for recognition ultimately exemplifies a pride in themselves and their origins. Forgiving ' conscientious objector's is anathema. Do we expect neighbour's to defend the Motherland ? It reeks of hypocrisy, sentimental garbage and betrayal. It's a violation and insidious erosion of our National character. It suggests an undermining of our Social fabric and values.

I should hope this elitiest rhetoric is viewed ' tongue-in-cheek 'and reader's assign this jingoistic putrescence to the sin-bin, where it belongs.

Ciao

Bon Appetit.