I've been talking civilisational collapse on MSM... and NOT been laughed out of the country!

Prime-time national TV, millennial podcasts and the Murdoch weekend magazine insert...PLUS a Federal election that issued a "f*ck off" Temu Trumpism

A wonderful and surprising consequence of committing to the brutal truth of our existential predicament is having one’s limiting, arrogant, “othering” beliefs challenged almost daily. I think such a regular reckoning comes with the simple act of lifting off scabs.

I’ve been back in Australia for a few weeks and I had been feeling quite self-conscious about how my latest project - a book about, um, the end of the (old) world - would be received.

I’ve written and commented before on how and why Australia largely remains comfortably oblivious to the themes I write about. At other times in my career - writing about a range of controversial topics from Big Sugar to climate lobbying to the Teal movement to the Voice to bike helmet laws to …Gaza - I’ve copped a solid tall poppy decapitation from media and commentators. My move to Paris two years ago was somewhat informed by this experience.

However!!! Far from being run out of town, the ideas I’ve been spouting this trip have been met with respect, robust curiosity and support. The Melbourne Writers Festival enthusiastically embraced both the subject matter and the way I wrote the book (as an online serialisation) and assigned me the two premium slots in the festival¹. An impressive initiative given their tethering to the old publishing models.

I also appeared live (a full five-minute segment) on Network Ten’s national evening program The Project (the full clip above), while the Murdoch press’ Stellar magazine ran a full-page interview (below²). Several very mainstream millennial-targeted podcasts, including Life Uncut and Abbie Chatfield’s It’s A Lot, had me on for proper, deep chats on the subject (they’ll be uploaded in the next few days; I’ll see if I can republish here on Substack for you).

As I say, I’ve been struck by the genuine, respectful and kind curiosity of the journalists and outlets involved (I’ll share more about how and why in the comments as you lot chime in). I italicise “kind” because kindness is a theme that has also emerged from Australia’s Federal election result on the weekend. For international readers, voters here sent a resounding rack off³ to the Trump-lite Opposition party that ran on “hate media” slogans and fragmenting culture war messaging (migrants, wokeism and eroding important gestures of respect to the nation’s Indigenous peoples).

The swing to the Left broke several Australian records. And the Right’s leader, Peter Dutton, was sent packing from his own seat. It was the first time this has happened in Australian history. But as the poll carnage unfolded on Saturday night, kindness filtered to the surface, not in an overwhelming way, but noticeably enough. The two leaders gave speeches that acknowledged personal qualities and vulnerabilities of the other. Dutton told the nation that Prime Minister Albanese’s late mother would be proud of him (Albanese was very close to his mother, a single parent who raised him in public housing). Albanese and his leader in the Senate Penny Wong both used the word kind in their speeches. And came back to the idea of coming together as a community and looking after each other repeatedly.

Did other Australians here notice the same?

But I digress slightly…

The aim of this post was to get your feedback

…primarily on the way I framed and phrased such a complex subject in the various interviews I did. I’d love to get your thoughts ahead of my presentations at the Melbourne Writers Festival and then the Realisation festival in late June in the UK (and then, all things going well, when I do further publicity when the book is published in hard copy by Penguin). My sister-in-law, who works in the climate lobbying space, cautioned against delving into the impossibility of the green transition in short formats (like on The Project). If I don’t have the airtime to also explain that we must fight emissions regardless, I shouldn’t go there, was her advice. I get her point.

What have you noticed? Perhaps you were at one of my presentations in Sydney last week and wanted to share some advice?

As a bit of background to how I do media….

My general approach, particularly when talking difficult subjects, is to go to where people are at. Which is to say, to be as approachable and friendly “looking” as possible (newsreader hair, big smile; the-chick-from-the-washing-powder-commercial vibe); to agree with a line of resistance (or at least the felt experience behind the resistance) and then to come in straight after with the “yes…and” push-back; and to not get agitated or “hysterical” (yeah, I know, eye-roll).

I try to use phrases like, “we all know…” followed by a really sensible, viscerally sound statement (like, “that being sucked into the infinite growth on a finite planet thesis is madness”).

I avoid words like “must” and “should”. Instead I say, “we’re being invited to…”.

I reference how we are feeling. And I unify everyone around common sense and collective language. So, “We know this is just not right, our kids sense it and are suffering”.

I’ll see some of you on at the Subscriber meet-ups in Sydney (Thursday night) and Melbourne (next week) or at TEDx (Sydney) or the Melbourne Writers Festival on the weekend!!

Sarah xx

PS TEDx have a special offer to This is Precious readers only. Use the discount code TXS25WILSON to join me this Friday in Sydney.

1. The afternoon tea event sold out a while back but the Atheneum event now has extra tickets opened up in the balconies if you are keen to join me on Saturday May 10.

2. Photographer: @daniel_nadel_photography
Styling: @kellyahume
Hair: @keirenstreethair using Wella Professional
Make-up: @aimiefiebig using SISLEY Paris Official
Interview: @JacintaTynan

3. Australian for f*ck off.