As we know, the political game is a theatre where aspiring actors must stand out in some way or they don’t get top bookings. The theatre requires drama from them, but honesty is rarely dramatic. Hence there are essentially two ways to stand out on the political stage – by raw ability or by lying. In some disastrous cases - both. Tony Blair for example.
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, lying is the favoured approach for those would-be political actors who happen to be deficient in raw ability. Most of them in other words. Hence the political stage has a powerful tendency to attract narcissist I can do that better than anyone else recruits – the self-centred liars.
Another problem is that honesty is a treadmill of endless caveats and uncertainties where picky people rule and major political actors know it. They have absolutely no interest in treadmills ruled by picky people – that is definitely not why they entered politics.
Honesty becomes a political treadmill if everyone understands their own abilities, what they have to offer, what other people have to offer, how the world works and how much it relies on people looking out for themselves within a wider picture. If all that were to be commonly understood, then political life would have to be far more pragmatic. Crude lies handed down by elites wouldn’t do at all.
The trouble is, hardly anyone strutting the political stage wants it be significantly more honest. An effective fightback against the honesty treadmill has been to spend huge sums of money on persuasion. Persuade people to accept even the most blatant lies - it can be done because it has been done and will be done again. And again and again…
Hence the coronavirus debacle. It is not only a problem of grotesque government incompetence but a question of political theatre. The play must go on but the whole theatre attracts actors with absolutely no interest in a pragmatic response to the pandemic. They cannot allow the treadmill of honesty onto the political stage. The ugly spectre of merit could mean greasy pole would have to go. That would never do for those whose only skill is knowing how to climb it.
The trouble is, hardly anyone strutting the political stage wants it be significantly more honest. An effective fightback against the honesty treadmill has been to spend huge sums of money on persuasion. Persuade people to accept even the most blatant lies - it can be done because it has been done and will be done again. And again and again…
Hence the coronavirus debacle. It is not only a problem of grotesque government incompetence but a question of political theatre. The play must go on but the whole theatre attracts actors with absolutely no interest in a pragmatic response to the pandemic. They cannot allow the treadmill of honesty onto the political stage. The ugly spectre of merit could mean greasy pole would have to go. That would never do for those whose only skill is knowing how to climb it.
6 comments:
As someone once said, politics is showbiz for ugly people.
The relation between politics and honesty is interesting. I suspect honesty attracts either plodding, methodical civil-service types, or else those who can express truths in one-off explosive episodes such as Jesus overturning the moneylenders' tables or comedic debunking. Both are dangerous to politicians, who fear the insights of the latter, and get bogged down in the bet-hedging and minutiae of the former.
To stay atop the greasy pole, politicians have to constantly dazzle us with their new exciting ways of doing normal routine stuff. Blair, for example, was insanely popular but did effectively nothing useful. Ditto Obama. And watch lovable idiosyncratic Boris as he gets more grey, ordinary, stressed, and desperate.
Worth a read, interesting take on the pandemic afflicting those in charge:
https://streetwiseprofessor.com/the-real-pandemic-mass-munchausens-syndrome-by-proxy/
Sam - the coronavirus mess seems to suggest that Boris isn't a Blair or Obama, although it isn't easy to see how they would have steered a better course through it. Maybe they would not have been as prominent as Boris.
Nessimmersion - I thought about Munchausen syndrome by proxy but wasn't able to convince myself for some reason - although I don't find the Streetwise Prof post and comments easy to read because of the way the text floats above a background picture.
Not sure why you're inflicted with that.
Both brave and firefox browsers are showing plain black test on plain white background.
For the Munchausens, it certainly is a more benign explanation than sheer malevolence for people like Handycock or Sturgeon
Nessimmersion - that's odd, Chrome definitely shows text floating above a background picture, I've just checked again.
Nessimmersion - MS Edge is the same. I haven't used Firefox for a few years and don't have it on this computer.
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