The Political Playground

So, really, what does it matter – out here in the real world – if politicians and their acolytes play silly little games sending each other rather childishly ‘outrageous’ emails? It does all seem rather adolescent, or even pre-adolescent, the electronic equivalent of playground taunting.

We are meant to be shocked, even ‘outraged’ and since people get ‘outraged’ by the most insignificant, petty and unimportant of things these days then maybe outrage ought to be easy to do. But, this time, it isn’t.

It was easy to get outraged by the expenses fiddles so recently uncovered – much to the surprise to the political circus who thought it was all just one of the perks of the job – because that was about our money being wasted and abused by people who we know – deep down – don’t deserve it.

Why don’t we think they deserve it, no matter how ‘important’ they like to think their job is (or ought to be)?

Quite simply, because of this latest ‘scandal’ of the intemperate emails. This is what we expect of politicians and their hangers-on, the other shadowy members of their little gangs and entourages. This rather pathetic, tawdry, snipping at, and belittling, of the other gang(s) in the playground is what we expect of politicians these days. We are not surprised and so we are not ‘outraged’. Not even in the current sense in which ‘outrage’ is now used to mean almost mildly peeved (in the same way that ‘brilliant’ is now used to mean more or less mediocre and a ‘genius’ is anyone who knows how to tie their own shoelaces without the aid of a lifestyle coach).

Partly, of course, it is the fault of the media – and TV in the main – that reduces politics, politicians and their antics to the level of soap opera. Soap opera too, is - when you stop to think about it – merely playground spats writ, if not large, then only slightly larger. Soap opera world is that magical land where ordinary day-to-day events and incidents are blown up to the proportion of great heroic tragedy and minor spats between relations, neighbours and acquaintances are given the gravitas and ponderous portentousness of a major natural disaster or the outbreak of a world war.

It is also partly because the age of ideologies is over – the Left philosophy from mild socialism to outright communism (and – arguably – fascism*) failed utterly, and the right never really found an ideology in the first place, which is why they ended up alone on the battlefield when their enemy just faded away.

However, one of the really dangerous legacies of the now philosophically bankrupt - and soon to be defunct - Left is the lunatic notion that politics is all about changing things for the better, rather than the much more pragmatic – if unglamorous – and far more important task of managing things to try to avoid the worst.

As I have pointed out before, it should be the duty of everyone of us to keep an eye on what the politicians are doing, and try our very best to stop them from doing it whenever, and however, we can.

*Some argue that fascism – or National Socialism - was a Left-Wing ideology. Not that it really matters, it was at the point, round the back in the dark, where Left and Right (insofar as those terms have any real meaning outside the political playground) meet.