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Talking Politics
The science of politicians
Thu Oct 22 10:43AM
Cameron and Brown used their best tricks on each other this week, but both came across a little primitive.By Ian Dunt
Something about politicians makes me come over all anthropological.
Not because they are simple beasts, not entirely anyway. It's because of their setting. These odd environments they trap themselves in and the importance given to them prompts the observer into a sort of David Attenborough mentality. The locations and etiquettes are so alien one instantly adopts a professional curiosity, like a Victorian traveller capturing tribesmen for the civilised world to gawp at.
Conference speeches, and the importance given to them, are absurdly anthropological. The biped enters the stage and hammers away with its noises and limbs while the watching bipeds regularly engage in the calculated decision to stand up and hit their limbs together, partly as a sign of agreement, and partly out of an unspoken group-think which insists everything must look good for the cameras.
PMQs is similar. One biped stands, puffs out its chest and attempts to command respect through posture and the tone and content of the noises it emits. The bipeds around it react furiously, wailing their arms and shouting obscene nonsense in the safe knowledge the public are protected from their filth by a plate of bullet-proof glass. Put simply: normal people would never dream of behaving in this way. No other adult in Britain makes funny faces and shouts obscenities at someone else when they're making a point.
And then something unique happens. The bipeds use complex thought processes for bad reasons.
This was Cameron today. He began by asking about the Royal Mail strike. Would the PM join him in condemning it? Brown did. That's hit one, right there. The leader of the Labour party is now joining the leader of the Tory party in condemning a union. That isolates Brown from Labour's moral heart, and from the people who supply its financial heart, which was bigger under Blair, and now of equal size to the moral heart. Cameron mentioned the finances later (unions have been Labour's main source of funding since the cash for peerages mess) and received a particularly vocal display of irritation from the opposite benches.
Next, Cameron brought up the bill to privatise Royal Mail. Where had this little brain child of Peter Mandelson gone, he wondered? Was there any chance it had disappeared because of the promised backbench rebellion if it ever reached the House?
It's political genius. Isolate him from the principles of his party. Isolate him from the financial backers of his party. Reveal his isolation from the backbenchers of his party, and then, once he's stood there alone, empty out your rhetorical guns on him with lots of "appalling weakness" and "not having the guts". And this on an issue the two men agree on.
Brown, for his part, adopted a different, but equally vicious, political tactic.
He chastised Cameron for bringing the Royal Mail strike into 'the political arena'. Now, there are few things in this world more political than a strike. A party election broadcast, perhaps, or a general election, maybe. But strikes are an innately political act. Brown has form in this regard. Tory complaints about the devaluation of sterling and equipment for our armed forces in Afghanistan were met with complaints that the opposition was not being patriotic - another way to remove the current debate entirely from the political arena.
This goes to a bad place. It takes perfectly legitimate issues and turns them into something which cannot be discussed, like religion or genitals. And then the government gets to do whatever it wants.
What strange, unruly animals politicians are. Primates engaged in bizarre and primitive rituals in their natural habitat, and yet capable of producing highly complex pieces of malevolent reasoning at a moment's notice.
They are one part beast to one part Machiavelli. The only bit missing is the normal.
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"....normal people would never dream of behaving in this way..." really? When is the last time Ian Dunt worked in an office. Body language and the use of words win arguements more often or not then logic and reason. So it is of no surprise that politicians use it to great effect.
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Love the photo but misguided as when was the last time you saw a monkey getting that close to a politician.
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I am always saddened by politicians and although I expect a difference of opinions between parties there only seems to be chest bashing and self righteous utterings that do not take the country forward. There are problems that need to be sorted out and they are used as weapons surely as 'adults' there is a middle ground where they could work together and not a place to assert/repeat/stress the obvious and waste time.
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Quite, primatological similarities, indeed.
We are merely high order primates first and foremost, however complex, spot on.
Quite often my analyses of various elements of people/society, starts from that and i work up, natural enough as we are human animals with ego's what dictate we are somehow different from all other animals on the planet, but we're not, just intelligent and complex in our sentients.
Tends to put things in a certain perspective closer to reality than buying into projected public persona etc.
Good item Ian, Gold star.
PaxDeltaPan.
Enlightened Evolution.
Tempered From The Chaotic Forge Of Life
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The last Kaiser of Germany, Willhelm II, referred to his parliament as an 'Ape House', now we have Mr Dunt comparing our leaders as 'bipeds' and suggesting they're like apes. How dare you insult Apes in this way, really why do Yahoo pay this man to comment on anything, look at yesterdays little example, the physiology of ears, what a load of twaddle that was, now this, If you don't have anything to say Mr Dunt then shut up, you're becoming very boring.
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Now we are going to get hundreds of comments about Politicians and Animals, with cat-fights about the BNP, Labour paper tigers and Conservative snakes and so on. These are serious times and need serious responses, not this sort of nonsense.
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Boring analysis. A "nothing" article. Politicians are there for power and their own self interest. Why any of us would ever vote for one of them is beyond me. Acting like bullies on a primary school playground is actually a closer analysis.
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It is an inherent game of power - we are, after all, nothing more than intelligent animals. The sheer aggressiveness and animosity politicians address and regard each other with is no different to a tribal group of chimps. Chimps are also tribe-defensive, attacking without relent a rival group beyond territorial borders. There is no knowable ideology behind the attack - and if there was, it would make no difference.
I for one will propagate and fund the Scientific Research Institute for the Anthropological Evolutional Study of Chimp-Like Politicians and Shameful Racists (BNP).
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Why compare politicians to primates because you sully the reputation and sheer innocence and beauty of these creatures in so doing. Politicians by their nature deal in the gravitas of life, and it's high time you devoted yourself to giving us a little more of that rather than besmirching the innocence of primates.
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Rich' matey.
We are primates dude.
Paxus.
PaxDeltaPan.
Enlightened Evolution.
Tempered From The Chaotic Forge Of Life
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http://www.answers.com/topic/hominini
Paxus.
PaxDeltaPan.
Enlightened Evolution.
Tempered From The Chaotic Forge Of Life
Report abuse
Do the three monkeys in the picture represent the current situation in politics? That is, Gordon sulking, Mandy looking smug and having his hair done by Milliband, who is looking to his new leader with great affection. Maybe Mandy is ensuring there are no flies on him, before he goes for Gordis job, but then again, you know what they say about flies, Mandy must be hiding them in his thick fur.
Anyway, it's top marks to the Beeb for standing by democracy and free speeche, whatever your view on the BNP is.
The BNP are quickly learning what politics is really about...not getting caught when you are telling porkies, deceiving the thick electorate, getting the job and then doing what the hell you and your mates in big business want.
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