The Problem of Grovelment
By Charles Pinwill
Although
Politicians in Australia have been universally held in low regard as a class
throughout our history, several unexamined factors have perhaps militated
against the full measure of their deserved contempt being publically realized
and appreciated.
The purpose of
this article is to examine this proposition to at least some preliminary
degree.
Perhaps the
greatest factor in the Politician’s defense is derived from an Australian sense
of fair play. This instinct unconsciously insists, quite correctly, that any
body of persons chosen largely at random from amongst us, simply could not be
as consistently bad as the evidence from every quarter and angle, both loudly
and seemingly incontrovertibly, insists.
No Australian of
voting age has not on numerous occasions pondered, in association with his
peers, this mysterious phenomenon. On all occasions to which I have been a
party all explanations put forward, however aggressively, passionately or even
provisionally, have met with a consensus of tentative agreement. This is true
of both main thesis; the dismissive “They
are all a pack of b……s” and the more
philosophical observations such as “All
power tends to corrupt”.
While agreed that
the performance of politicians, irrespective of Parties, has been one of willful
and vindictive misrepresentation against the electorate on a great many important
issues, this almost universal consensus has remained tentative. Tentative,
because although their record of misrepresentation on myriad issues is
incontrovertible, credulity at the depth and number of perfidious politicians
is seriously strained when contemplated as a burgeoning social phenomenon.
Far from lamenting
this faltering credulity it should be seen in some measure as fortuitous. A
final rather than a tentative acceptance of this judgment, though all the known
facts would seem to support it, would have brought down upon political
practitioners the verdict of “Guilty of misrepresentation with extreme
prejudice”, and this would have placed the whole of national democratic life at
considerable risk.
Subsequent to such
a verdict present structures would have most certainly been torn down in
outrage, with the one essential understanding necessary for constructive
correction, namely an appreciation of the underlying cause of political
delinquency, by its absence, precluding a remedial democratic outcome.
Acceptance of the
full measure of politician’s iniquity has been held back from total adoption
with its inevitable resulting action, with an attitude which speculated that
“Surely, they just couldn’t be that bad!” This implies a suspicion that somehow
“We must have gotten it wrong”.
The key to the
growing revulsion at all Political Parties is the slowly emerging realization
that Politicians, no matter which Party they represent, are not, definitely not, the result of a
selection based on virtue, nor on a random process either.
All electors will
understand that if one went through the prisons and selected a group of persons
guilty of certain particular crimes; their group activity would be
predetermined. Similarly, if one assembled from the population those who had
given the greatest unrewarded and selfness service in public life, different
personal characteristics would be evident in such a group.
The Political
Parties act as filters through which only persons of a particular type may
ascend.
The requirements
for success in political parties are the personal characteristics found in
increasing purity as one ascends through the various levels of the Party
structure, and reaches its zenith in parliamentary representatives.
What are these
personal characteristics?
They are defined
by the innate nature of Parties. The formula for succeeding in political
parties is a simple one. The Formula is as follows:-
1)
Select
a Party.
2)
Join
it.
3)
Discern
who it is that exercises the real power in that Party.
4)
Make
yourself available as an agent of these persons’ influence. Do this with the
utmost dedication and application, bringing to bear all of your personal
abilities and talents, intelligence and initiative in their service. There are others
competing with you in prostrating servitude, so submissive effort is essential to
your advancement.
5)
Learn
through your experience in both the defeats and victories of your service to
the influence for these powerful others, to submerge your independence of mind
and inclination whilst at the same time drawing a veil over your motives couched
in terms of the highest moral considerations at your command.
6)
In
this way the Party’s powerful are recruited into promoting yourself. You will
need to accept whatever increases in responsibility and position which the
interests of the powerful dictate for you, and are for their reasons offered.
7)
Remember
always that there are plenty of others in your Party who instinctively
understand this formula, and that the extent to which they do is the accurate
measure of their intended threat to yourself.
8)
Never
forget that this competition is decided absolutely upon performance. Your
record of delivery in accordance with the will of the Party’s powerful alone,
is your only worthwhile political capital.
Essential
Accompanying Ignorances
1)
That
after the mean average incubation period for politicians of approximately 10 to
20 years before election, plus further years as a junior backbencher and then
as a junior cabinet Minister, the necessary modus operandi of conforming to the
formula as it impacts upon your personality, and the social expectations of all
those around you, will preclude any exercise of creative independent integrity.
You will not have developed any.
2)
That
for this reason your original good intentions, to first acquire power, and then
use it for good, will in no circumstances be achievable, nor indeed be
remembered by yourself.
3)
That
your net political contribution to posterity will be to preclude those, who
through maintenance of a creative independent integrity, will have long since
sickened of the Party political process and gone home. The one personal quality
which your country absolutely needs for its wellbeing is the very one you will
have positively denied it. It is enough.
This is the
problem of Grovelment in Government.