Politician and author Michael Dobbs is a guest on the radio this week.
He has several times referred to the world of politics and Westminster as very “colorful”.
Colourful? COLOURFUL!!! Just LOOK at them! Grey suits, grey hair, grey faces, pasty and drab and serious, frowning to give themselves substance and depth………… the nursery is colourful; the circus is colourful; opera is often colourful; Walt Disney films are colourful; children’s clothes are colourful; the language of poetry is colourful……… the language of politics may be “weapons grade”, but colourful it is not. Politics may be interesting (if you have the mind, colourless mind, of a beaurocrat) but colourful it is not. The grey suits may be impressive (if you are naïve enough to be fooled by them) but colourful they are not. The “heart” is colourful, but you do not find “heart” in politics. What you find in politics is merely heartless “grey matter” — in EVERY sense of the words! They sit in grey suits and use the grey matter to discuss grey matters in grey language.
Isn’t it obvious what the psychological undercurrent to all that is? They consider actual colors to be unpleasant, thereby avoiding them as much as possible, perhaps because their uniform logic cannot withstand the extra complexity that color brings to the world. Then when things start getting controversial, they don’t automatically think to describe the situation as ‘dim’ or even ‘grey’ as people unlike them would, no the ‘disreputable’ word ‘color’ is what comes to mind as a fitting description of their difficulties.
V, while they’re of course against transparency, the reason they haven’t used words such as ‘clear’ to define difficult situations is likely because they equate clearness to sound not sight. They speak very clearly, though completely without transparency. So when someone says something they disagree with they may ‘politely’ accuse them of speaking unclearly.
You are right but all politicians think they are doing something important, and so have to over-egg the excitement at being a politician. Let’s face it, if he said ‘politics is a sham whereby a bunch of people chosen by a political party with little or no democratic mandate fiddle with a system to make it fuck over poor people more efficiently while directing wealth and power upwards into the hands of the few, and who do it in a deliberately boring way so that people just get sick of hearing about it and give up trying to understand or influence it’ then he wouldn’t sell many books.
However, if he was an ex-junkie comedian and he said these things they’d probably let him edit the New Statesman…
Tell me, as someone who professes so loudly and frequently how he ‘doesn’t care’ what I say, think, or do, why are you now stalking me, looking for posts of mine to respond to, trying to provoke me into engaging with you?
I haven’t cared about you for over six months, in fact just a couple months ago I recall telling someone that out of the many things you say, think or do, I have no interest in expressing the degree of apathy or concern I show to them.
I engage you when I can, but your new social philosophy is too difficult for me to comprehend, even more so than before. Not to say its complex, but there is just something to it, what’s the word I’m looking for… well it’ll suffice to say it leaves me speechless.
And if I was mentally unwell, would you say that I need to be cured or knock it off, or simply admit that I’m unfit? Or perhaps it’s simply a matter that you would find useful to be enlightened on. But, certainly you must know that the unwell aren’t always the best judge of their failure to be well. Anyway, the mentally unwell in America are often without treatment, and with a little luck it will stay that way, we have some quality, property people working on the problem as we speak.
They should take a leaf out of Jon Snow’s book. Have you ever seen his tie aand socks combos? They’re out of this world! That’s one subversive mofo. Anyway, I’m sure the women mix it up a little. They’re always a bit more inventive in the wardrobe department. But you’re right, they’re mostly just a bunch of soulless beaurocrats…and I half think that their demeanour is just a ploy, a ploy to inspire apathy amongst us all. And then when we’ve finally said, “sod you all” they’ll get on with doing as they please without the whole charade of democracy.
Do we hear the sound of wedding bells here? I hope you’ll invite us all and entertain us with a marital tiff the instant the ring has been put on the finger!
I’m just saying, I would rather aspire to be one-who-fucks-over than aspire to be one-continues-to-be-fucked-over-and-yet-uselessly-whines-and-whines-about-it. Das is a good example of one who fucks over, but he manages to feel good about himself through his delusional writings, which occasionally throw in a reference to helping the poor. He wants others to think he cares about the oppressed, but he still manages to enjoy ridiculing the retarded and mentally unwell; he would have you think that as long as you haven’t fallen further victim to your oppressed circumstances – though losing your mind or intellect – he’s in your corner. He’s an elitist and he doesn’t know it, but still a fine example to anyway who wishes to stop whining and enjoy the small time they have on this earth.
Personally, I don’t have the stomach or need to delude myself or others into thinking I’m “in it” for others. That may be a symptom of my illness. After all even the “worst” of those in power Das criticizes love to call themselves altruistic, Das just can’t understand the mentality of one who s in it for himself, and is yet is honest about it.
Where have I whined about being fucked over? Where have I expressed any dissatisfaction with my life?
Once again, this is just your deluded obsession with me finding its voice, which is both retarded and mentally ill. You haven’t become either of these things due to ‘your oppressed circumstances’, you’ve just tried to latch onto me because I obviously have a lot more charisma than you. It hasn’t got a damn thing to do with being elitist, I’ll help anyone who is retarded and/or mentally ill if they ask me to help, but you won’t even admit that you are deeply unhappy, so why should I bother with you? There are others who are far more deserving of my help.
Where did I claim to be altruistic? I can understand that mentality, I am just opposed to it, and hence I oppose it. As per usual, this is just you inventing deluded crap to try to have a go at me, and this is the last time I am going to respond to you so I hope you enjoyed it.