Performers And Politicians
The Universality Of Performance And The Fragility Of Men's Virtue
What do a politician and a fool have in common? The commonality among them does not arise from their personalities but from their purpose. Both are performers.
They perform everything in life. A politician will never let anyone see his true face, not because he is evil or filled with malice, but most likely because he is simply incompetent. The fool will never let anyone see his real face, otherwise he ceases to be a fool and the caricature that protects him will fall away and he will be exposed and vulnerable to people judging his true character. The fool and the politician seem to be vastly different. A fool entertains people for a living. His goal is to be amusing and tolerated until he becomes a fixture. A politician governs for a living. His supposed goal is to rule and vote for the benefits of the citizens that elected him.
The many consume. The few study. If you have read this far, you already know which one you are.
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The politician’s goal is fundamentally misunderstood by the plebeians. Most people understand politicians are liars. But that is it, they still believe politicians do what is best for them even if they lie or have to play dirty at times. In reality politicians do not care about their voters, they do not care about their promises, they do not care about making a country better. Instead they simply only care about themselves. Politicians are the greatest performers to exist in public life.
They make people believe they care, they make them believe that things will change, they make people believe something can be done about the broken nature of every power structure. But in reality politicians are not motivated by patriotism, they are motivated by the same two things any person is motivated by: money and power. They perform not because they are evil but because money and power from men or entities with a lot of both want them to perform.
That is the trick, anyone for the right amount of money would likely sell out his own friends, community or country. Any notions of ideology or principles will simply not stand the test of prodigious sums of money. The same is true of power and influence, some men will not bend for money so easily but if they are able to attain a position of great power and influence that they believe will benefit themselves they will sell out their country all the same.
The politician was not born different. He was simply placed in front of the offer first. This is not just the nature of politicians. It is the nature of any person among the masses.
It is very easy to say I would not sell out my country for one million dollars, but saying something and doing something is completely different. If 99% of people were offered the chance to pretend to care about their country and were paid millions of dollars a year to do so they wouldn’t push for a change in the current power structure. They wouldn’t push for an investigation into massive conglomerates. They would simply say those things to their voters and never fulfill their promises.
So what do a fool, a politician, and a regular person have in common? They are all performers. The fool is a performer for money, and perhaps status among patrician circles. A politician is a performer for personal enrichment and power in major institutions. A regular person is a performer of dissembled morality, principles, and acceptance. Each one of these archetypes is a performer. Each archetype is not malicious, or evil in any way. Each one is self-serving and seeking to gain an advantage for themselves.
The world is not black and white. It is gray. It is full of performers who feign morality and virtue, but in reality serve only themselves, and would sell out everything they know if properly incentivized.
"Beyond Good and Evil"
"Morality" is a panacea for the powerless.
Politics is easier to understand if you look at the incentive structures.
Politicians are voted in by election every 4 or 5 years, depending on the country. In order to win votes, they build Problem Franchises around public interest issues. If these issues are ever properly addressed, the Problem Franchise dissolves, and the politician has to risk creating a new franchise out of public interest issues.
As long as the Ruled impose no costs on the Rulers, the incentive structure requires the Problem Franchise to be preserved by only ever making token gestures towards solving the problems of society.
Conversely, the only way to force the dissolution of Problem Franchises is to impose costs upon Rulers, and historically riots have been the most effective measure of last resort.
Without the imposition of costs, there is no reason to dissolve the Problem Franchise, and so all political promises are hollow...