The Theatre of Politics

This is a response to the comment about my blog "Critics on Conservatives". Since my response requires more than a few paragraphs, I have decided to use the blog entry to respond as opposed to the comments section.

Politicians we see and hear are like the actors in a play. The leaders of the political parties could be seen as the major actors, the main protagonists. We, the public, are the audience in this theater. When the play moves us, we applaud! We choose our favorite actor and we allow him to set the pace of the story to continue entertaining us. What we do not see or perceive is that there is a stage director, a theater owner and a bunch of support staff to make the theater run smoothly.

The celebrity actor has prestige and power and is often allowed alot of leeway to carry the story forward. The actor (politician) has to satisfy his public (the electorate), has to negotiate around the scenery of the stage (the bureaucracy), has to have a great support staff around him to remind him of the script, put makeup on etc (supporters). But there is also the director to satisfy and the theater owner.... and who would they be in society? What kind of power do they have? They can manipulate the lighting to make a politician look bad or play music while the actor tries to deliver a rousing speech.... any actor who forgets this does not remain successful for very long.

The main problem with this entire argument is that it is very difficult to verify or to scrutinize. The director does not want the spotlight on him, nor does the theater owner. Here is an illustration to demonstrate what I mean: a privately owned corporation does not have to reveal ownership of its corporation to the public.... so assume Individual A owns Corporation Wowzers and Corporation Zipzip. No one has any idea of Individual A's influence upon these privately held corporations. Corporation Wowzers decides to have a controlling interest in McDonalds and Corporation Zipzip decides to have a controlling interest in Burger King.... Remember that no one knows that Individual A controls both corporations and each corporation has strong influence in competing restaurants.... so in essence, Individual A can set the tone in both competing restaurants.

Apparently, Future Shop and Best Buy are controlled by the same owner. Future Shop's philosophy is to hard sell, pressure the customer to buy and the salespeople receive commission for their sales. Best Buy's philosophy is to inform and help the customer, no sales pressure and the salespeople do not receive commission. Both places sell pretty much the same type of product and if one customer is angry at one, they run to the other company. Either way, the owner of both still gets the customer's money and does not change the formula.

Now my initial blog was not looking at politics in general and how it really functions or who really chooses the tune. My blog was looking at the actor's skill in gathering public praise for applause (or the electorate's vote). My commentary was how the actor sometimes uses spectacle instead of clever dialogue to get the applause. A democracy functions on the assumption that the better dialogue will gather the most applause. Rhetoric and lies are flashy spectacle that are meaningless yet entertaining to the public and many choose their favorite actors based upon these spectacles.

The actors may not be running the show as the commentator was pointing out, but the topic was more about the actor's skill or lack thereof that I was commenting on and how our applause should be directed towards intelligent dialogue which carries the story forward instead of distracting spectacles that rivet our attention upon the stage. The cynics among us refuse to watch the stage or to applause yet can not figure out that they are also part of the theater house and have a stake to protect. The commentator has the cynical view of politics and assumes that nothing can be done because the actors are not the real power of the theater house. Perhaps rewarding the actor for his thought-provoking dialogue, our power as the audience will also influence the director of the play and the owner of the theater? We are supposed to be in a democracy.... so to make it work, we must scrutinize and not allow rhetoric to blind us or else our emotions will dictate policy.... and emotions are so easily manipulated (why else does advertising get so much money unless it works against our better judgments?)

So we should care about the actor's intentions because we still have the power of applause, and as we scrutinize the actor's intentions and speech, we will be that much closer to scrutinize other components of the play as well as the theater house and who actually runs what. Then and only then will our applause guide the story to its proper course, we will be active participants instead of passive sheep who stay silent while being satisfied with trinkets and spectacles.