The art of practical politics is to attempt to bypass the thinking, reasoning part of the human being, and instead reach for the inner monkey. I mean, could any thinking, reasoning human being even hypothetically elect the current coterie of losers and morons who currently govern us? Geeze, get real!
The whole point of practical politics in today's day and age is to convince the majority of the population that you, politician A, are part of the same pride of monkeys as they are, and that the other politician, politician B, is not and thus is someone to hoot and howl and throw feces at. Logic and reason are not necessary. Only the ability to hoot and howl and throw feces is necessary. In fact, that is the usual method of political discourse in today's America -- to define the opposition politician as "other", as part of some other pride of hairless monkeys that aren't "really" people like our own particular pride of hairless monkeys, and thus someone to hoot and howl and throw feces at.
The sad thing is that it works. Monkey politics works. I'm not quite sure what this says about today's America, other than that few people bother using logic and reason anymore, preferring to instead rely on their inner monkey to guide their actions.
Aristotle once said, "man is the rational animal". Alas, events of his own era proved him wrong -- the Peloponesian War pretty much destroyed Athens as a power, leading to the Macedonian then Roman conquests. I suspect the truth is that man is the monkey that has the capability to reason and think. Said capability, alas, is far too seldom used -- far too many of these hairless monkeys prefer to hoot, howl, and throw feces rather than use logic and reason.
- Badtux the Reasoning Penguin
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ReplyDeleteand instead reach for the inner monkey
ReplyDeleteAre you sure you didn't mean and instead reach for the money?
51% of Amurikkan monkeys want the villiage idiot to think for them. 51% also think the sky is always purple with green stripes, 'cause the V.I. told them so.
ReplyDelete-I have read a few serious essays on the mentality of sheeple. They want & need a strong person to lead & think for them. Their sense of self isn't fully developed. Since they invest their well-being in the *leader, the leader can do no wrong. If their leader is wrong, they are wrong & that cannot happen. Their reality & sense of self would collapse.
*leader = God, Jesus, Shrub, daddy...
Like I said, it's monkeys all the way down. MOnkeys have a natural instinct to follow the "alpha male", and to follow him elsewhere. Our political leaders have done a darned good job of basically turning the majority of Americans into jumped-up monkeys with delusions of grandeur, eh?
ReplyDelete- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
I"m enjoying this analogy--big alpha male monkeys beating their chests and hootin and howlin while the lesser monkeys run around puffing out their chests when they get the opportunity--all puff no action. Meanwhile the female monkeys prace around in submission.. 'cept for some of the monkeys, but they're bad monkeys.. bad bad monkeys...
ReplyDelete