"It's way bigger than politics!"
Q. What’s the difference between Donald O’Connor, Jimmy Durante and David Shearer?
A. All three of them express the naive belief that “It’s bigger than both of us!” but only two of them have the excuse that they were singing along with a little ditty about love in a trivial 1950 Hollywood musical.
Back in the 1970s I remember reading an American TV reviewer who pointed out that, at the time, the only programmes dealing with serious issues were comedies.
He used the example of ‘All in the Family‘ with its lead character Archie Bunker. Here’s an example, in two parts. Continue reading
Voting for National or Key?
It’s clear that fewer than 30,000 New Zealanders will end up voting for Prime Minister John Key in the upcoming elections.
It’s also clear that somewhere north of 1,000,000 New Zealanders will, after voting day, think that they have voted for him. But, just what is being voted for when people think they are voting for Key – or for any particular politician?
To begin to understand just who or what people vote for a good way to start is by asking one simple question.
It doesn’t take long to collect examples of throat-slashing gestures on the internet: Here, here, here and here – and that’s just for starters on the first google page.
Interestingly, they are all incidents in highly charged, competitive, high stakes sports in the United States – like this ice hockey clip.
From the second link, here’s the general tenor of how seriously the gesture is usually taken:
that still doesn’t excuse Griffey making an on-field motion even more distasteful than Brantley’s mullet. Considering that both Griffey and Brantley are theoretically on the same team, it’ll be interesting to see how this one plays out. Pretending to slash someone’s throat isn’t something that’s just easily explained away.
As many know, Christchurch has been divided into four zones: Red; orange, white and green.
Less well known – but increasingly apparent -there are interesting emotional and social psychological divisions emerging in a way that neatly maps onto that zoning.
The anxieties, daily difficulties and frustrations of those in the red zone and the uncertainty of those in the orange and white zones are most obvious.
But, at least some in the green zone are also going through an emotional experience: Envy.
It might be hard to believe that anyone could experience anticipatory envy for others who have effectively lost their homes, their communities and, very likely, their physical and mental health over the past six months or even a year. Yet, the signs are there that the emotional barometer outside the most affected areas is definitely ‘going green‘.
[Yes, it’s a bit of an ironic twist on the notion of “the politics of envy” – which I’ve written about here – but life, especially politics, is full of such ironies.]
This emotional weather change appears to be over the slight possibility that agitation by those in the red zone (and here) might result in them (red-zoners) being given a better deal than that contained in the government’s 21 June offers. Continue reading
It’s a common belief that politics and policy-making would be better if it availed itself of the fruits of scientific endeavour.
Some call it ‘evidence-based policy‘ and it is often those on the left who call for much more of it. (Intriguingly, this is despite Tony Blair’s UK Government being a recent advocate of such an approach.)
But evidence, especially in the social sciences, is rarely unequivocal. Studies abound and, short of major review articles, they provide a smorgasbord from which anyone can judiciously select to provide a seemingly impregnable wall of evidence in favour of just about any position one cares to adopt.
And, increasingly, the political battle lines are being drawn over what counts as ‘evidence’ and what sources of that evidence are more or less reliable. Witness the explosion of ‘think tanks’ devoted to churning out reports on the ‘evidence’ – often as not, evidence published in peer-reviewed journals or from official sources or written by Harvard Professors.
So much is relatively well known. Less well known is that there is now scientific evidence that each one of us is influenced in our weighing of evidence by the requirements of our lives. In a ‘Pop Will Eat Itself‘ feat of reflexivity, the evidence is coming in on the role of evidence in people’s thinking – and it’s not all ‘thumbs up’ for the consequences of rushing to evidence-based policy.
Take this recent study, for example. Continue reading
As the election draws near, it’s clear that ‘welfare reform’ will be one of the main areas of discussion and debate.
It’s also, historically, an area littered with sloganesque arguments that fly around like empty cartridge shells at the OK Coral. [Apparently, in that gunfight, about 30 shots were fired in 30 seconds, which is roughly the rate at which clichés and buzz words are encountered in arguments over welfare.]
One of those slogans/clichés concerns “bad lifestyle choices”. Continue reading
Elections depend on votes. What do votes depend upon? Well, flags, for one thing.
There’s a lot of other studies that show that many seemingly trivial or even irrelevant factors result in perceptible movements in people’s tendency to vote for one party or another or for incumbents versus challengers.
As well as exposure to national flags, these factors include the effect of weather on Fourth of July celebrations (for Americans) during their childhood; sports results; candidate height; and, facial similarity between the voter and candidate. It might be some relief, though, that male hair loss in (male) candidates does not seem to affect voting behaviour.
Before anyone gets too depressed about these studies, there are two points that are important to remember. Continue reading
The release of Labour’s tax policies – which include a new top tax rate (39cents for income over $150,000), a Capital Gains Tax (at 15%), no GST on fresh fruit and vegetables and a tax free $5,000 threshold – have brought some interesting reactions.
The most interesting have involved the repeated claim that the CGT and top tax rate are ‘envy taxes‘ – and here – or that Labour’s plans dabble in the ‘politics of envy‘ or contrast “aspiration versus envy“.
Don Brash has chimed in claiming Labour is pressing the “envy button” and it “is politics and economics as if envy mattered“. Meanwhile, according to John Key
“It [a capital gains tax] was an envy-based tax and New Zealand’s tax system should be more ‘aspirational.'”
The right wing ducks, it seems, are all in a row when it comes to the meme of the politics of envy in relation to Labour’s tax package.
Sadly – for those on the right – research suggests that it is right wing politics that is most intimately entwined with the set of motives and emotions most commonly known as ‘envy’. Yes, it’s all very ironic.
Now that the government has unveiled a multi-coloured map of Christchurch, that represents its current thinking on ‘retiring land’, compensation packages and mass internal migration it’s a good time to reflect on the state of play and highlight a few points.
