Problems reveal themselves over time.
At first you struggle to fathom what’s going on; there may be multiple signs of danger but you’re unlikely to understand what they’re trying to tell you.
The good news is that, as seconds become minutes become hours you eventually realise what kind of trouble you’re in. The bad news is as the problem becomes clearer it also gets worse:
It’s a moment politicians can’t (or won’t) seize, because they’re not prepared to be wrong. That’s why they perform so badly with serious and pressing issues like climate change; they figure new evidence appears every day, so why not wait until we know everything?
They either don’t know (or don’t care) that by the time we reach 100% certainty we will have exactly 0% alternatives.
That’s why we need leaders, not politicians.
Leadership is a job for people who are prepared to make very big guesses about a future no-one can know very much about; people with the courage to act without the benefit of certainty.
It’s a tough gig, which might explain why so few people are up to it.
Leaders move while there’s still time.
Politicians wait until there’s no doubt.
Our species has some very serious problems to face; let’s not waste whatever time we have left by mistaking politics for leadership.
dave isles
here’s a suggestion (for Aus, at least),Jason. Halve the number of politicians.. make the existing throng compete harder for the privelige of representing their electorates and forging the path for the path for the country’s future.. maybe the forging should get more weight than the representing. Nuke the upper houses, nuke local councils and allow the smaller group of (hopefully more talented) representatives better time frames to implement the strategies that get them elected. and while we are at it, can we change the description of the non-governing party to something other than ‘the opposition’ .. they all seem to take that too literally.. their true reason to be is to provide better alternatives, not to rigidly and religiously oppose all that the governing party tries to implement.
My experience of Aus politics dates back to Bob (OK, ‘Sir Robert’) Menzies v Arthur Caldwell… there have been few times when the gulf between liberal and labour policies (not ideologies) have been substantial.. our changes of govt have been to implement ‘better alternatives’ for the most part.. so lets call it that.
measuring their performance by the quality of insults and personal dirt seems to be accepted by themselves, the media.. and maybe the majority of voters??
i reckon we need some form of shock treatment to change that.
cheers, Dave I
Jason
Hey Dave, I like this approach. Can I add a few tweaks of my own? We define a few dozen national priorities and ask candidates to rank them in order of importance. These ranking are kept secret until after the election. The voters then do the same exercise on polling day/s not knowing who stands for what. Then once the people have spoken the candidate’s lists are revealed and the closest match wins. It sounds wacky but I’m keen to remove personalities and make the elections purely about issues that voters have been compelled to consider in some detail before we ask their opinion…