Sex, Drugs & Electoral Rolls Part X: The Power of Myth in Politics

One of my favourite political ideas was coined by a French thinker known as Georges Sorel.

Sorel's core contention was about what motivated people's political behavior. What drives people to take a position, to get involved, and to do things in service of the advancement of a creed. Particularly in the large numbers required to make a democracy - or, indeed, any mass-movement - viably work.

It turns out that contra to the forthright opinions of many a political uber-hack, densely-worded, deeply-thought about reams of finely wrought policy detail ... don't actually tend to draw in people. Particularly the less-aligned persons from outside the seven-circled political hell better known as the Beltway, whose mortal support is vital in actually getting any serious and enduring representational political project off the ground.

Instead, what motivates us - even the hacks, before we lost our sense of wonder and became grey, shriveled husk-like hollow-men feeding on the fires in the spirits of others - is Myth.

"Myth", rather than "Minutiae" is what makes the political world go round.

Now by "Myth", I don't necessarily mean that which we'd traditionally think of as belonging within a legendarium. With some noticeable exceptions, the role of magic swords in determining the future course of governments has been markedly limited.

Instead, it refers to grand, sweeping ideas and aspirational philosophic constructs. "That Vision Thing", as Winston once put it.

The example Sorel put forward when explaining his concept was that of the anarchist "General Strike". Something which quite plainly and self-evidently was highly and hugely unlikely to happen - yet which motivated many thousands of labour activists to get involved and work furiously to try to bring about the conditions wherein the people they championed were able to meaningfully undertake action (almost invariably on a much more limited scale) to secure their own economic self-determination and in train a greater standard of living.

Other ideas which might fit neatly into this "Myth" category include the notion of a truly fair and democratic society; an idealized nationhood; or, a personal favourite, the ongoing struggle against Neoliberalism having an ultimately successful and more ardently nationalist/socialist outcome. Libertarians believe that once the Great Beast of Government, "Leviathan", is slain (or, more rarely, tamed) that we shall all enjoy the looting of its hoard. That 'Free Market' idea is also presumably up there.

This is what gets people involved in politics. Because they're passionate about equal treatment for women, rather than a comparatively minor legislative move which might, in a roundabout way lead to a few cents less disparity in the gender pay gap. Because they love the idea of our state enjoying true economic self-determination instead of merely being bitterly opposed to the fractional reduction of a single tariff on imports betwixt us and China.

In short, because we fall in love with some generalized elements of 'the bigger picture' - and then start zooming in our gaze more and more on the microcosm as we find ourselves getting further, and more deeply passionately involved.

This, of course, can inevitably lead to burnout. But while it lasts, the intoxicating reifiability of some dreams is magical. And even more wondrous is the unique sort of politician's or political activist's brain which can simultaneously entertain both the starkly sweeping Vision, and the subtly stabbing detail-thrusts required to make it happen in any real degree.

But as sublime as all this is ... there is a dark side, too.

Our brains - particularly our political brains - are wired up to prioritize emotional resonances over eminent reasonability when it comes to our inclinations and decision-making. That's why I've kept using terms like "beautiful" and "fall in love with" when describing how we relate to "Myth" in the political sense above. Because those are the parts of the brain being stimulated. It's a rare creature, indeed, who develops an initial, logistitian's pure mathematical acceptance for a concept without first becoming emotively entranced by it.

The trouble with "Myth", then, is how it subjuncts our reasoning on occasion to lead to some very curious avenues and outcomes indeed.

A great example of this in our own domestic politics is the New Zealand National Party.

Many of them are adherents of that aforementioned Myth-cult of free marketry. This causes them to assume that they are innately superior - indeed, unassailable - economic managers. And thus, this forms a cornerstone of the "Myth" of the National Party, as carefully parceled up for mass-democratic consumption.

The trouble is, it isn't true. The idea that National are seriously competent economic managers might have what Stephen Colbert would call "Truthiness", but that's a different rubric entirely. By most standards you care to mention, National's record points in the other direction. Where Labour managed to deliver nine straight surpluses, National had to seriously cheat and fiddle the books to deliver even one - of wafer thickness. Bill English's "fiscally neutral" tax cuts for the wealthy saw working class families paying more tax thanks to the GST hike, while putting somewhere in the vicinity of a five and a half billion dollar hole in the books. The Asset Sales process kicked off in National's previous term in government was also an expensive waste of time which left us worse off than before.

The only way they can even perfunctorily appear to be rhetorically justified is through those self-same appeals to Myth: that part-privatizing an asset already subject to corporate governance structures somehow makes it more efficient; that decreasing taxes on the wealthy (but increasing taxes on those who have the highest marginal propensity to consume) will somehow resoundingly boost economic growth; that less money flowing into the government's coffers for social spending and economic stimulus somehow makes everybody better off.

And yet, the broad preponderance of The Electorate appears to buy into the Myth - or at least, they did up until relatively recently. There are small signs that a growing weight of incontrovertible, crashing reality is beginning to derail this particular mythperception.

Still, this must come as cold comfort to several opposition parties. Thanks to the strength and depth of their myth-making, National are perceived as far superior to Labour when it comes to fiscal management - even though their records on same are utterly the inverse. Meanwhile, The Greens can submit endlessly detailed, fully costed Alternative Budgets ... and it does nothing to alter many people's perceptions of them as little more than ecologically minded economic lightweights whose main commercial visions are some form of semi-literal "pipe dream" surrounding legalized cannabis.

Whether that is because the Myth of one group of adherents is so broadly and easily ascribed to as to effectively drown out the Myths of another - or merely because the 'lesser' Myth is just plain less resonant with the Electorate all up, is an exercise in discretion which I shall leave up to the reader.

But the plain fact of the matter is that if we want to shape the course of events around us in the political sphere, we would do well to learn the art of Myth-Making; rather than becoming, as is every hack's habitual hamstringing, hidebound by hairsplitting detail.

For it is only once we have worked out how to tell truly compelling stories that we can ask our fellow-men to join us and live within them.

Everything up to that point is just faerie tales.