This may be a difficult concept to grasp. In part, when people say this, I tend to think about giants. George Washington. Abraham Lincoln. FDR. Towering figures of our political history who, regardless of the complexities specific to their lives, have assumed a mythic importance in our political culture. We want these giants here, now, to solve our problems.
Who wouldn’t pale in comparison?
The idea may difficult to grasp for the opposite reason: The quality of present (whenever that might be) representation. Here the specifics are deeply important. The day-to-day fog and mud of getting things done in politics. The relationship between what gets done, what it takes to get things done and what should get done. It is difficult to see the here-and-now when in the here-and-now, especially when political discourse can be as much about adopting the opposing side for the sake of adopting the opposing side (whether a principled opposition or not) and one of the results is not clarity through contrast but confusion of issues and the adoption of short-term political gain at the expense of ideas—and people.
Again, it is hard not to pale in comparison to the giants of our imagining who, presently, are unencumbered by the complexities of our own time.
Recently, though, there is a stellar analogy that explains the idea in a different way: Charlie Sheen.
I have to admit I haven’t paid a lot of attention to the reported utterances of this person. I listened to part of the radio interview he did the other day. I saw part of an interview he did with ABC. I have read a bit here and there.
I have to admit, I didn’t see the point. It just seemed nuts. And why waste my time.
This morning it hit me.
Isn’t it delightful (or fitting or just or simply illustrative…) for Mr Sheen to erupt at Oscar time?
It’s perfect, really. The goings-on of this highly successful television actor are the perfect counterweight to the glamor the Oscars are meant to embody. The elegant (and, by most reports, deeply boring) spectacle of doling out awards to the well-shod up-ended (or at least punctuated) by the addled vituperations of the most successful practitioner of that lesser art of the television sit-com—the highly lucrative and highly embarrassing bank on which we and Hollywood depend for easy (cheap) thrills, be they money or laughs (they are the same thing to the people who make these shows).
I have watched Mr Sheen’s show a few times. I find it profoundly unpleasant (though its unceasing crassness has made me titter). It trades on our obvious ugliness with obvious ugliness. And, it is wildly popular.
By watching it, I vote for it and he—and the show’s creators—get paid (the only vote that counts in this instance). A lot. And so we get what we get. The profane doing what they should be doing: Defiling the scared. On it’s golden night, no less.
The difference, of course, is that I can turn off the television. And, I don’t have to read the stories. The only solution in politics, is to vote—early and often.
