Stop Meddling!
Do us all a favour. Shut up
How different would this world be, if we had just let it happen?
Not completely, because then it would be chaos, and not without some degree of governance.
But imagine the last fifty years, say, without the relentless “policy initiatives” of politicians; without the boring roar of the commentariat; without the ceaseless interventions of the very many desk-based organisers who meddle in our lives.
Without all the people who say “We must” do x, y or z on political chat shows — sorry, discussion programmes.
Without the constant second-guessing of the media; without the ceaseless noise of the debate that replaces action in this culture.
Campaign talking points
There’s a politician today, in the UK, talking about dentistry. Once upon a time, dentists used to fix teeth. Now they’ve been organised, regulated, made subject to contracts and rules — and it’s impossible to find a dentist.
Another of “today’s issues” is rental property. That’s been regulated, reorganised, legislated, policed, pick another word ending in -ed, since Rachman in the nineteen fifties — and I know people sleeping on sofas because there’s such a shortage of affordably rentable property in this town.
Mind you, I’m told that much of the rental stock has gone over to Airbnb, but this isn’t a story about tech. Read Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus for a perspective on that, by Douglas Rushkoff.
Nothing’s allowed to settle
This is a story about politics. The relentless clamour of people who won’t leave well alone. Who try to get (re)elected by looking busy. Who can’t just let anything settle into a rhythm of working just fine.
Who have to interfere.
This is also a story about media. People who can’t just come on and say “Look, nothing much happened today…”
People who must pretend to be fired up by absolutely everything that comes along, whether it’s dentistry today, or rental property, or sewage, or war, or trans rights, or the football.
People who must find, in whatever’s happened, a dramatic lead story and a follow-up.
Don’t they ever get bored with themselves? Any of them? Are they sane?
Let sleeping dogs tell the truth
Happily, this is also a story about us. We are the people who live with it all.
Who live with the meddling, work around the meddling, find ways to live our lives despite the meddling.
Who watch the news and comment on the newsreader’s hair, weight or dress sense. Who like individual politicians for their apparent sincerity but believe they’re all liars.
Who are, in the run-up to this election — after all that campaigning and commentary, after all that politics and media, after everything they’ve thrown at us — who are, as we always are, completely unpredictable.
Here’s a book to read in the gaps between election debates.
