We are taught deference, but (because?) They. Really. Are. Not. That. Bright.

I went to posh schools (a minor prep school in Hampshire and then the second ‘best’ school in Adelaide). At university I was on the fringe of the political set, who went on to State and Federal politics. Beyond that, I spent (i.e. wasted) a solid decade and a half interacting with the Manchester Labour Party ‘elite’ while trying to get them behave with honour, speed, intelligence on climate change (I failed, o course). I watched people who wanted to be MPs, or indeed went on to be MPs. This includes the one who punched a constituent and lost his gig.

Some of them were kinda sorta okay. Many of them were massively overpromoted (by themselves and others) even at the low level they were at. They couldn’t cope with messes (and politics is all messes) or scrutiny, or, well, much of anything.

There was a basic neediness and aggression coming off them in waves.

So, I’ve interacted with the sorts of people who end up as – to choose examples entirely at random – Home Secretary, Foreign Affairs Minister.

They’re cunning, usually hard-working, & have great message discipline.

However, they are NOT particularly curious, reflexive or “bright” (these things get in the way of parroting today’s party-line)

And they wouldn’t know a principle if it bit them.

So, they get in the most incredible tangles, and then try to blame-shift (“based on the advice I was given” etc etc). And they have no red lines that they won’t cross (these have been tested early on in the party ‘selection process’ aka hazing rituals. People with principles they will resign on are awkward, untrustworthy, will potentially resign in a snit – not to be tolerated).

All hierarchical societies (and there were plenty that had much less of it than we do now) require a certain amount of obedience, deference etc. (I just read Richard II and Henry IV part 1 and 2 – which are all about “bad” Kings and rebellions.)

There is, in the “hidden” curriculum a large amount of “though shalt not question the Lords and Masters.”

Which might be fine (no, it wouldn’t) but our Lords and Masters are greedy, none-to-bright sociopaths and narcissists. Like that KLM pilot in 1977…

And here we are, as the body count in Gaza climbs, as the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide climbs, and as the trust in ‘democracy’ plummets.

I am so very very glad I did not breed, and I do not know how the breeders – especially those with young children – cope.