September 11, 2005
politics as theatre
The ongoing saga around sale of Telstra last week was commonly seen a circus or pantomime by the media. That was meant to be taken as a negative judgement--a put down---with Senator Barnaby Joyce cast as the dumb clown from Queensland.
The public policy background on the prrivatisation of Telstra can be found here. The judgement about the quality of the media commentary can be found here.
Consider this excellent Matt Golding cartoon of Telstra as a pantomime:
What the cartoon expresses is the performance model of politics as a form of theatre.
This understanding of politics is one that emphasizes the embeddness of action in the already existing web of human relationships. It assumes that a life without action and speech in a public space is dead to the world because it is through deeds, speech and meaning that individuals disclose who they are.
In this model the political actors create meaning, new relationships, unforseen constellations and so transcend instrumentality and the reduction of meaning to utility by economics.