a brief comment about an election

"....when people wax lyrical about families, and talk about how noble someone is if he can point to seven rich forbears in a row, he believes that the praise is coming from people whose vision is entirely dim and short-sighted, unable, because of their lack of education, to look always at the whole, and work it out that everyone has had countless forebears and ancestors, including thousands and thousands of rich men and beggars, kings and slaves, foreigners and Greeks, in every case.  When people give themselves airs over a list of twenty-five ancestors, and trace their descent back to Heracles, the son of Amphitryon, it seems extraordinary pettiness to him; he laughs at their inability to get rid of the vacancy of an unintelligent mind, and work it out that it was just a matter of chance what sort of person the twenty-fifth back from Amphitryon was, and what sort of person the fiftieth back from him was...." (Plato, Theaetetus 175, transl. John McDowell)

I watched about five or ten minutes of a recent debate between two Czech politicians who both wished to be Presidednt. I missed the actual debate, but briefly witnessed the interchanges between the politicians and the audience. And, I did so with the background of having heard various comments about the candidates (expressed by Czechs in English).  Mostly I heard praise of various forms for the way in which Karl Schwarzenberg presents himself in public.

Prior to witnessing that brief part of the show in which audience participation was allowed, I had read that TOP 09, the party of Karl Schwarzenberg,during the 2010 election, had used a video in which young people were urged to threaten their grandparents that unless they voted for the Right they would never again visit them.  (Švihlíková 2011, p. 199)  Moreover, the actual policies of the party, as well as the decisions of recent governments, have made life harder for the elderly.  Pension increases have been cancelled.  The Value Added Tax increases have meant higher prices for food, medicines, and books.  As a recent commentator (Svoboda 2013) pointed out, these affect primarily families who have children but a low income and the elderly.

These government policies are a familiar form of class warfare (often called "austerity") which has been practiced in the name of economic "common sense", but which have always had the same result wherever they have been practiced:  In every case the incomes of the wealthiest have risen, and those of the middle-class and poor have fallen.

With that background, when an elderly war veteran asked Schwarzenberg about these issues (obviously he did not use the words I have used), Schwarzenberg's response was to claim that these policies have had good results. 

One might doubt that claim.  However, no one did. 

However, what was even more disturbing was the way in which the elderly war veteran was treated.  The moderator rather pompously complained that the "game" had "rules", and that by speaking at excessive length, the elderly man was breaking them.  However, he was allowed to have his say.  (I shall have to watch the video again, but as I think I recall now, the audience was sympathetic toward the war veteran.)

Shwarzenberg's first response was cranky.  He complained about the length of the war veteran's speech, with words to the effect of "finally, a question".  (Finally, when a non-politician is allowed to speak in a public space, there must be "rules" and limits---lest what?  During an election we are bombarded with inane pictures and slogans of the candidates, and people are submitted to the torture of their words--- but for an ordinary citizen to speak just a little bit is somehow dangerous or impolite....... No, that can't go without complaint!) (note)

Now, first of all, this was supposed to be a chance for real people--non-politicians---to speak.  I believe they were pre-selected, which is, itself, a bit artificial; but put that aside.  Here was a person who Schwarzenberg was potentially representing, and when this person spoke, Schwarzenberg was impatient, and, I would even go so far as to say, disrespectful.  Moreover, his disrespect was very unoriginal; it keyed off the reaction of the Moderator.  A respectful, independently-minded person would have ignored the Moderator's silly complaint and would have focused upon the core of the question.  Instead, we had a proverbial two-against-one scene setting maneuver which only managed to suggest that the question of the old man wasn't important or was somehow defective.

There is, however, a further irony here.  Schwarzenberg has a speech impediment. (The Economist 25.1.2013).  Words do not flow from his mouth in crisp, clear packages.  In that he resembles the elderly pensioner war veteran. Therefore, how ironic that Scharzenberg should express impatience with the retired man.  After all, Schwarzenberg takes it for granted that people will patiently wait as he expresses himself.  A similar respect was not accorded the war veteran.

There is an important difference, however.  Schwarzenberg is very rich.  He is surrounded by people who assist him, as he undoubtedly has been since the time of his early youth.  He is, in a word, privileged.  And, his impatience toward the old man who was asking a good question--a perfectly reasonable question---is evidence of his real attitude toward ordinary people. 

In fact the elderly pensioner seized on exactly the right point:  how could Schwarzenberg represent ordinary people?  And the behavior of Schwarzenberg toward the old war veteran precisely proved the veteran had hit upon the truth.

(Note:  These remarks are not any kind of endorsement for Schwarzenberg's rival, Milos Zeman.  On the contrary, I have witnessed the sort of thing that people describe as Mr. Zeman's rhetorical skill up close, and I was happy to escape after doing so.  More importantly, one might doubt whether Zeman is any less willing to practice "austerity" than is Schwarzenberg---despite his official position as a "leftist". The question of policy---the question of the results of words and deeds--is more important than so-called skills in public speaking or one's origins as a peasant or a prince.

References

"The Czech presidency:  Prince to Castle" Jan. 25, 2013, by K.S., The Economist, accessed 26.1.2013; http://www.econmist.com/blogs/easternapproaches2013/01/czech-presidency


Ilona Švihlíková, "The Czech Republic:  Neoliberal Reform and Economic Crisis", in Gareth Dale, ed. First the Transition, then the Crash; Eastern Europe in the 2000's.  Pluto Press, London 2011, pp. 187-202.

Jiří Svoboda, "Groupthink Schwarzenberg":, 25.Ledna 2013, Neviditelný Pes, accessed 25.1.2013

Note
The day of the election, I was horrified when I took a bus to the train station.  Everywhere in the bus I saw the grinning face of one of the candidates.  Throughout the bus hung plastic grips with the face of the candidate---a truly nighmarish scenario.  What has that got to do with democracy?  Nothing.  It is more like a scene from Dante's Inferno.  And someone is supposed to vote because they see a grinning face everywhere? (Or perhaps is the only result that they will have nightmares?)  ((I seem to hear someone say:  Is it different in the USA?--And I say, "Alas, no--except, of course, that public transport is less common there......---But that only means my complaint (that the advertising during campaigns is inane and idiotic and has nothing to do with democracy) applies in both places.)