When Politics Is A Laughing Matter

Abstract

WHEN IT IS NOT at war, democracy is a comical political system. To many of history's greatest minds, very idea of allowing rabble to choose its leaders, who then pander to its wishes, was inherently ridiculous. Compared to simple elegance of despotism, stability of baronial rule, or divinely ordained reign of a monarch, democracy is a messy, muddled method of government. We, people, know this. Because our leaders emerge from within our own ranks, we feel entitled to insult them mercilessly, especially when they get too big for their boots. And worst insult any elected politician may suffer is being voted out of office. No matter how much dread he instills or respect he may inspire, his people do not love him. In times of peace, we recognize that our leaders are not only no better than we, but in many cases, worse. We, at least, mind our own business and get on with making an honest living; they, on other hand, willingly thrust themselves into maelstrom of politics for what purpose? Power? Glory? Money? Fame? We suspect, perhaps wrongly, that whatever reason, it must be nefarious. Some politicians may be motivated by a Great Vision, others by Moral Fervor, and still others by Fierce Ambition, but one verity remains: They want to clamber to top of greasy pole in order to run things and boss other people around. Given that system is so endearingly ludicrous, antics of our elected representatives make entertaining viewing. Some commentators rue disrespect with which politicians are sometimes treated. In turn, they can be accused of not only taking politicians altogether too seriously, but thinking ahistorically. THE INVENTORS OF modern democratic politics, British, occupied a great deal of their time mocking its practitioners. The more rambustious and vibrant politics, more malicious mockery. Whereas parliamentarians had once been lumped together as the Commons, eighteenth century witnessed emergence of Tory and Whig political parties possessing distinct platforms. This was a development, coinciding with explosion in political pamphleteering and newspapers, that bitterly divided London coffee houses (Jonathan Swift, misanthropic author of political satire Gulliver's Travels, was a particularly vicious Tory hack) and unleashed an extraordinary partisan rancor. Turn to a typical eighteenth-century caricature and, even in our crass age, one is horrified by sheer delight artists took in portraying great politicians defecating, urinating, fornicating, being disemboweled, and suffering from flatulence. Take, for instance, famous print of Whiggish Sir Robert Walpole -- who served for more than 20 years as Britain's first prime minister and to whom phrase every man has his price has been, no doubt inaccurately yet justifiably, attributed -- straddling gate of government. The cartoon is entitled Idol-Worship, or The Way to Preferment and depicts a servile place-seeker kissing Walpole's enormous, naked buttocks. By comparison, Doonesbury's waffle and feather jibes seem thin gruel indeed. Later artists and writers would downplay scatology and instead focus on grotesquely exaggerating personal appearance and besmirching characters of politicians. By late nineteenth century, when suffrage had bestowed vote on most of male population and parliamentary government was upheld as epitome of Progress, middle-class publications such as Punch drew their claws. Disraeli, Salisbury, and Gladstone were portrayed rather harmlessly as (respectively) greasily unctuous, self-satisfied, and eye-glazingly boring. But British were always fond of their idiosyncratic little democracy, even as they poked fun at its ridiculousness. As Sir Joseph recounts in Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore: I grew so rich that I was sent By a pocket borough into Parliament. …