The sky within reach
T.S. Eliot: “human kind cannot bear very much reality.”
On a planet in another universe, the election campaign is entering its final week. The sky is so near that it is within the reach of the people of this planet. People do not have to work for a living. When hungry, they simply reach up, cut a piece of the delicious sky and eat it.
The political parties enjoy their electoral campaigns competing with each other, proposing delightful big chunks of sky. They can offer abundance without any limits. On this planet the political parties do not need Quintus Tullius Cicero’s Commentariolum Petitionis (”Handbook of Electioneering”), written around 64 BC where he advised his famous brother Marcus to “promise everything to everybody” and to promise so much that by the time the election is won, the voters would have forgotten what was promised.
On this planet, since every party is making these promises, the “election” is actually a contest of who can dream the biggest. Political parties here do not waste time on trivial issues like budgets and viable deliverables; they compete on degrees of abundance. On this planet, the word “reality” has been classified as an ancient/obsolete obscenity.
‘Reality’ has been banned here since the first settlers arrived from another planet of whose inhabitants one of its famous poets, T.S. Eliot had already written “human kind / Cannot bear very much reality.” All those who are born on this planet are all given a sugar pill placebo to inoculate against ‘reality’. Bitter medicines are prohibited and every disease must be treated without admitting that it is a disease. Even bullets are made of chocolate so that when bitten, they leave a very pleasant taste.
Its anthem comes from planet Earth, more specifically from DH Lawrence’s poem ‘The Optimist’:
“The optimist builds himself safe inside a cell,
and paints the inside walls sky-blue,
and blocks up the door,
and says he’s in heaven.”
The planet has special properties. Contradictory proposals can be presented as being viable and successfully implemented without difficulty.
So for example traffic congestion can be solved by putting more and more cars on the road. The best way to address overbuilding is to build even more. The surest way of making apartments affordable people seeking their first accommodation is to release more expensive short-lets for extraterrestrial tourists. The best way to make the construction industry accountable and responsible is to support it by creating a government fund to help residents whose homes are damaged by nearby construction.
The optimal way to sustain strong economic growth to finance the proposed increase of public services and infrastructure is to reduce the number of workers producing that growth by sending them back to their country from where they can work remotely. From their own countries they can serve the homes for the elderly, the hotels and restaurants, public cleansing, the transport system, the hospitals, the factories, trade and construction without annoying the natives by their presence. In this way the planet avoids having to implement inclusive politics to create a common home for foreign workers and natives.
‘Visionless visions’
The planet is a member of the Inter Planetary Union which brings together several planets. Increasingly this Union is becoming one-size-fits-all and top down where every planet has to adopt rules even if it harms its specific interests. Other planets do all they can to safeguard their interests, but this planet goes along happily always positive that things will work out in the end.
Other planets know they have to be competitive, adaptable and always on the look out for new opportunities. This planet is complacent and is in no hurry to secure new investment. “Everyone wants to come here, because it is in their interest. If they do not persevere, while we keep them months waiting for a reply, it is their loss.”
Other campaigns on other planets at this time are conditioned by wars and the disruption of supply chains of energy, fertilisers and other resources as well as the inevitable direct and indirect impact on the cost of living, tourism, employment. Here energy will be always abundant and cheap.
Some other planets see how to avoid being used as proxies in wars, or magnets for missile attacks. The campaign on this planet does not bother with such trivial matters.
This planet has a democratic plutocratic political system. A few wealthy donors finance the political parties but do not influence their policies in any way. The interests of the donors never collide with the common good of the voters. Here political parties look after the interests of both their donors and their voters and everybody lives happily together.
Corruption, economic crime and drug trafficking do not exist on this planet;- so they are absent from the campaign. It is superfluous for ministers and their spouses to declare their full assets. There is no need for any rigorous scrutiny of campaign financing. Law enforcement flourishes. Parties do not have to waste time discussing the introduction of laws about underhand commissions, unexplained wealth and to what extent cocaine drives important sectors of the economy.
The “rallies” are held in shared neural simulations of competitive hallucinations. Candidates don’t give speeches about taxes, except to say that they are lowering them. Candidates perform “Vision Casts,” where voters can literally feel the joy of the promised future.
The politicians of this planet have ‘Visionless Visions’. Without knowing they follow what German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt had said: “People who have visions should go to see their doctor”.
On this planet parties can promise an exciting life with “no effort required” – except to vote for those who are promising the most.
So far in the campaign parties have promised everything. In the remaining week, the only way to stand out for a party is to promise more than everything. Short-sighted, short-term proposals are considered the best. Planning long term is harmful and unnecessary. After all as John Maynard Keynes said: “In the long run we are all dead.”