I have a conscience, and South African politicians often make me uneasy.
It’s so bad that that I always carry a magazine around with me.
This is because it’s election time and I need to hide in a toilet stall to read salacious gossip instead of having to listen to drivel coming from politicians, MPs, presidents and leaders, all claiming to be the moral compass as they spew empty words on twitter, facebook and through non-stop press releases that clutter my two work e-mail addresses.
They are not moral at all, and should just fess up to that.
I would like to introduce them to the philosophical teachings of Harry Frankfurt, and his essay called On Bullsh#t.
Politicians like to call themselves innovative leaders. This is a prerequisite for their bio-boxes on social media accounts they manage. That is basically just them saying they’re creative liars. Okay, creative BSers.
Frankfurt believes BS to be a sort of boast. It is unconcerned with truth or falsehood, simply a statement to push their own agenda.
See, liars at least need to know what the truth is to lie about it. BSers just don’t care about the truth.
And it seem our so-called innovative leaders are like that. They just don’t really care about us, dear friends.
I have a few political big-wigs’ numbers stored on my phone, and sometimes when I’m bored I’ll go to the All Contacts list on WhatsApp. Here I pay special attention to the latest updates from them.
These are a few… “Just saw an ugly fat man in Parkhurst“, “God must kill the umlungus“, “Why did God make ugly people?”. While some brag about drinking sprees, new cars, or their not-so-humble lives.
And believe you me, these are the same people espousing causes such as salary cuts for politicians, giving the poor back some land, better lives for all and just a better South Africa in general.
They are not really fighting for this – but they would like you to think they are.
And me, with just a tiny dollop of scruples left, I’m sitting in the bathroom reading a magazine, because the lies in there are at least more truthful than this political bull taking over.
Politics should be about truths being revealed or called for, and not a cesspool of BS where each is just out for themselves – and definitely not for us, the public.
