One of the things that disappointed me about Vince Cable’s dismal speech about science funding on Wednesday was the lack of any sense of contrition or apology. This seems to have become a common feature of political talk in the last few decades, a sunny pseudo-optimism even in the face of bad news, reminiscent of the caricature of the bad manager: “to enhance your career development we have decided to make you redundant”.
It is easy to see why this kind of speechcraft has developed. Admitting to some kind of problem or apologising for what you are about to do clearly lays the speechmaker open to a direct criticism—by speaking like this you are instantly setting out a potential negative side of the proposed course of action, or else seeming uncertain or indecisive. Nonetheless, I wonder if the longer-term cumulative effect is worse. By couching everything in the same terms, regardless of whether it is good or bad news, the audience gradually loses interest and engagement over months or years. I notice that when I am reading a newspaper and I come across an article that has a politician’s byline, I (with a few exceptions) skip the article even if the headline is of interest.
This seems to be an example of the idea of “frog boiling” discussed in Charles Handy’s book The Age of Unreason(ISBN 978-0099548317). He notes that, according to folk wisdom, a live frog placed in a pan of water that is increased gradually in temperature will let itself be boiled alive—at no point will the change in temperature be significant enough on a short enough timescale for the frog to notice. Similarly, in this example it seems as though the cost of avoiding short-term criticisms is a long-term decline in credibility.
This has been around for a while. I opposed the Iraq War, and, whilst I cannot think of an argument that would have convinced me that it was a good idea, I would have been somewhat pacified had the argument been presented as “we have spent long and hard thinking about this and the alternatives, and, whilst the option of war is not something that we opt for lightly, having considered carefully the options we have decided that regrettably it is something that we must do, for the following reasons”. I still wouldn’t have agreed with the decision, but I would have felt somewhat listened to, and it would have probably influenced my voting behaviour. As it was, I felt utterly ignored, and as a result decided that, regardless of anything, I would hold off voting for Labour for the next couple of elections.
This also seems to be one of many examples where a single principle (in this case, “avoid offering a criticism or negative in your speech”) has become completely dominant, to the point where almost no-one ignores it or bothers to assess the negative consequences of the principle.