Tuesday, May 24, 2011
What is the Tipping Point
Malcolm Gladwell defines a tipping point as “that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behaviour crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire”. - i agree
The Inside Men
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/25/3226510.htm
Karl Bitar, professional politics and the end of belief
By Jonathan Green
The unsettling truth revealed by that possibility is that the ......'s of this world - and they are legion - would presumably be unimpeded in pursuing either aim by anything so professionally debilitating as personal belief.
And there lies a sobering truth of modern politics: it's simply a professional game played by people with no allegiance other than to the outcome required by the moment. It is a game of influence, opinion control and issue management, a sophisticated lark for the dispassionate professional. It is certainly no place for deeply held conviction.
Without belief we have nothing but self-interest. Without principles we just blow in the breeze of opportunism. Politics becomes friable, the voters disloyal, and ultimately disengaged. The process that results is almost by definition incapable of delivering on the hard decisions, the calls that once upon a time would have been driven by resolute leadership backed by belief. Such romantic notions have no place in a modern, professional political game that has become a captive of the careerist, mobile, ideologically androgynous political class: there's simply no percentage in tackling the tough issues.
Karl Bitar, professional politics and the end of belief
By Jonathan Green
The unsettling truth revealed by that possibility is that the ......'s of this world - and they are legion - would presumably be unimpeded in pursuing either aim by anything so professionally debilitating as personal belief.
And there lies a sobering truth of modern politics: it's simply a professional game played by people with no allegiance other than to the outcome required by the moment. It is a game of influence, opinion control and issue management, a sophisticated lark for the dispassionate professional. It is certainly no place for deeply held conviction.
Without belief we have nothing but self-interest. Without principles we just blow in the breeze of opportunism. Politics becomes friable, the voters disloyal, and ultimately disengaged. The process that results is almost by definition incapable of delivering on the hard decisions, the calls that once upon a time would have been driven by resolute leadership backed by belief. Such romantic notions have no place in a modern, professional political game that has become a captive of the careerist, mobile, ideologically androgynous political class: there's simply no percentage in tackling the tough issues.
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