Normalization
September 5th 2008 12:02
The obvious reason why Hollywood movies end up bland and all the same is reliability. There's a line in "The Three Amigos" where a studio boss tells Steve Martin "No, we're not going to produce any more movies like that. We learnt our lesson. We strayed from the formula, and we got burnt."
But there's another reason: market size. Of course, you can always target a niche audience. But if you're aiming for the centre of the bell curve, and trying to appeal to as many people as possible, then isn't it natural that there's a certain dumbing down, a watering down, a making-generic?
Now, take any established two-party political system. -- Given the objective of maximizing the voter base, then isn't it natural that the two should display convergent evolution -- that policies are normalized? You don't want to appeal only to the progressive, but also to the conservative, not only to the rich, but also to the poor...
And there are other factors, also, for this trend: for instance, there may be a widespread desire for continuity and stability.
A great deal of politics, is seems to me, is an attempt at brand differentiation. When one party says "right", the other party looks for a case for "left". And when someone says "Don't politicize this issue" (eg whether Australia should be a republic, or whether America should act on climate change), what they mean is don't assimilate the split positions to the split parties, which would otherwise be the course of things.
Enormous rhetorical effort goes into this attempt at differentiation -- visible on many an Orble blog -- a constant concern to caricature and exaggerate, to make black blacker and white whiter. Just like the way that a company might say, "Buy our detergent, and not our competitors'", when everybody knows that it's a meaningless choice between Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich.
But there's another reason: market size. Of course, you can always target a niche audience. But if you're aiming for the centre of the bell curve, and trying to appeal to as many people as possible, then isn't it natural that there's a certain dumbing down, a watering down, a making-generic?
***
Now, take any established two-party political system. -- Given the objective of maximizing the voter base, then isn't it natural that the two should display convergent evolution -- that policies are normalized? You don't want to appeal only to the progressive, but also to the conservative, not only to the rich, but also to the poor...
And there are other factors, also, for this trend: for instance, there may be a widespread desire for continuity and stability.
A great deal of politics, is seems to me, is an attempt at brand differentiation. When one party says "right", the other party looks for a case for "left". And when someone says "Don't politicize this issue" (eg whether Australia should be a republic, or whether America should act on climate change), what they mean is don't assimilate the split positions to the split parties, which would otherwise be the course of things.
Enormous rhetorical effort goes into this attempt at differentiation -- visible on many an Orble blog -- a constant concern to caricature and exaggerate, to make black blacker and white whiter. Just like the way that a company might say, "Buy our detergent, and not our competitors'", when everybody knows that it's a meaningless choice between Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich.
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Comment by Damo
You are showing dangerous levels of common sense.
That will not be tolerated until after the election.
Until then the straw men are being stuffed and burned in ever increasing numbers.
Comment by Nonymous
Philosophy Blog
I wonder, though, how true my claim about convergent evolution is...
Certainly, there seem to have been a lot of talk lately, in the Australia media, about Labor adopting Liberal policies, and so forth
But among other things, the assessment depends on from what perspective you're looking. I mean, whenever anyone says that two things are "quite different" or "quite similar", what are they comparing to? On what basis are they assessing degree of similarity?
Perhaps Martians would think that humans, apes, pigs, and dolphins are "quite similiar", although we customarily perceive enormous differences even between individual humans.
Comment by Damo
Some words get in the language to the point that they effect almost every level. Evolution is such a word. When I was in the corporate world 'evolution' to describe everything from management changes to the development of databases.
Then again I had my own definition.
Evolution is only what happens after a big disaster. Whatever is still surviving afterward must have done so because it was the best suited for survival.
Don't take my theory too serious.
However when you are in a meeting and some junior exec starts calling his irrational proposal as evolution it does give pause to think.
Yet I tend to think over a period of time most people move closer to the centre. Or the centre moves. Then bang a plane hits the WTC and the whole game shifts. A disaster often precipitates opportunities for minority ideas to be considered. Whether such ideas are good or disastrous plays out over time.