Re-imagining Danyl’s special theory of Key

Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, February 19th, 2011 - 45 comments
Categories: brand key, Deep stuff - Tags:

Over at Dimpost, Danyl wrote an interesting piece after seeing the video of John Key in the House saying that if Kiwi families find themselves needing to go to foodbanks it is their fault. That nasty moment was, Danyl thought, an eye-opener to the disconnect between how the political Left perceives Key – that dick in the debating chamber – and how much of the public does – that nice man doing funny stuff on the telly:

Almost every time we see Key he’s the exact opposite of the person Labour tells us he is.

Unless you watch question time in Parliament.

Key’s performance in Parliament is very different from the Key we see on public display. In this environment the Prime Minister is, basically, a sneering jerk who doesn’t seem to know anything about what his Ministers are doing, or care very much about the impact of his government’s policies, a great example being his statement yesterday that beneficiaries are people who made a ‘lifestyle choice’, a choice that seems heavily influenced by the record surge in unemployment that’s happened under Key’s government – yet another dire economic indicator that Question Time Key couldn’t really give a shit about.

This is how the Labour Party primarily experiences the Prime Minister – so their impression of him isn’t that delusional. The problem is (a) Question Time is an artificially adversarial, theatrical environment in which everyone involved looks far worse than they really are (I hope), and (b) the opposition are almost the only people in the country who pay attention to what happens in it. They’re like the children in a horror movie who know their neighbour is a vampire but can’t convince anyone else because it’s simply not believable.

Yes and no. Key is different in the House than when he is at a photo-op but this is just a manifestation of much deeper.

Danyl and others think that because we’re staunchly opposed to Key it’s because we hate him or at least his political persona, what Robinsod labeled all those years ago as ‘Brand Key’. But it’s not the brand we hate, it’s what the Key government does. Brand Key is only bad in so far as it allows the Key government to get away with doing awful things.

See, the Left, or at least the socialist Left, is very much a modernist project. We’re materialists – we’re interested in government and the political-economic system for the real impacts it has on people’s lives. We’re not much interested in the symbols except as they relate to the real world. Post-modernists care very much about symbols and little about the material world. Perhaps that’s mostly because they tend to be well-off and well-educated, so don’t have much in the way of material concerns themselves.

Brand Key is a post-modern exercise. It is about creating an image that people will like and it is not about associating that image with anything in the real world. The signifier and the signified are not linked.
Ideally, the Nats don’t want us to ask if Brand Key has delivered us what it promised (the ‘brighter future’). They just want us to buy the brand in the same as coke wants us to buy their product without asking if it really leads to us hanging out with sexy young people in the sun.

Many in the media are post-modernists. You don’t have to talk about complex interactions of markets, class interests, resource economics, and confusing statistics. You can tell simple, archetypal stories of warring tribes, goodies and baddies, winners and losers that the political animal inherently understands because it’s in our genes – symbols not substance. I’m thankful, though, that our media is not yet at the level of the US, were it becomes a ‘he said, she said’ argument between powerless talking heads accusing each other of some verbal faux paus, a million miles away from the real issue underlying the debate. Brand Key is designed for a post-modernist media and has been ably assisted by it for some time.

This post-modern/modern gap is evident in the left and right blogs, too. The Left blogs tend to be very heavy on research, facts, stats, citing studies to back up what they’re saying. Look at Marty’s work in particular. It’s about the real world. It’s about the impact of the government on the governed. Very modernist – the examination of cause and effect, backed by reams of data. You can contrast that to Kiwiblog or, indeed, any rightwing blog if you happen to bother reading them. They don’t argue from data, they focus more on personality politics – on building and destroying symbols – when they talk about the real world, they just make declarative statements. Or, Farrar’s case, just quote someone else’s declarative statements, write ‘indeed’ at the end, and call yourself a political thinker.

As modernists, we believe that a signifier signifying nothing cannot do something as real world as govern. And we’re being proven right. What we’ve believed would happen, and what has begun to happen over the last year and especially the last month, is that the contradictions between Brand Key and the real Key government would become too great. Eventually, and few would have thought it would take this long, the artifice would collapse and the real world where most people are worse off thanks to Key would assert itself in the political discourse.

It’s been a long wait but, by God, it’s happening.

45 comments on “Re-imagining Danyl’s special theory of Key ”

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  1. Alistair 1
    19 February 2011 at 10:31 am

    I fully agree with what you are saying. The Left needs to figure out what facts and figures and associated stories, will gel with voters. National seem to be way ahead in the media/image game, and that’s what counts.

    Obama used relatively low cost social media very effectively to get elected. Is that worth considering?

    • ghostwhowalksnz 1.1
      19 February 2011 at 10:45 am

      Obama used relatively low cost social media very effectively to get elected

      It was used to raise money to do normal election stuff.

    • Marty G 1.2
      19 February 2011 at 10:57 am

      yeah, it’s important to see social media as primarily an organisational tool.

      only ads/viral vids etc through Facebook have the ability to reach a real mass audience. or when blogs break a story/help shape its interpretation in the msm.

    • the pink postman 1.3
      19 February 2011 at 4:11 pm

      Im guilty of repeating myself but here goes. The political Left is up against the cleverest advertising company in the world .Crosby-Textor. They use every means possible to have Right- Wing parties in power world wide. Have a look at the parties they manage . News media , TV programes , and even starting rumours , they never a miss a chance to better the Right. Scandal mongering and slander are part of their strategy.
      They have won elections for the Conservatives.UK and even influenced the Scandanavian countries. Their finances are mainly from the International Democratic Union,The senior party being the Republican Party US. A leading figure and past Chairman Key’s very good friend Lord Ashcroft.
      So we are really up against it .

      • mickysavage 1.3.1
        19 February 2011 at 4:31 pm

        I agree that we are up against it pink but the one thing we have that the right do not have is people. I was at Michael Wood’s campaign launch today in Botany. There were well over a hundred people there, there was a 15 car cavalcade and there were people at the headquarters ready to go out doorknocking. At one stage we drove past Jami-Lee Ross who was with 6 others holding up billboards on a street corner.

        And this is in a safe National seat.

        If the left can get its activists out to talk to people then anything can happen. The best propaganda will not work, just think what has happened in Egypt recently.

        • neoleftie 1.3.1.1
          19 February 2011 at 5:19 pm

          Micky well said – Labour just might have the organisation esp with heavy union support to do the hard yards and reeducate the masses.

  2. Bored 2
    19 February 2011 at 11:18 am

    Eddie, fantastic column, Danyls right. It has some resonance that reminds me of a couple of books I read years back.

    One was by Jung on how symbols and conceptual images could be used to portray positions that rational thought rejects, such as the swastika, the rabid Jew. We too have our equivalents, the BMW badge pregnant with actualised aspiration, and the beneficiary as the villain who bludges from us all.

    The other was Alistair McIntosh who successfully fought a super quarry in Skye through the courts in bardic Gaelic. He refused to use the language or conceptual framework of his opponents and made them enagage on his terms.

    There are some very basic lessons here for the left at a time when real material concerns afflict our society. Perhaps the best image I can portray of Key is Nero and his fiddle.

    • neoleftie 2.1
      19 February 2011 at 12:13 pm

      interesting Bored…I wonder if labour and its factions understand that to generate sustained support from the natural voters of the centre and left the use of conceptualised frameworks and language that actually relate to the wider community must be utilised, after all saying nothing and not re-engaging the wider support base simple allows the tories under JK free use of the centre and creates this mythical rebranding or image of the Tories. Time for the real labour to stand up and reconnect at the wider grass root level. A revolution beings slowly from within…look to the 2008 intake to challenge the old centrist thinking of the staid labour MP’s.

    • Draco T Bastard 2.2
      19 February 2011 at 4:57 pm

      Nero may have fiddled while Rome burned but Key and National are lighting the friggen match.

      • neoleftie 2.2.1
        19 February 2011 at 5:10 pm

        Key and the right wing tories are fiddling all right…fiddling with our Assets

        • Jim Nald 2.2.1.1
          19 February 2011 at 5:49 pm

          Key wants to take our assets
          We want to kick his ass

          • neoleftie 2.2.1.1.1
            19 February 2011 at 5:53 pm

            well then front up at your local labour MP’s office and sign up with the rest of us activists.
            or better yet start to influence 5 people…

            • Colonial Viper 2.2.1.1.1.1
              20 February 2011 at 1:01 am

              Pretty sure I’ve talked to more than 5 people this week 😛

              • Akldnut …
                20 February 2011 at 9:44 am

                I’ve been going hard since 2008, at first there were a lot of dismisive comments but in the last 8-10 months the tide has been turning and now people are outwardly saying extremely negative and hostile comments toward Brand Key and the Nacts

                • Colonial Viper …
                  20 February 2011 at 8:52 pm

                  Although I don’t know how all this squares with the polling which says that nothing good is happening with LAB. And people saying they will still vote NAT even though they overwhelmingly dislike asset sales.

                  Well that’s democracy for ya.

            • M 2.2.1.1.1.2
              20 February 2011 at 8:45 pm

              Was visiting a right wing friend yesterday and even he said there was no way he wants Key returned.

              I told him I’d always voted Labour/Green and that if he wanted his children’s future to have the possibility of clean water, fecund soil and clean air maybe he should consider it and he seemed to be taking the point.

      • Bored 2.2.2
        19 February 2011 at 6:23 pm

        And added fuel (whats left)….

  3. Olwyn 3
    19 February 2011 at 11:21 am

    One might compare Key’s carefully nurtured brand to Len Brown: Len Brown has a likable public persona, but it is not light years away from his real-world engagement. Consequently, he won an important local body election against an expensive PR machine, albeit a PR machine undermined by Hide’s ineptitude. Brand Key’s gamble rests on the percentages who are not suffering now and do not foresee themselves suffering in the future – for whom the sharp edges of the real world are kept at bay, just as the sexy young coke people have far more traction where water is taken for granted than where people are dying of thirst, along with their crops. It is a gamble because the middle group at whom it is aimed are hard to read as whole. While we do have a large gap between rich and poor, the boundary between the moderately well-off and the poor is a blurred one: some have background wealth while others do not, some have poor relations while others do not, some could weather a bad year while others are only a pay or two away from mortgage foreclosure and the WINZ office. When the real world bites, the brand comes to be seen for the sham that it is.

    Labour is in no position to emulate Key because it depends in part for its support on people at the coal face who cannot be fooled about their own lot: it might be hard to associate the nice man at the barbie with sweat shops, but it is not so hard if you work in one of them. Len Brown is a better model: he shows a likable face that bears a strong resemblance to his actual face.

  4. Tigger 4
    19 February 2011 at 11:44 am

    Great post and superb comments so far. This is what keeps me coming back to this blog, very smart and incisive stuff.

  5. Rharn 5
    19 February 2011 at 12:04 pm

    Absolutely spot on about the left useing facts and stats to support their arguement. I use to post in support of social policies on a forum some time back when Labour were in power. Whenever the right posters got themselves stuffed they would resort to personal abuse of myself, Clarke, Cullen Labour etc. No amount of rational debate or facts made any difference whatsoever.

    • Alistair 5.1
      19 February 2011 at 12:54 pm

      I’ll show my considerable age, years ago Muldoon had a series of numeric charts that used to create fear, uncertainty and doubt amongst the populous.

      From todays’ posts an equivalent might be a graph showing how much money has been lost because National did not continue Cullen contributions. If someone can put up the data to show the trend I’ll try and put up a line graph or something similar.

  6. NX 6
    19 February 2011 at 7:12 pm

    the Prime Minister is, basically, a sneering jerk

    It’s rich for you guy to complain about this. My gawd, when it comes to sneering John Key is a light weight compared to Michael Cullen & Helen Clark.

    So suck it up lefties.

  7. Jum 7
    19 February 2011 at 8:01 pm

    NX, The rightwing extremists of New Zealand wrote the book on bad behaviour, jerkoff.

    They’re nasty, vicious, lying, greedy, selfish, narcisistic. And I wasn’t just describing you either, NX.

  8. Jenny 8
    19 February 2011 at 9:22 pm

    People may vote for Brand Key. But that is not what they will get.

    Arise Sir John

    A royal title will make John Key’s privileged life overseas even more perfect.

    It is legendary, the cachet a royal title carries in the wealthy circles of America. The wealthy ruling elite in Hawaii may even be more impressed than the mainlanders with the rarity of having a Knight of the Realm in their midst. “Good morning Sir John, good to see you again.”

    Unsellable and unelectable Brand English is most likely to be handed the Premiership when Key steps down, to arise, as Sir John Key, Knight of the Realm, residing in Honolulu.

    And for the rest of us, rather than beginning a Knighthood in Hawaii, we will see the beginning of a Nightmare in New Zealand.

  9. NX 9
    19 February 2011 at 10:11 pm

    Jenny is just jealous because she wants a Royal title.

    • Colonial Viper 9.1
      19 February 2011 at 11:26 pm

      Uh, NX, you do know that the Born to Rule – by definition – are the ones who love their titles?

      The moneyed “keeping up with the Joneses” class i.e. the Righties, definitely love their titles. Coz you can buy a 7 series BMW pretty easy, harder to buy a Knight of the Realm.

      I’m never surprised when a Righty brings up “jealousy” or “envy”. Comparing their 40 foot luxo yacht with the neighbouring berth with a 60′.

    • Rosy 9.2
      19 February 2011 at 11:56 pm

      My personal protest against titles is to never use one when talking or writing about someone who has been bestowed one. And because I have Scots/Irish ancestry Elizabeth the 2nd is Elizabeth the 1st.

  10. Dr. Sanford Aranoff 10
    20 February 2011 at 4:21 am

    We need to be rational in order to survive, both as individuals and as a society. Sadly, we do not understand rationality. I say this as a university math professor. See the new book, “Rational Thinking, Government Policies, Science, and Living”. Rational thinking starts with clearly stated principles, continues with logical deductions, and then examines empirical evidence to possibly modify the principles.

    • Colonial Viper 10.1
      21 February 2011 at 6:49 pm

      IMO the importance of scientific rationalism is overstated. It seems to me to be a totally westernised approach dating back to the 1600’s and the concept of mind/body dualism. To many theories and not enough knowledge.

      Many tribal cultures did not use rational thinking or logical deduction in their decision making, but intuitively and spiritually connected with their environment and learnt to live sustainably as part of the ecosystem in the process.

      • uke 10.1.1
        21 February 2011 at 7:21 pm

        The BBC documentary “The Trap” looked at Chicago School economics and its links to “rational” principles formulated out of Cold War game theory, ie. selfish behaviour being the most rational response to the so-called Prisoner’s Dilemma (where you have to basically choose whether to trust somebody to reciprocate one’s generosity).

        They cited a study which found only two types of people made such rational decisions almost all of the time: economists & psychopaths.

  11. uke 11
    21 February 2011 at 6:38 pm

    I wonder whether the right-wing blogs don’t do “research, facts, stats, citing studies to back up what they’re saying” simply because they surf along on what certain experts with the the MSM’s ear do for them. Namely: Treasury economists, analysts employed by multinational banks, accounting and law firms, and other assorted consultants with well-funded thinktanks.

    Also, I’m not sure the left doesn’t play the “post modern” publicity spin on occasion, although perhaps not in quite the same league. There’s been plenty of leader cults in the history of socialism. In some ways, perhaps there will always be a necessity for some of mythology-building to capture “the people’s” imagination: heroes, legends, and red flags etc.

    Captcha: Misled.

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