1/25/2012

How to survive in politics

Politics and politicians have received many bad names which is unfair. Politics is a very difficult art or skill to comprehend and to practise. It takes a lot of skill and talent to practise politics and to be successful. Many fell to disgrace at the end of their careers. Compare to engineering, medicine or even law, politics is perhaps the most difficult of the lot, or any discipline. Everything is right and everything is wrong in politics.

Don’t trust a salesman, an insurance agent and don’t trust a politician. That is how bad this profession has become, being compared with salesman and insurance agent. My apologies to the two professions mentioned. I am only quoting the wise cracks of the masses.

What is so difficult about politics is that one has to look honourable and morally right in everything one does. Personal conduct must be spotless, man of good character, honesty, incorruptible, no greed, always for the people, sacrifice etc etc when one is everything except these things. The contradiction and illusion are unmatched in any profession.

In a way, politics is an art of saying one thing and doing the opposite, being one thing but being another at the same time. Yes Jekyll and Hyde. It is about being principled but unprincipled, being dishonest but claiming to be honest, being corrupt but telling the masses otherwise. A religion will help. Some even hide behind gods and use gods to justify everything they do in politics. In the name of gods, in the name of people, in the name of country, but all for themselves. The list and examples of contradiction are inexhaustible to mention.

Politics is about hypocrisies and surviving it. It is about being dishonest and claiming to be morally righteous. It is about being corrupt and getting away with it, and standing on high pedestal lecturing people about the virtues of honesty.

How many good men can live, survive and be successful in politics and live to tell? Politics is an art of deception honed to perfection, to win/cheat the hearts and minds of the masses, ignorant or learned, for as long as one can. The masters of politics are those that can bluff some people some of the time, some people all the time and all the people all the time.

Don’t underestimate the skill and talent of politicians. They are superior to all the other disciplines and professions to be the master of all of them. They swear to everything that is a virtue to the daft masses but live by everything to the contrary. Politics is a master science according to Einstein. He could grasp all the complex theories of the universe, but could not comprehend politics.

Only the very best and craftiest of human beans can survive a political career.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow...

errrmm, re the pay: it's only money. tho yes, we all wish we could have hefty chunks of it too. but at the end, we can't take it with us. we know wen enuff is enuff eh?

dun let the turkeys spoil your festive season. gong xi fa cai, red bean, and keep it up. v impressed tt u filed even on 1st and 2nd days of CNY. truly serving the public... and without hope for a reward... u sure u'r sporean?
oops, forgot, u were old-style civil service. ;-P

Anonymous said...

There must be tens of thousands of civil servants and ex-civil servants.
However, we only get to hear from one(Redbean). The others all 'bochap', they feel fine about the system.

Peter Mak said...

Thanks for this entry; it's really good.

Chua Chin Leng aka redbean said...

Thanks Peter Mak, and welcome to the blog.