In the mid-eighties a young woman was hired as a receptionist at a local TV station in Lima, an anonymous and fortuitous circumstance, which set in motion one of those bizarre episodes in Peruvian politics. A possessor of ambition and bodily capital, Susy Diaz was quickly promoted to semi-exotic dancer, working for a prime-time TV show named “Laughter and Salsa Music.” “Salsa,” to clarify, meant women dancing in thongs, and “laughter” meant, in general, men demeaning the women in thongs. Diaz soon took the central stage. Her fan base grew rapidly, and so, almost as with Gregor Samsa in Kafka’s “metamorphosis,” one fine morning she woke up to find herself transformed into a tabloid celebrity.
I remember one of those tabloids run by Fujimori with a front page devoted to Diaz’s sexual exploits, photographs of purported anal sex included. Confident with her popularity, she also expanded into picaresque theater, as well as singing. One of her theater pieces was entitled “The Erotic Congresswoman,” and one of her songs was “Let Me Blow Your Horn.” “Catharsis for the masses,” as Adorno would say, “but catharsis which keeps them all the more firmly in line.”
Susy Diaz’s ambitions grew in proportion to her newfound fame. Inspired by Cicciolina, the Italian porn star turned parliamentarian, Diaz used her popularity to launch a tumultuous, one-of-a-kind political career. Convincing members of the Agrarian Party (a caucus devoted to peasant-related issues) that she would be a good addition to their ranks, she soon found herself running for Congress, with a campaign that was simple and faithful to her style. She first inscribed her ballot number on her buttocks to thus remind fans and cameras of the reasons to vote for her. If it had worked in the domain of tabloids and TV, why wouldn’t it work in the domain of politics?
Naturally, she also had issues to defend, and what not, a Plan B reserved for the strained occasions when journalists asked about her political platform. She became a spokesperson for witch doctors, transvestites, “and other minorities.” She spoke on behalf of sexual freedom with the same verve with which she, “a good Catholic,” also spoke against abortion. She won, and was sworn in as Congresswoman and “Mother of the Fatherland” in July of 1995.
Diaz’s political career involved only a few odd initiatives, including establishing a national holiday to celebrate the Day of the Mother-in-Law, and making it unlawful for hotels not to dispense free condoms for customers in need. Her career concluded with a prison sentence for having received money from Fujimori, who bought her congressional support with public funds.
I will call it “Junk Politics.” This particular kind of Junk Politics will never be seen in the U.S., puritanical such as it is. But it is worth considering the Diaz episode, so unusual as it may seem, because there are American variants, which may become important in the near future.
Diaz advocating for witch doctors may sounds very alien, but is it so different from an American politician defending the idea that a deity created the universe five thousand years ago? These positions involve a deep hostility against reality. They are regressive, psychologically and historically — characteristics of Junk Politics that can be seen on the left and on the right: on the left, Chavez’s notion that capitalism may have destroyed life on Mars, on the right, the widespread idea that God, who created the universe 5000 years ago, happens to “hate fags.”
Proposing a national day for the mother-in-law is not so different from proposing that Obama is a Marxist, pro-gay Muslim cleric in disguise: both involve too much ado about nothing; and they say nothing, advance nothing, and will bequeath nothing. Powerful American communicators, especially those in the business of deriding Obama and anyone left of Obama, have things in common with Diaz. Like her, and like many other populist and doctrinaire communicators, for that matter, they are naturally attuned to the needs, symbolic and emotional, of their audiences. They effectively appeal to the lower emotional register (anger, fear), and generally eschew their follower’s higher-order capacities (comparison, evaluation and synthesis).
Fifty one percent of Americans think that God created humans in their present form. Thirty six percent believe in UFOs, and thirty one percent believe in astrology. Thankfully, in contrast to Peru, voting is not mandatory in the U.S. Otherwise, dear democracy, scrupulously representative as it is when it comes to voting, would reflect these percentages, these incredible failures of the American educational system. The bad news is that Junk Communicators, current or forthcoming, may harness this piece of the political market. The lesson from Diaz is that, given certain publics and conditions of reception, Junk Politics can very easily beat the Habermasian ideal of rational communication.
Politics are amusing. In the United States, we currently have a “Governator” in California, a former TV actor who held the office of President and currently the real estate mogul Donald Trump is stirring up commotion about a potential presidential bid. Certainly the US examples are not as titillating as this Peruvian case, however I don’t think it is an exception especially when many of the younger generation in the US are exposed to “political discourse” through late-night shows such as Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” and Stephen Colbert’s “The Colbert Report.”
The Habermasian ideal of rational deliberation is just that, ideal. How is it decided whose arguments are rational and whose are not? This runs the risk of excluding those with whom we simply don’t agree.
Thanks for commenting Lisa. Montesquieu said that to function monarchies had to rely on a principle of honor, that despotisms had to rely on fear, and that republics relied on virtue. Borges said that dictatorships needed idiocy. Democracies need information and deliberative abilities, necessary for people who vote and debate. My suggestion would be that rational deliberation is an ideal but not “just an ideal.” Though human beings are irrational to alarge extent, a good amount of rational deliberation is a necessary condition for a democratic system to work and to remain democratic.
Rafael, your article captures a rich reality in Peru that has tremendous parallels in the US (without the overt sexuality, of course). Even though we are puritanical to the bone, Sarah Palin was referred to consistently as a MILF and a cougar. She was “hot” and said to have the GOP thinking/voting with their dicks. There are scores of pictures of her on the internet, from when she won a beauty contest to a more recent shot of her in a bikini made of stars and stripes, holding a rifle. Not bare-assed but close enough, at least in terms of going right to the heart and groin of the American fantasy of a political babe.
She espouses views as ridiculous and wrong (just plain not true) as the Peruvian vixen. The earth is less than 6,000 years old, Obama is a socialist and a Nazi —- A NAZI— and she is proudly ignorant. She is real and charitable because she insists on bringing her mentally handicapped baby everywhere and fights for the rights of the mentally handicapped (I know, this conviction of hers’ can be ridiculed all night long— after all, she is mentally handicapped). Anyone who exposes her ignorance is an elitist.
When she was brought on the scene by a mad man desperate to win, I was terrified. I lost sleep over the thought of her running the world— McCain dies, Palin runs the country. What threw me even further was how many women I met who went from supporting Hillary to supporting Palin, because both were women. A move more desperate and cynical move than McCain’s choice of Palin as running mate.
Hillary obviously occupies the other slot open to women in a puritanical society— the desexualized smart woman. Sexually neutered, so much so that she is often called a lesbian— and then from there an opportunistic lesbian who knows that she can only have political power if she hides her true sexual leanings.
In a way, what we see here, from the Palins and the Hillarys is a very real struggle over how to handle women in the public space.
Now to jump cut —-the question of rational debate. Impossible with an electorate made of Palins. They simply do not consider issues, facts, real political reality, they have created an alternate universe of pre (or post)-rational conviction. They work on the basest level, you are right— but they work. And they may be junk food, but more than 51% of Americans persist on junk food.
The Hillarys exist— there IS rational and intelligent debate all over the internet. Salon, Politico, Daily Kos, this blog— to name just a few. And these blogs (along with Colbert and Stewart) give me hope. But they are not junk food— they are home made meals and an acquired taste. You have to like the taste of thinking, of being challenged, of genuine problems and you have to like it enough to seek it out.
Unlike junk food, or a quick fix of any sort, the pleasure is less intense at first, but it lasts longer and when it is really good rational debate it is far more satisfying— and I mean that word “satisfying” seriously— because to be satisfied is to have sated (at least in part) some of our baser instincts —- and rational debate, real rational debate, has traces and/or overloads of passion.
Just some thoughts—
Very nice to read a comment from you Lisa A. I am not very familiar with the entire Palin thing and cannot comment. But otherwise I think that you are absolutely right. Lke you, I would also argue that in a consumerist democracy, politics is an area where people seek not just ideas, but also quick satisfactions, quick fixes, quick libidinal investments. Zizek talks about “consumerist post-democracies” and, even if not explicitly, he implies that in this sort of system politics are, to a large extent, an aspect of entertainment, even a Manichean and regressive form of entertainment (did you see Obama’s latests White House correspondence dinner video in YouTube, which makes fun of this sort of thing?). In this sense, political life sometimes seems to exist in its own “alternative universe,” as you say, which is not only divorced from reality but also hostile to it.
I also agree with you about rational deliberation as being satisfying. Yannis Stavrakakis has criticized Habermas because his model of communication is “passionless.” And the idea is that we cannot have a rational-but-passionless democracy, because we, human beings, don’t find passionless rationality very satisfyuing at all, and so we cant be invested in this sort of democratic process. But I agree with you: I also think that deliberative communication in itself can be passionate and fulfilling. Danton comes to mind
This is not the right channel to say this,, but good to hear from you