When the goddess of language came up with the word hubris meaning overconfident pride or arrogance that incurs the wrath of the gods who then punish the offender, mightily humiliating him, she had Christopher Pyne in mind. Look:
Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one’s own competence, accomplishments or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power.
Yes, that could apply to most of the government. Sad, isn’t it?
Pyne’s latest caper is setting up an online petition to protest ABC production cuts leading to the loss of jobs in his own electorate, as a consequence of budget restrictions imposed by his own government. His move has been described as hypocritical, but I think of it more as calculatedly provocative, designed to arouse precisely the reaction it has. Pyne loves above all things to cause outrage. It makes him feel powerful. He needs it like he needs the air he breathes. This is not a good characteristic for a politician in government.
Pyne’s move is also an example of conservatives adopting left-wing methods of protest in a “look, we can do this too” attempt to undermine those methods with ridicule, and it is a co-option that is intended to render them puny and ineffective. However, as the tactic is blatant, hypocritical and just plain stupid, all it succeeds in achieving is a few laughs for the in-group and in this case, Pyne momentarily in the spotlight where he most loves to be.
Like his leader and many of his colleagues, Pyne has all the substance of a stick of fairy floss, or cotton candy as our friends in the US like to call it. I am struggling to find any sign of vision, or genuine concern for anything other than their own power in the government, no matter at what cost to the country and its citizens. This consuming self-interest is destroying them, individually and collectively, as consuming self-interest always will eventually. Hubris.
Malcolm Turnbull for example used to have some authority in the world, a short term in the Abbott government has transformed him into the most hollow of hollow men, as if the virus of ambition has worked on him like psychic Ebola, leaching out of him all his vital fluids and leaving him dry as a bone in the Western Desert. The man is pathetic and utterly dismissible. He was not always thus.
A good leader inspires and embiggens her or his followers. Abbott is slowly but surely destroying every decent thing there might once have been in the members of his government. The man is satanic in his talent for destruction. In opposition he was very noisy about it. As Prime Minister he is far more stealthy, and even more lethal.
No Place For Sheep 
Reblogged this on Pirates of the Burley Griffin and commented:
I initially thoughts “Harsh but fair” about this excellent post on No Place For Sheep.
On second thoughts it is just fair.
Love the line about psychic Ebola.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Embiggens! Now there’s a word one doesn’t see often (thankfully) and you certainly won’t see it and The Tabbott in the same sentence unless he finds his little red helmet.
They are all enlittled by association with Abbott. Pyne always was a small-minded fool with a hyper-inflated sense of his own importance. Turnbull was, to telescope a quote from Keating, brilliant and utterly fearless, but he has no judgement. He still has no judgement; the brilliance is fading and the fear can be learned.
To echo John Samuel, Jennifer’s article is not harsh but fair, just fair.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on An Aussie Maple Leaf, adrift on the wind… and commented:
I could not have said it better myself.
LikeLiked by 1 person