Grayling Insights

Macho Men

Přidal Na 3.01.2012 Od Bart Wauters V Germany, Switzerland, Grayling Blog, Global, World Cup, Austria, Grayling Insights, Europe, Middle East & Africa, Western Europe, Olympics 2012

Macho macho man… the melody by Village People spontaneously comes to mind whenever one sees the Putins and Berlusconis of this world, but few people know that the positioning of these two leaders (well, ex-leader in Berlusconi’s case, although he has promised that he will return, at least as President of Milan) as powerful macho men, actually corresponds to a carefully designed marketing strategy. According to a very interesting article by Agusto Come in OpenDemocracy, the ‘manly’ behaviour of Putin and Berlusconi – one of them with “bunga bunga” parties and tasteless jokes, and the other as a black-belt judo expert and hunter of tigers on the verge of extinction – is a rather peculiar way of transmitting energy and vitality, highly valued virtues in political representatives, even in detriment of what is politically correct. Because manliness seems to be a feature closely linked to power: according to the eminent Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal, who in his study Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes (1982) shows that sex is the alpha male’s power monopoly, virility does not only affect the relationship between the alpha male and the females, it is above all a very deliberate and effective strategy to keep the rest of the shrewdness males under submission.

However, it appears that the positioning of the macho politicians is not working any longer: Berlusconi is out, Russia seems less convinced by Putin’s virtues, David Cameron’s confessed problems with women are not helping him with his popularity rate, and in France not even the “Elysian” baby will guarantee Nicolas Sarkozy’s re-election. The electorate, and in its absence, the markets, are realising that there are other political manifestations of energy and vitality. What works nowadays is the technocrat-politician! Macho macho man…