Hard News: Some Lines for Labour
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well no policy concessions away from ACT's policies ....
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Danielle, in reply to
It’s not about you
Yes, that was... kinda my point. "I use a more old-brain response to baring of teeth" is a rather less annoying statement than "you look like a creepy fakepants with all those teeth". The latter is about me; the former is about you (the general you, not the specific).
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One of the scariest things about Brash is that he hasn’t changed his economic views in over 20 years. He still believes ardently in minimal regulation of the financial sector, for example, even with the evidence from the last five years.
FWIW there's a resurgence of Hayek's followers who ardently believe that the crisis was the function of over, not under regulation. This despite even Greenspan conceding he, and the theory, were wrong. The BBC radio 4 show recently did a great two part series that's avail for podcast here. I mistrust all ideologues!
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Martin Lindberg, in reply to
Safer not to show teeth when smiling anyway.
... and she never smiled. She believed that if she did so, it could give me a chance to count her teeth, and that each tooth so counted would subtract one year from her life.
Jerzy Kosinski, The Painted Bird
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Islander, in reply to
Eurukth!*
I havent read Kosinski's hugely powerful work for over 3 decades- "The Gardener" never did anything for me, but "The Painted Bird"?
shudders
The belief that if you can count teeth/a year of life vanishes - along with the belief that mothers lose a tooth for each child born** is very common in European countries (and where-ever the inhabitants travelled to.)
*sound of unforced up-chucking
**has a good scientific background= calcium reabsorption. -
Craig Ranapia, in reply to
He’s so tightly wedded to his ideas that Rod Oram, as espoused in a recent RNZ interview that I was listening to in the gym, suspects he’ll really struggle with the compromises that are integral to really playing in politics.
Definitely – though part of wishes Harawira actually finds himself in a position where he actually has to lead a party that’s part of a government where Goff or Key are quite willing to call his bluff. Hone might find it a little more challenging that flame-trolling around the Press Gallery. (I'm trying to remember who said MMP was short for 'More Migraines Please'.)
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3410,
I'm starting to wonder how much of a factor Christchurch will be in this year's election.
I don't know the answer, but I imagine that, by November, a great many people there will be have had a particularly shitty winter and will be staring to complain about things rather loudly.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
Harawira & Brash have never found themselves in a position of Realpolitik so far. It'll be interesting to see how they'll react when it punches them in their faces.
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Martin Lindberg, in reply to
shudders
True. Not exactly a laugh-a-minute book. But powerful, yes.
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I'm not sure where the idea that primates baring their teeth is a threatening gesture comes from, there appears to be evidence that this is not the case:
However, the meaning of the bared-teeth display is quite different when used by species with more egalitarian social systems, including some macaques, mandrills, Gelada baboons and chimpanzees (van Hooff, 1967; Preuschoft and van Hooff, 1997). In these species, the bared-teeth display is more appeasing and functions to increase social attraction and affiliation. It communicates benign intent in that the signaler wishes no harm, and that there is no risk of aggression (van Hooff, 1967; van Hooff, 1976; Waller and Dunbar, 2005). It can also occur during affiliative contexts, such as grooming, sexual solicitation and reconciliations, and thus functions to increase affiliative tendencies and reduce proximity between individuals
emphasis added.
and if you look at the facial expressions of bonobos (slide 7 of the interactive version), the bared teeth grin is a friendly gesture.
So if the lack of mirror neurons does lead to a reversion in facial recognition processing to a point earlier in our evolution, which may not be the case, that does not explain why a smile changes from affection to threat.
Perhaps it has something more to do with being unable to differentiate between a real smile and a fake smile - which use slightly different muscles.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
commented that Labour does not have obvious principles informing it’s policy relative to the greens. I don’t agree.
Paul I said "does not appear" ... the problem is twofold I think, first is Labour are not obvious about their guiding ideals in the way that the Greens are obvious. That means on any given issue most folks can guess how the Greens will vote but the same isn't true for Labour - which guiding principle caused Labour to support the communications bill?
The second problem is, as you say, that Labour have to have more policies because they purport to be a complete solution for governing. They have to have a policy for everything and that makes their guiding principles less obvious. Personally I'd say that is a copout.
To me much of what Labour in parliament has done of late has felt like their only guiding principle is to regain power and say whatever is required to do that. That may not be true but that's what it feels like to me.
Much of that I'm sure is appearance rather than fact, but that's a huge problem because in the end the voter can only judge Labour on what it appears to be.
Personally I'd sit down and figure out what the 4 or 5 things that define Labour really are and make sure that every policy refers back to those ideals explicitly.
If you really have to break one of those ideals then be open about it and say why.
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Gareth Ward, in reply to
One of the scariest things about Brash is that he hasn't changed his economic views in over 20 years. He still believes ardently in minimal regulation of the financial sector, for example, even with the evidence from the last five years.
Of course he does - otherwise he might actually have been punished for governing a Kiwisaver company that was actively misrepresenting its investment returns and whose staff are now facing fraud charges. I can't believe he's getting away so lightly there - even if he didn't know what Hulijch was doing, he was chairman and is therefore guilty of the worst negligence of governance. And I believe governance is kinda what political leaders are meant to do.
Any time Brash makes any comment on Kiwisaver specifically, and financial regulation in general, Hulijch Wealth should be mentioned in the next sentence...
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nzlemming, in reply to
There is a reason this man was called the "Smiling Assassin" although I see him more of a "Smirking Ass" in a suit.
As far as I can tell, the only person who ever referred to John Key as "the Smiling Assassin" was John Key himself in a magazine interview (Metro April 2005, "Golden Boy" Bevan Rapson, no longer online as far as I can see). Nice piece of self-mythologizing.
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Race and Treaty relations seem likely to be made an issue again this year. It will be interesting to see what stance opposition politicians take and how the public's memory is doing. Tapu Misa reminds us of Brash's cynical whistling and the myth of the persecuted white majority (still playing in forums near you).
The Legend of the Persecuted White Guy, as American writer David Sirota noted in Salon.com last month, is the latest iteration of "the most resilient parable in American cultural mythology".
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Where does this "unquestioned-yet-unsubstantiated" trope come from? Sirota suggests that it's been fed in part by a backlash - white anxiety in the face of a changing world in which white dominance is no longer guaranteed - and in part by "naked political opportunism".
Symptoms of the same paranoia can be found here. Paul Henry wanting a governor-general who "looks and sounds like a New Zealander". Labour MP Damien O'Connor bitterly complaining about ordinary (white) blokes like him being left out in the cold by the apparent domination of the Labour Party by unionists and a "gaggle of gays".
And The Myth of Maori Privilege, which was put to such good use by Don Brash in 2004 after he wrested control of the National Party leadership from Bill English.
As Nicky Hager recounts in his book The Hollow Men, it was the cynical manipulation of that myth that catapulted Brash and National to the top of the polls in 2004.
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Sacha, in reply to
"the Smiling Assassin"
His colleagues at Merrill Lynch called him that. One of them reminded me that most were the 'big swinging dick' alpha males of that industry hardly given to fear, so it's a noteworthy epithet. A related local manifestation would be the "Tranzrail eyes" incident.
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Rich Lock, in reply to
as espoused in a recent RNZ interview that I was listening to in the gym
Interesting workout strategy - I might try it.
Listening to National politicians being interviewed would probably get me angry enough to be worth an extra 10kg on the bench press. Graaaahhh! Hulk...Smash!!!
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BenWilson, in reply to
Listening to National politicians being interviewed would probably get me angry enough to be worth an extra 10kg on the bench press.
Slowly and with control is better for weights...perhaps some "Goff of the late afternoon" for the weight session to give a nice angry base, and switch to "Bennett of the early evening" for the cardio workout on the punchbag.
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Che Tibby, in reply to
the persecuted white majority
also loudly-voiced by idiots like kyle chapman.
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Islander, in reply to
A leetle reading on the ‘submissive/submission grin’* among primates may be helpful.
And anyone who thinks ’chimps have more egalitarian societies’* frankly has missed their extremely hierarchical nature. This includes bonobo societies which are out&out matriarchies, albeit a whole lot more pleasant to be a member of than P. troglydytes. Try being a stroppy young male among P. paniscus-*hint: it has little to do with pleasure or happiness – or even a gentle mother-to-offspring order.
**I realise you also quoted other primate groups, some of whom I have little interest in, and know very little about-
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More from the whatever John says file by Tracy Watkins:
Wages are tipped to rise strongly over the next two years, Prime Minister John Key says.
Speaking this afternoon ahead of Thursday's budget Mr Key said it would forecast strong wage and employment growth.
Mr Key would not say by how much wages were expected to rise but said Treasury was forecasting wage growth to outstrip inflation. That suggests growth of around 4 or 5 percent a year.
But he admitted Treasury had been overly optimistic in last year's forecasts and there was an element of "a finger in the air" with such forecasts.
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Neil Morrison, in reply to
A leetle reading on the ‘submissive/submission grin’* among primates may be helpful.
The first article I linked to discussed that:
Among primates, the function of the bared-teeth also has different meanings depending on the species and their type of social organization. Among macaques species that have despotic social systems characterized by strict, linear dominance hierarchies, i.e. rhesus monkeys, the bared-teeth display appears to be a signal of submission, or rank recognition in that it is only given by subordinates to higher ranking individuals (van Hooff, 1976; de Waal and Luttrell, 1985). This expression has been referred to as a formal signal of dominance in the rhesus monkey because it is highly ritualized in appearance and has long-term predictability in determining dominance relationships despite short-term variation in social contexts (de Waal and Luttrell, 1985). In this study, bared-teeth displays performed by subordinate individuals occurred most often in response to the approach of a dominant monkey, and the most frequent response was for the subordinate to withdraw from any social interaction (de Waal and Luttrell, 1985).
Yes, bare-teeth grins are a part of dominance/submission social signals for some primates. But for others - those which have a relatively more egalitarian structure, that's "relative" not absolute, as you suggest chimp society is no utopia - the bare-teeth grin is more commonly a positive social signal, ie
functions to increase social attraction and affiliation
And given that those others include the chimpanzee and bonobo species, our closest primate relatives, it makes sense to compare us with them and not the first group.
We share with them the bared-teeth, up-turned ends of mouth facial expression that sends a positive social message and what we call a smile.
Now, if there's a malfuntion of the mirror neuron system and that leads to a reversion back towards facial/emotion recognition systems from earlier in our evolution (I'm skepitical) then that does not necessarily imply that one would mistake a smile for a snarl. One might mistake it for a hat.
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Islander, in reply to
Read
*van Lawick Goodall
*de Waal
for how chimps signal positive sociality.
It generally does not involve 'smiles' but does involve gestures, sounds, grooming, and postures. -
Neil Morrison, in reply to
Read
*van Lawick Goodall
*de WaalGoodall and de Waal are referenced in the article quoted above.
It generally does not involve 'smiles' but does involve gestures, sounds, grooming, and postures.
I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that the bared-teeth, up-turned corners of the mouth facial expression we call a "smile" does not occur in chimpanzees and bonobos or are you saying they occur but as part of a range of pro-social signals?
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Islander, in reply to
de Waal – who was mentored by van Hooff – and like him, majorly worked with captive groups – and van Lawick Goodall, who along with Fossey, were the first primatologists to work with primates in Africa in situ*, are complementary but different in their assessments & conclusions. I urge you to read their professional & popularised conclusions before asking the above questions – which I’ve already answered but-
*for olive baboons (African plains baboons) I really recommend Shirley C. Sturm’s book,"Almost Human.”
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ok, I think I've read reasonably widely to be able to back-up my opinions. But I'm not an expert.
Has anyone noticed that with primate species that do use teeth display as a means of asserting dominace/submission that it's the submissive animal that displays their teeth - as an act of submisson.
The submissive has to say "here's what I can eat you with" as an act of submission?
To me it suggests a more complex story than human smiles = i will eat you.
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