STEPHEN from the Gold Coast of Australia writes:

Your observation that Australia’s Prime Minister Abbott goes by the diminutive “Tony” rather than “Anthony” is not trivial at all and ties in nicely with what I consider to be one of your most telling observations when, on December 11, 2013, under the post  “A Study in Modern Leadership“ you linked to the infamous series of “selfie” photos taken at Nelson Mandela’s funeral by a giggling group comprising U.S. President Obama, British PM David Cameron and Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt, each of whom was there, at great public expense, representing their respective countries at the solemn funeral of a major head of state.

You spoke for many of us in that earlier posting when you expressed your dismay at “the teenagers who lead us” and again recently when you lamented in your post about Mr. Abbott that: “Western leaders are overgrown children.“

Of course, one must allow that a politician ultimately has little to no control over what members of the public, be they supporters or foes,  call them (afterall, even the redoubtable Margaret Thatcher couldn’t prevent being widely referred to in the press and in the street as “Maggie” – a name she is reported to have loathed and by which she was never known to have been addressed by family or friends).

In Mr. Abbott’s defence, I recall from my local Rotary days at Chatswood in Sydney in the 1990’s when I had the pleasure to meet Mr Abbott’s distinguished father that that gentleman always, when speaking of his son, referred to him son as “Tony” –  but a politician can certainly control both how he or she refers to him/herself directly and in person and how he or she is referred to in official government publications such as in government documents and on government websites.

In this respect, Australia’s PM Anthony John Abbott must be seen to have made a conscious decision to follow the lead of his namesake the erstwhile British PM, Anthony (“call me Tony”) Blair and eschew for both himself and his country the dignity and gravitas due to him through his high office.

This is all the more disappointing when one remembers that Mr Abbott not only leads what is the major conservative party in Australian politics but for the last 20 years or so has been ferociously condemned, (very inaccurately as I will point out in a future item), by professional feminists and their allies in the main-stream media, the universities, the not-for-profit social welfare sector and amongst many other opinion leaders in Australia) as, inter alia, “an unreconstructed and old-fashioned Catholic” and “a mad monk” , etc, therefore anxious to abolish abortions and contraception.

Prime Minister Abbott’s own official prime-ministerial website, no doubt with his full approval, refers to him as Tony whilst even a  cursory search shows that although initially sworn in as a member of Parliament and later as PM in and by his full name, in accordance with constitutional and statutory requirements for the swearing of such oaths, nevertheless his signatures and all published references to him in official documents, including vice-regal proclamations, recite his name only in the diminutive.

Some will ask what does it matter? But it does matter – and very much so. The rush by Western leaders to adopt and be known by informal, cutesie juvenile names in place of their “big boy” names even while holding high public office surely arises from and in its turn reinforces the same three regrettable  social commandments afoot in modern Western societies that yield to us the unappealing view of mature-aged heads of state and/or heads of government flirting, giggling and taking selfies like adolescents at state funerals. These commandments, it seems to me, are:

1. Thou shalt strive to appear as young as long as possible, dude, because youth is hip and cool and maturity is uncool and the ultimate sin is to be uncool;

2. Thou shalt not commit any behaviour that smacks of formality or authority or which otherwise suggests or implies the existence of a social hierarchy as such is innately oppressive and amounts to the very uncool sin of claiming to be better or more accomplished  than someone  else; and

3. In the case of any dude who is of European stock and thereby  the heir to millenia of Christian culture and Western enlightenment such that it currently draws the entire world to its home in the West, thou shalt do all one can never to acknowledge that heritage such as, for instance, by honouring what was once referred to as one’s Christian name – especially where that given name consists of a dead white saint’s name.

Anyway, it is surely enlightening to compare the selfie photos of Obama, Cameron and Thorning-Schmidt at the funeral of Nelson Mandela to any random photo of any state funeral taken just a few decades ago. Here is one link, chosen quite at random as it is typical of the uniformly dignified and adult way that leaders used to carry themselves at important state functions such as funerals.

— Comments —

Stewart W. writes:

Stephen writes “Thou shalt not commit any behaviour that smacks of formality or authority…or implies the existence of a social hierarchy…”

You can see that rule applies on television, in particular as regards white boys and black men.  If there is a television program, or even an advertisement, note that in almost all cases, the white boy (regardless of his age) is dressed down, in blue jeans and a t-shirt, maybe with a loose overshirt.  Unless they are portrayed together in a social function, the black man will inevitably at least wear a tie, and probably a fine tailored suit.  The white boy, at most, looks like a handyman or maybe a plumbing contractor, the black man like a doctor, lawyer, or senior business executive.

Of course, we’ve all noted and commented on how, particularly in advertising, white males are portrayed as fools and buffoons, but in this context, even if they don’t act like fools, they are still made to look like groundskeepers whenever a black man is presented.

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