Essential to chop tall poppies down
Every now and then, when you and your friends are sitting around, tearing strips off the rich and famous and just generally being fabulous, some killjoy will step forward and accuse you of envying the rich and famous.
There you are, getting profoundly smashed, and remarking on the fact that (I offer this example purely for argument's sake) some happy half-wit gets paid more than your whole suburb is worth for reading the news of an evening. You are at your best on this topic.
"I could read an autocue as badly as those morons," you declare, as you lead the conga line past the smorgasbord. This fighting commentary is regarded as the height of wit, particularly if you fall into the CDs for a bit of added emphasis (yours truly has, as it happens, distinguished herself and all who came with her on two unforgettable occasions by doing just that).
Encouraged by what anybody can see is a crowd of loving and fascinated fans, you really start to apply yourself.
"Who cares if that newsreader leaves?" you hoot, waving at all your new friends from the floor. "It's time they let the organ-grinder have a turn anyway."
By God, you're hot on this issue. It really is extraordinary that you haven't been discovered thus far. Then some righteous, humourless booby (inevitably an overpaid, Green-voting, policy-analyst type from Ponsonby - we'd eliminate these dreadful creatures from our guest lists altogether except for the fact that they're generally the only ones with money) accuses you, of all people, of indulging in tall-poppy behaviour.
"New Zealanders can't stand anyone else getting ahead and getting paid more than everybody," this person screeches. "You losers should be ashamed ... it's the tall-poppy machine that stops people getting ahead in this country ... Americans don't do that to each other ... how about encouraging other people instead of taking the piss ..." Blah blah yap yap zzzzzzzzzzz ...
Truly, these people are ghastly. They're persistent, though - when they're not out boring crowds stiff, they're at home writing letters to the editor. A gruesome business all round.
Here's the thing: the tall-poppy machine is, in my ever-humble opinion, one of this nation's greatest contributions to the global mix. I admit that nine times out of the 10 it's a personal thing - it's about expressing the deep sense of injustice that you feel when the repellent toady with whom you refused to sleep back at journalism school flashes past in a Benz while you're racing up a hill after your bus.
What the hell, you're only human. Generally, though, your attacks on the rich and powerful are about making sure that the rich and powerful know that you're watching them.
I don't think that this necessarily stops them doing anything they want to do, but that's all right. The fact that the tall-poppy syndrome doesn't stop anyone who really wants to do something from doing it gives the lie to the argument that the tall-poppy machine is destructive. I win.
We are not the only ones who are into the tall-poppy scene. English writer Julie Burchill bangs on about her right to bang on about people she feels deserve it: "Brits who go to America always say they went to escape tall-poppy syndrome, but they actually go to avoid bullshit detector syndrome." What passion.
The English are very good on the right to whinge. A Guardian columnist, Alexander Chancellor, contributed a breakthrough piece that defended the right to moan about your superiors.
He based his excellent treatise on remarks passed by Greg Dyke, head of the fast-deteriorating BBC.
Doubtless inspired by our own Marian Hobbs, Mr Dyke announced, at a little meet-the-staff thing, plans to rethink management reforms and so on. He interrupted this excellent speech, though, to tell his minions that there would no longer be room at the Beeb for staff who moaned. Mr Chancellor was shocked into action.
"Moaning nurtures individualism," he cried. "It bestows dignity on the humblest wage slave."
There are a few pearls of wisdom for you right there. True pearls.
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