Separate, for a moment (bear with me), the speaker and their position of influence upon the world, from those who find themselves, either intentionally or accidentally, subject to the direct and indirect repercussions of decisions made by the said speaker.
There are those (increasingly, more so) who welcome those repercussions from that speaker, whatever those repercussions might be, and even if they will (inevitably) make their lives worse in ways that they can, or are not willing to admit or imagine. This is, is it not, the old pie-in-the face gag?
In the pie-in-the-face gag there is an implicit understanding – between the pie-er and the pie-ee – that the pie-ee will imminently be publicly ridiculed (or worse) by getting a pie in the face. Yet, they are both the victim and the coronated fool. The audience (essentially) watches on. We know what will happen (it will happen, just like it always has) and yet we participate gleefully in the impending ridicule, our anticipation actually – and curiously – heightened by that same inevitability. We can’t help responding as if the pie in the face is a shocking surprise. And that, in essence, is what makes the pie-in-the face gag so enduring. We humans never cease to be entertained by affecting surprise in the face of the dully inevitable in a way that celebrates some weird human vulnerability . It is (isn’t it?) a powerful, willful resistance to seeing and admitting the obvious so that we may feel – individually and collectively – normal and unified.
Perhaps I should, at this point, provide one or two concrete examples of what I’m describing. Yes, perhaps I should. Vladimir Putin is now also turning living loving, human beings into meat piles, remotely – in Kiev and elsewhere. Putin acts from a position of influence that he has spent many years building. He is a monstrous pie-er but still, a pie-er all the same. He’s taken it upon himself to be the epauletted, mole-eyed field marshal of launching life-extinguishing pies into the faces of people living in the Ukraine.
Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, in the (dis)United Kingdom were also pie-ers until recently. They were very enthusiastic about putting a few pies in the face of the majority of people in that country. Ms. Truss said she wanted to grow the pie, but what she really wanted was to throw the pie – a bigger pie, that is – into the face of people who had the temerity not be millionaires.
We know where these misadventures lead. We know where they always lead. We are the all-hearing, all-knowing audience. The pie will smash into the face of the intended victim and we will respond, likewise, again and again, even though we know the routine inside out, beginning to end. And yet the irresistible and recurring illusion of novelty teases us to imagine, over again, that each instance deserves independent, balanced and rational inquiry. What motivated the pie-er?; what arguments had they for holding up the pie and launching it?; could we have acted to prevent it?; did the pie-ee perhaps deserve it in some way?
After all, we know the answer. The pie-er represents that one element in our human world that we think we cannot control because it comes dressed in power, and so choose (conveniently) not to control. It is the child who lacks love, or control over or understanding of their own self; who spends their life trying to deflect pain upon the rest of us, in a desperate, attempted compensation for some perceived injustice inflicted upon them long ago. And yet, we, the audience, choose, determinedly, not to ask why they are really throwing the pie. We offer all manner of sophisticated explanations based on their status, real politik, policy, or rational interest and response. How cleverly – and stupidly – we weave an empathetic alter-narrative fabric from the wooly strands of their (otherwise) obvious human frailty. Their being president or prime minister does not preclude the argument that these are disturbed individuals acting from some livid residue of some unresolved developmental injustice. An expensive suit should be allowed to hide that. But here we are, trying – reasonably, disingenuously, erroneously -to justify why the world’s oldest children are still throwing deadly pies at the rest of us.
