ONE OF the promises the new government makes in its manifesto is to “pay increased attention to the intellectual security of the state”. Yes, feeling unsafe in your own head is dreadful. But after reading the cabinet programme one feels as though the administration is in fact itself attempting an attack on common sense. Here are some excerpts from the document:
“The government emphasises the need for a strategic dimension of governance creating conditions in which the prognosis of development, determination of priorities, and development of strategic governance become a permanent part of the functioning of the state and of the social dialogue… The government declares political support to strategic governance as to the fundamental precondition of the application of this institute.” Before focusing too much on how strategic governance will apply, maybe the cabinet should just figure out what it wants to say.
“It is necessary to accentuate the need for an increased coordination of policies and a tight cohesion of social, economic, and environmental goals and policies for their achievement.” Too bad the prose is not a little tighter.
“The strategy of creating jobs and the future of labour in the form of employment must create an internal and external environment such that it will be able to continuously regenerate an equilibrial state between the economic needs of entrepreneurs and society on the one side, and the abilities and effective motivations of employees on the other.” Wouldn’t it be easier to just say that they want there to be enough appropriate, well-paying jobs? Or would it then be too obvious that what they are saying in fact means nothing?
“Upbringing and education must lead people to humanism, tolerance, solidarity, cooperation, and responsibility for life, and realise the systematic handing-over of common cultural and democratic values in an inter-generational process.” Maybe instead of inter-generational transitions of humanism, schools should focus more on teaching kids to think and write.
But don’t get confused; the wording of the manifesto is not just a result of bad literary skills. It reflects two deeper qualities of this government: an admiration for socialist rhetoric, and a lack of actual ideas about what to do with the country. We’ll see just how big a threat that poses. Intellectually, and otherwise.
