On Being “Out of Touch” - Or Not via Of Laws and Men
A common meme of discussion on politics and politicians in Ireland (and elsewhere) is that politicians are "out of touch" with the feelings, concerns and even the requirements of the voters to whom they are responsible and accountable.Maybe they are - some of them certainly are - but it seems to me that it is unlikely that, as a class, politicians are more out of touch than anyone else. To the contrary, in fact.Since so much of our discussion of these matters takes place in the mass media, almost always in contexts chosen and moderated by journalists, and in which journalists are often the only interlocutors, it is inevitable that the voters to whom reference is made in those discussions are not the generality of voters but those voters with whom the journalistic class identify.I do not...