The Tao of Spartacus Jones
The Tao of Spartacus Jones |
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Protests.
Demonstrations.
Thousands, even millions of people takin' it to the street.
It didn't prevent the war on Iraq.
It hasn't stopped the war in Iraq.
It hasn't gotten Bush impeached — or better yet, indicted.
In fact, I'm hard-pressed to think of anything that any protest or demonstration ever really accomplished. Why not?
I know some people would say it brought attention to the problem. But to whom?
At the point when millions of people all over the world are protesting the impending invasion of Iraq, for example, it would seem that most people are sufficiently aware of the problem, if they're ever going to be.
Why didn't those mass demonstrations have any effect? I've often had the disturbing suspicion that our protest demonstrations are a grand exercise in talking to ourselves. Perhaps even something worse.
Today it dawned on me while I was picking manure out of my pony's paddock — a chore, itself, not unlike politics. The explanation is obvious, once you know what it is.
Horsemanship is nothing if not communication.
Horsemen sometimes refer to communication as a "V." The bottom, narrowest part, at the crotch of the V represents the most subtle communication, the softest, the quietest, the gentlest. The top, the widest part of the V, represents the most overt and direct communication, the hardest, the loudest, the most assertive.
There is a certain progression of communication that goes something like this: suggest, ask, tell, insist.
First, you suggest. This may be merely thinking a certain thought such as "Giddyup." If you and your horse are close and communicate well, he may respond to you as if reading your mind. It's like magic.
What your horse is actually doing, of course, is reading the minute involuntary changes in your body, position and balance that inevitably occur in you on a subconscious level when you think the thought. It may seem like magic, but it isn't. You're not aware of these tiny telltale changes, but your horse is. You just have to remember that your horse is smarter and more perceptive than you are.
If your steed doesn't respond when you suggest, it won't do any good to suggest again. If he didn't "hear you" the first time, he's not going to hear you the second time either. You have to turn up the volume a little. You go from suggest to ask. Asking is just a smidge louder than suggesting. You still think "giddyup" but you throw in some light leg pressure too. You make it more obvious what you want, more clear.
But suppose old Dobbin still isn't walking out for you.
Very well. You've suggested, and you've asked. Now you tell. You state exactly what you want, specifically and unmistakably. Enunciated loudly and clearly. You don't squeeze with your legs again. This time you give a smart bump with your anklebone.
What if your mount is still not responding? You're going to have to insist on that giddyup, amigo. Or, as I prefer to say, promise. "Insist" sounds kind of rude to me, but I never break a promise.
Never.
And if I promise we're going to giddyup, my brother, then giddyup is what we are going to do. That's why spurs were invented. Nothing wrong with properly designed spurs properly used. It's like a using a bullhorn; you don't have to yell into it. It doesn't have to be painful, just unambiguous. It isn't for punishment, it's for clarity of communication.
A light brush of the spur is all you'll need 999 times out of a thousand.
Suggest, ask, tell, promise.
Think, squeeze, bump, spur.
This process assumes a couple of things.
The first assumption is that your horse understands what you want him to do. That is, he knows what your "words" mean. If he doesn't then you're one of those idiots speaking English to someone who only speaks Chinese, convinced that if he just talks louder and more clearly, the Chinese-speaking person will suddenly understand what he's saying.
The second assumption is that you're asking your horse to do something reasonable. You're not demanding that he gallop off a cliff or something like that. In that situation, your horse — being smarter that you are, remember — might just buck you to within a short taxi ride of senseless — or, since you obviously are already senseless, buck you somewhere over toward your senses.
Horses are unsurpassed experts at learning what happens before what happens happens.
Once your horse understands that things are going to go rather quickly from squeeze to bump to spur, he'll start to respond to the bump to avoid the spur and you won't have to use the spur. Pretty soon he'll respond to the squeeze to avoid the bump and you won't have to use the bump. And before long all you'll have to do is think the thought and you and your pony will groove along happily, cruising the bottom of the V.
Here's what you don't do because it's a guaranteed waste of time: bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump (getting frustrated now because he's not responding) bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump (he's tuning you out now) bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump (your cue is now meaningless noise) bump-bump-bump-bump-bump...
You only ask once. If you ask three times, you've just taught your horse he can ignore you twice.
I understand perfectly well that politicians aren't as smart as horses, but I believe even politicians can be trained. And I believe we've done a dandy job of it. We've trained them to ignore us. We've accomplished that by using the same magnitude and amplitude of communication over and over and over and over until it became meaningless noise.
We start out with letters to the editor and emails to their offices. We suggest.
Next we go to gathering petitions: We ask. That's the Squeeze.
Then we turn up the volume to protests, marches and demonstrations. Bump.
But then what?
Nothing. That's what.
Just bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump-bump...
Just noise.
They don't respond to our bump because they know we're not going to use our spurs.
When I say "spurs" I'm not necessarily suggesting that we need half a million armed citizens to descend on Washington, dismantle the White House brick by brick and hang certain persons to remain unnamed from the nearest telephone poles.
But you must admit, if such an event were to occur, the next gang of profligates to hold office after that might be more inclined to pay attention to all those "peaceful" protests, even if only to avoid dancing the mid-air tango.
It's possible they'd even start paying more attention to petitions, to avoid the protest demonstrations.
I won't go so far as to suggest that politicians would ever get to the bottom of the V.
Let's be fair. They're not horses.
From liberal to conservative and all stops in between, I believe there are a lot of good folks out there, decent, peace-loving people who want to do the right thing and want their country to do the right thing. Patriotic folks who actually believe in that "liberty and justice for all" we're always crowing about.
But you can tell they haven't spent much time with horses.
Or they'd know when to use their spurs.
