An Explanation of the Centrist Smile’s Importance, from The Centrist Smile
(Originally published as “It’s Me that Defines Them” in Pilcrow Pamphlet, Nov. 2017)
After going through a long string of YouTube links, I ended up watching episodes of the old British satire program Spitting Image. While the rubber puppets of political figures the show used all had their uniquely ghastly attributes, the one that always returns to me is the horror of Tony Blair’s. Tony was always the shortest puppet in the room, but his face was ginormous. It didn’t seem to have any eyelids, the permanently exposed pupils painted to miniscule point. But what makes the Tony Blair’s puppet the most unnerving was that smile. It stretched from ear to ear, and the mouth’s lips were so thin that you were confronted with nothing but teeth, teeth that were both to small and far too numerous to be human.
In the opening of later seasons of Spitting Image, an animated Blair was portrayed as a Cheshire Cat lounging in a tree, becoming translucent at first and finally nonexistent for all but that mouth; a smile that was wholly self-sufficient, upheld with nothing but the sheer void behind it.
I feel great today.
Well, I feel great all days, but I’ve kept a pleasant image in mind today specifically, and it’s really made me feel even better than I normally do. It’s the recent cover of The Economist, titled Europe’s New Order. In it, there’s a nicely contrasted image of a dark stage with a spotlight on it. Spotlights make me happy enough as it is, but seeing my best friend Emmanuel walking into it and grabbing the microphone, as poor Ms. Merkel moved out of it was incredibly edifying to me. Now honestly, I don’t know much about politics, but even I had assumed Emmanuel was basically the same as Ms. Merkel where it counted. But that’s just it; if he can be seen new, and she can be old, then it’s me, the optimism, the charisma, me, the Smile, that made all the difference. It’s nice to feel important.
How far I’ve come! Some days I still think about Tony, and the poor hopeless Oxford Trotskyist he tried to be, way back when. He struggled against me, but only briefly. We were in a private place when I replaced his own mouth with myself, so no one saw it happen. He tried to rip my lips off his face, even tried to bash my teeth away! But after a few minutes, his old mouth was in the bin, and I was there, between his nose and chin, flashing my pearly whites, whispering in perfect unity: “things can only get better.”
After we were comfortable together, I taught him all the lessons I had, the ones I would later teach all the others: Speak sparingly. You can babble or chatter or ramble as much as you wish (and oh how we did, it was quite lovely), but speak sparingly. I rarely let anything out when it’s time for me to really speak. Things going into me are far more lovely than what can come out. What can go in through my gums? The crisp mountain air, perhaps, or a delicious slice of moist chocolate cake. Three things could potentially out of me and none are particularly pleasant; carbon dioxide, vomit, and Language. Language is of the lowest value here; at least the other two have the potential to feed the trees. When Tony and I spoke to the people I refused to let any common dirt leave my mouth, military matters, tax cuts and the like, stuff that drags down that nice idea, “things can only get better.” When you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all. And when you don’t have anything to say at all, you might as well smile.
Getting lots out of little is always nice. Now that I’ve moved onto Emmanuel (he struggled the least) I’m surprised how little I’ve had to do. We can say speak of colonialism, royalty, Caesars, of Jupiter, but all I need to say is something like “What you’ve done has neither precedent nor equivalent” and Emmanuel is there on The Economist as “Europe’s New Order.” It’s because I am the essence of novelty, which is in fact the oldest thing in existence. When the universe was new, I was right there with it. And when you’ve got me, when you don’t resist, believe me, everything old can be new again.
Do you understand the horrible shackles I had to bear before I was at last free to act unimpeded? Once, I was trapped under the custody of your Kennedys, my brilliance trapped and coagulated in slurry of dried blood and cum. I was encased in the bloated guts of your Clintons, jostled back and forth inside it as I was instructed to feel pain, or pretend to anyway. I almost got my place at the mouth, but I never got the reign I needed.
But now their dynasties are done. Now I’ve my own dynasty, defined not by families and connections, but me, and only me. I am bright and shining and eternal. You people have got dynasties wrong from the start. The way you make them is so dirty. Transferring political power through mating like that is a disgusting spectacle. Rubbing that gelatinous pimply flesh all over itself, and for what? Another little lump of tissue brought into the world after nine months, a horrible new mouth, one without teeth even, screaming at being dragged into existence in the first place. Good God, that thing is supposed to rule you one day?
My dynasty does not rely on such grime to perpetuate itself. You people may need to debase yourself like that to keep your species going, but I am clean, sterile. Brushed and flossed three times a day, scalded pure with the burn of antiseptic mouthwash. I’m not bound to your creaky joints or aching organs. Families can come and go but I am solely a trait, unbound by the petty laws of the material. My dynasty is unimpeded by the mortality of flesh, the unpredictability of birth. It is consistent, above all else. I only have need of a host. And while you may see me behind a different name each time, Tony, Barack, Justin, Emmanuel, you know that it’s me that defines them all.
My dynasty has already eclipsed your outdated fleshy ones so easily. Just look at Justin. I was familiar with his father once, but once again I was dimmed, I couldn’t fit onto him his silly little front teeth poking out like a mouse’s. He transferred his power into Justin the old fashioned way, but he could never have known what I was capable of. I took him under my wing, as it were, and now… Now when you listen to Justin, and he says , “Better is always possible” and you pay very close attention, you’ll realize that no trace of his dad is audible. You’ll realize that no trace of Justin is audible either. And eventually you figure out that there is no human voice at all for you to hear. You’re listening to me now, loud and clear, perfect reception. Maybe the words are rearranged, but the words me and Tony whispered in that dorm-room years ago still ring out.
Things can only get better.
The agent of the spectacle who is put on stage as a star is the opposite of an individual; he is as clearly the enemy of his own individuality as of the individuality of others. Entering the spectacle as a model to be identified with, he renounces all autonomous qualities in order to identify himself with the general law of obedience to the flow of things… The stars of decision-making must possess the full range of admired human qualities: official differences between them are thus canceled out by the official similarity implied by their supposed excellence in every field of endeavor… Kennedy survived as an orator to the point of delivering his own funeral oration, since Theodore Sorensen continued to write speeches for his successor in the same style that had contributed so much toward the dead man’s public persona. The admirable people who personify the system are well known for not being what they seem; they attain greatness by stooping below the reality of the most insignificant individual life, and everyone knows it.
Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle
