Eddie Pensier writes:

Nigel Hawthorne (Sir Humphrey Appleby), Derek Fowlds (Bernard Wooley), Paul Eddington (The Rt. Hon. Jim Hacker)

Illness has struck the Pensiers: at least two members of our household have spent the last six days walking around in various states of poor health. To fill up the gaping maw of daylight hours while I cough, snort, wheeze, and expel various unpleasant substances from my person, I decided to take advantage of the fact that a user at video site Veoh has uploaded 37 episodes from the series “Yes, Minister” and its sequel, “Yes, Prime Minister”. Here are some things I took away from the experience.

1. You don’t need to be British to enjoy it.

The archetypes of the dim-but well-meaning politician and  the cunning-and-territory-protecting bureaucrat are pretty well universal. A few details may be particular to Britain (discussion of honours) but most of the situations are exportable to any nation and political culture. Not being a generally huge fan of Brit TV, I was surprised at how little perspective-shifting was required.

2. You could replace every political-science department in every university with a YM/YPM marathon, and impart vastly more useful information.

This would not only reduce costs substantially, but it would teach the same thing: the basic role of politicians is to get worried about an issue and promise to “Do Something About It” (bonus points if it’s done “For The Children” in squealing, tremulous Helen Lovejoy voice; extra votes for real-looking tears). The basic role of the bureaucrats is to oppose them, because change is a threat to their positions and budgets. The status quo cannot be upset: any real change that occurs is likely due to a huge screw-up, a national crisis, or mutual back-scratching that leaves all the civil servant players in much the same position as before. PoliSci departments, being concerned with ideal situations and theories, rarely mention this: the necessary work of actually running stuff in the real world tends to fall through the cracks. Truly, if every aspiring politico were required to watch YM/YPM before running for office, some bright thing might come up with a way things can actually change, rather than paying lip-service to Change(tm), the slogan.

3. The business of politics is all about ego and ambition: it has nothing to do with moral convictions or (heaven forbid) expertise on a subject.

Many episodes, perhaps the majority, of YM/YPM episodes have a basic structure:

-Crisis comes to Hacker’s attention. He resolves to address it.
-Sir Humphrey superciliously says something along the lines of “well, we’d love to, but it just can’t be done”.
-Hacker insists, Sir Humphrey makes several behind-the-scenes deals with other civil servants that makes Hacker’s preferred course of action either politically untenable or a public-relations disaster.
-Hacker retreats to the status-quo position for what he believes are his own reasons, to which Sir Humphrey replies with a slimy “Yeesss, Minister”.
-Roll credits.

The only point at which the right, correct or proper thing to do is ever discussed is to mock it for being a colossal faux pas. The business of government should never be confused with actual, you know, governING. This is encapsulated perfectly in the YPM episode “The Smoke Screen”, in which ministerships and portfolios are handed out alternately as rewards for good behavior and gags to prevent “incorrect” action.

 4. It’s really, really funny. Funny in ways that might not be considered funny today.

The writing (mostly by series creators Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn) matches a keen ear for poli-speak with rueful acceptance of the stony Oxbridge monoculture of the Civil Service. (Sir Humphrey, an Oxford man, is constantly needling Hacker for his supposedly less well-rounded education at the London School of Economics.). There wasn’t an episode I watched without at least one laugh-out loud moment, and more usually two or three. “The Moral Dimension” is a masterpiece of Britwit. Mocking of foreigners and lower classes is gleefully indulged in, stereotypes are reinforced, and currently-acceptable standards of political correctness are flouted with delightful regularity.

5. The question “What is to be done?” often has no answer, and that is sometimes (gasp) okay.

To a generation raised on protests, petitions, sit-ins, “the personal is political”, and loudly-expressed indignation, the thought of a wrong going un-righted is unspeakable. For serious issues, this is a mark of principle to be sure, but today’s “social justice”-types the tiniest slight is the moral equivalent of slavery or witch-burning, showing a lack of proportion. Is it not wiser to save one’s  protest capital for the more important fights? Our collective outrage threshold as a society has been depressed to the point that we’re so exhausted from fighting the little fights, that the big ones get overlooked.  We’re so concerned with micro-aggressions that the macro-agressions are never seen, let alone addressed. The right thing should be what we strive for. If we achieve it, that’s great. But if we don’t, is it necessarily the end of the world?

A healthy sense of proportion, a dry sense of humor, a very impolite realism about the way things are versus the way they ought to be. It’s hardly a mere sitcom anymore, but an important guide to how to conduct ourselves. Am I crazy for thinking so?

Yes, Eddie.