Politics is performance, but should we be worried?
‘Once you enter politics, you are always on show. You never jump a queue; you never get impatient with a driver or a waitress or a check-in clerk. You never lose your temper. You never fail to light up when someone comes over for a picture or an autograph. You surrender the entirety of your private life for the duration. People are watching.’
Sound familiar? These are the words of former Canadian academic-turned politician Michael Ignatieff, reminding us of the everyday performative aspects of life in politics.
There is a hidden expectation on ‘us’ to perform the job in a particular way, showing the ‘correct’ emotions at the correct times.
As Ignatieff relates, politicians can never showcase emotions of rage or anger towards others or show impatience when a member of the public wishes to interact.
This is no shock. Politics has always been performative.
Yet recent institutional change and the ability to watch ‘us’ work in real-time through twitter tweets and social media lives streams, not only increases accountability but takes us back to Ignatieff: ‘we’ are always on show. This is simply part of the job, but should we be worried?
The short answer: don’t be worried, just be aware.
If your performance is an extension of what you’re really thinking and feeling, then great. If not, the extent of the difference will take its toll on your mental and emotional wellbeing over time. Forcing oneself to showcase different emotions to those that you’re actually feeling is emotional labour.
Research shows us that emotional labour has a strong effect on politicians. This is because to do their job, politicians must engage with the emotional experiences of those they represent, most of whom they have never met. Moreover, to do their job well, politicians need to institutionalise that emotion, through expression and performance, into political and public policy processes.
The better the politician, the more sincere their performance; and vice versa. The catch 22? The more sincere the expression the more at risk you are. When performance goes as far as internalisation, that is, actually feeling the emotion you are expressing, you are vulnerable to burnout.
Internalising the emotions of others is known as false face acting. The more you false face act, the greater the risk. Dr James Weinberg tells us that, as we move across the full range of scores for false face acting, symptoms of burnout (apathy, depression, stress, and anxiety) increase by a huge 51%.
Put differently, the more we suppress our emotions to convey the emotional experiences of others, the stronger the risk of burnout.
Our first line of defence is self-awareness and supporting each other to cultivate their own awareness, holding a mirror that says: “how are your boundaries holding up on this issue, my friend?”.
