Psychobabble

In Competition No. 2498 you were invited to submit a speech by one of our newly ‘emotional literate’ politicians unveiling a piece of legislation and incorporating the following words: ‘dysfunctional’, ‘narrative’, ‘empower’, ‘co-dependent’, ‘holistic’, ‘self-actualisation’, ‘closure’.

The traditional ministerial waffle of government policy documents now has a new ingredient as politicians vie with each other to feel our pain, threatening to drown us in an ocean of empathy. David Cameron’s much-mocked ‘Hug a hoodie’ slogan is but one example. To my list you added some horrors from the ever-expanding self-help lexicon: ‘proactive’, ‘inclusivity’, ‘self-esteem’, ‘intuitive’; and this one, a corker from Alan Millard, ‘endemic idealistic adherences to institutionalised norms’. Curiously, the topic of pet empowerment cropped up more than once. The winners, printed below, get £25 each and the bonus fiver goes to W.J. Webster.

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The narrative of civilisation has always been driven forward through an increasing awareness of co-dependent relationships and a widening of the parameters of self-actualisation. Wherever there are dysfunctional social interfaces it is government’s responsibility first to support, then to empower the disadvantaged. The Domestic Pets (Welfare and Respect) Bill is designed to effect a step-change in attitudes towards our siblings on the mammalian continuum. It pursues a holistic approach to the challenging issues raised by the household nexus of pet and ‘owner’ (‘guardian’ will be the legislative term). Its provisions will actively promote the wellbeing — physical, psychological and spiritual — of pets by means of a series of contractual requirements in areas such as diet, medical attention, reproductive rights and freedom of movement. The insupportable master-slave paradigm will be consigned to the incinerator of history, bringing closure to a shameful age of anthropocratic imperialism.