It's Not What You Know......

.... it's who you know.  A trite old cliche, perhaps, but far more apt than many in power like to admit to anyone outside of that circle of people that they know.

A quarter of a century ago, British anthropologist Robin Dunbar proposed a relationship between the size of the human neo-cortex and the number of relationships with other people that a typical person could comfortably maintain.  He suggested 150 would be about the right number.

Others have suggested as low as 100 or as high as almost 300, but there seems to be agreement among scientists that there is a limit to how many people one person can comfortably know and relate to.  For some of us, those relationships might be mapped on a set of concentric circles, with our family and loved ones close around us at the bullseye, and the remainder - friends, colleagues, neighbours, team-mates - distributed across the rings.  Others might view those relationships in the form of a web, or perhaps as a pyramid, with themselves at the apex.

If Dunbar's Number is accurate at 150 relationships, consider that the current population of our planet is approximately fifty million times that number - that is 50,000,000 lots of Dunbar's Number. In Australia, the difference is about one hundred and seventy thousand - 170,000 - times Dunbar's Number.  Our National Parliament contains 150 Representatives - one Dunbar - and the Senate contains 76 Senators - half a Dunbar.

So a member of our Federal Parliament is going to be expected to be able to talk to all of the other politicians in the House and Senate, as well as his or her own staff, and the senior staff of the House or Senate, and various other senior staff working for other Members or Senators, or for various Departments and Agencies, as well as to non-elected members of their own Party, including, especially, those Party members back in their electorate - upon whose continuing good will the Member will be relying for future campaign support and pre-selection votes.

Did I forget to mention the various Very Important Donors and Lobbyists with whom the politician will be expected to chat, drink, eat, and generally socialize?

Worst of all, I seem to have forgotten the Member's family - who might surely be expecting some continuing social and familial intercourse and support.  That's alright, though, as a number of Members also appear to forget their families, so I can't be blamed for my omission, and it can be hard to apportion care, compassion, and fellow feeling to people beyond one's own Dunbar Limit.

What's my point, you ask?  Well, it is that the public perception that the average politician, once ensconced in Canberra (or Macquarie Street, or where ever it is they went after the votes were counted), seems to forget about the needs and wants of the electors who sent them into Parliament is supported by the science. 

Their brains - specifically their neo-cortexes - are not up to the task of remembering the rest of us, as it is all they can do to keep track of the faces they encounter each day in the Corridors of Power.

Should we feel sorry for them?  Possibly; at least, we could feel as sorry for them as they do for us.....