• TheBananaKing@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    7 months ago

    :stares in Australian:

    We don’t address people by their job title here, and we’d laugh in your face if you insisted on it.

    Perhaps a small exception for ‘doctor’, but that’s acknowledging the doctorate, not the job.

    • z00s@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      7 months ago

      We do, but only for the current PM. Once you’re out though, it’s back to Mr / Ms

      • TheBananaKing@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        7 months ago

        If you think the words ‘prime minister Morrison’ would ever have passed my lips…

        … or ‘prime minister Albo’ for that matter, they’re all overgrown fucking real estate agents.

    • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      7 months ago

      Yet the idea underpinning it is sound. It’s to separate the office from the individual. If you attach reverence to the role, not the person, you make it easier to change the person and avoid dictatorship.

      • TheBananaKing@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        7 months ago

        It doesn’t read that way to me - I see it far more as “you have won at life, you are better than other humans”, exactly the kind of thing narcissists crave.

        • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          7 months ago

          Not if the alternative is that people begin to see the role and the person as the same thing. That’s the dream of every would-be dictator. A certain chancellor of Germany knew this very well in 1934 when he abolished the titles of Chancellor and President and made the army swear its oath to him personally.

          This is just standard political theory: to protect democracy, respect its institutions. Absolutely does make sense to me.