A professor of mine, an avowed anarchist and 1960’s activist, once said to me “politics is the battle over the definition of reality.” At the time, this struck me as a profound observation, but years and experience have changed my understanding of the matter.
As a description of the way some idealistic political agents view their careers, I think Professor Ward was quite right. As a description of fact, an epistemological theory if you will, I can think of few things more disturbing than the idea that the political process itself is a truth-producing enterprise. Collective bargaining, dispute resolution, mobilization of resources, these are problems which can be solved through politicking.
To suggest for even a moment that politicians are or should be engaged with defining reality strikes me as not only incorrect but terrifying in its implications. Political acts are by definition divorced from the truth; they are inherently deceitful.
To make themselves palatable to diverse audiences, politicians abuse our language and our psychological weaknesses to make us believe that we share their opinions; on the basis of this “popular consensus,” they claim a mandate to wield power.
Upon closer inspection, the apparent consensus dissolves immediately.
Political agents not only do but must conceal their true beliefs from the pubic at large to attain and maintain power. Even if their parties did not openly demand it of them, the subjective nature of most political questions renders true consensus technically impossible. National consensus is a convenient fiction that has propped up the governments of the world for generations.
Asserting true national unity is akin to claiming in philosophical debate that one has once and for all proved the triumph of free will over determinism. Both assertions are usually accompanied by appeals to some deity or other and arguments that loop back on themselves with dizzying speed.
Truth is the result of conflict only in the sense that it is arrived at when the exhausted combatants see the absurdity of their battle and lay down their arms. Far from troubling, I find voter apathy in the U.S. a heartening sign that most people have noticed just how petty and pointless the political discourse in this country has become.
Now if everybody would just stop paying their taxes as well we might get somewhere. . .
