Syndicate: In praise of (the madness of) Politicians

[Trevor <tebatt@dds.nl>]

On 01-May-99, Ivan Zassoursky wrote:


>Normative theories of democracy presume political process to be more or less
>rational. However, we have accumulated so much evidence to the contrary that
>perhaps the time has come to view these basic assumptions in a critical
>light and - to get rid of them.

Indeed, in a complex (democratic?) world perhaps one should not consider the
primary function of politicians to be practical.

Within a nexus of complex social, economic, moral and political issues -with
hidden connections tending to generate paradoxical results and uncertain
predictions regarding the outcome -then it becomes almost impossible to make
rational choices regarding any action.

Within a diverse society with no common vested interest even a consensus
regarding aims and evaluation strategy becomes almost impossible.

So all that remains are aesthetic choices -defining complex equilibria of
(emotional) choices within a multi-dimensional space of alternatives.

So I believe politicians should be concidered as "social artists" who define,
create, manipulate or maintain the "social aesthetic".

Just as within any art form, the choice between public spectacle and private
intimacy, pragmatic oportunism and personal sincerity, form and content,
illusion and truth, stability and change -are all part of the work.

Just as in any art form, the public accepts the aesthetics it likes and
pragmatically tests how applicable they are in daily life: Laws which are not
popular are surely impossible to maintain -while behaviour which is supported
by the public surely requires no law to preserve it. As the limitations of one
aesthetic becomes clear so the urge to try another becomes stronger.

Just as within any art form, there will be many popular one-day-wonders and
possibly a few works with a more lasting substance.

According to the entropic Second Law of Thermodynamics, all systems tend to
degenerate towards a (static) state of equilibrium.

So perhaps we should be a little careful of politicians who actually "do
things" -perhaps it is people continually "improving things" which prevents
the system from reaching a state of internal ballance.

However, the degree of (internal) static equilibrium or (external) dynamic
chaos desired within the system -is of course a purely aesthetic choice!

Perhaps the critical problem facing us today is: What are the levels of
tolerance of variation in the local aesthetic -within a global system?

So then we must also decide how to behave if those levels of tolerance are
exceded -is conflict acceptable, or should all solutions be directed towards
avoiding conflict?

How can one avoid conflict and preserve (true) diversity?

Without diversity we shall die of boredom, and will lose our powers of
creative regeneration!

The art of negotiating the practical relationship between different (and
potentially conflicting) aesthetics is traditionally called "Politics".

Trevor Batten


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