The political animal – right or wrong

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me." ~ Dudley Field Malone (1882 – 1950)

At last! Controversy! Thank you Common Sense for replying to my post, and especially for disagreeing with me. It forces me to think some more and take stock of my ideas. One day, no doubt, I shall be presented with an argument that makes me change my mind and I look forward to that. But not today. Here is the comment in full:

I seem to think that you bristle when you feel that bloggers are dismissed out of hand as a breed. Yet you lump all politicians together and throw them into the fiery furnace. Did you never hear of a politician you had any time for? Nelson Mandela? Franklin Roosevelt? Willi Brandt? Nye Bevan? Itzhak Rabin? By and large, we get the politicians we deserve, the ones who, like the poor immigrants who service the public sector, are prepared to do the dirty jobs that we are too delicate to face – such as taking responsibility for the dull business of keeping the national show on the road and, sometimes, making the tough decisions that people who don't have to think much about it resent in a knee-jerk way. If you don't like it, put yourself up for public office. Do better. Otherwise you are merely an anarchist or (worse) a blogger whistling in the wind. Oh and by the way, I didn't sign your petition because I thought there was some merit in the argument about health and safety. If the flowerbed tender had been hit by a driver who hadn't seen her, that driver would have been entitled to feel aggrieved and that it was her own fault. The authorities have to make decisions that affect everyone. Just because a local busybody feels her freedom has been curtailed doesn't mean that the authorities are fascists or indeed that they are wrong to cleave to their decision. If you think that's officialdom gone mad, you must have spent most of your life avoiding organisations of every kind.

 

Smaller discussion first.

The wearing of a peaked cap, real or metaphorical, does not stop an individual from being a busybody. Some of the

restrictions imposed by health and safety officers are silly and need to be scrutinised. So do many of the restrictions placed on everyday life by officials making their own interpretations of enabling legislation.

There is a growing body of academic evidence which supports the view that a person stops behaving normally when placed in a position of authority. This explains atrocities like Abu Graib; ordinary decent people feel that their official position allows them to treat others without considering their humanity. On a less vicious scale, the phenomenon happens everywhere and every day in the enforcement of petty regulations by the bureaucratic process.

Iraqi translators who worked for the British army are being refused asylum when their lives are under threat and many have already been killed. This is a nasty but bang up-to-date example of how the moral compass can be lost by those who work in an official capacity. Power goes to their heads.

I shall be writing more about Philip Zimbardo and his Stamford Prison Experiment, as well as his own review – 36 years on – of this groundbreaking work (in his book The Lucifer Effect). This provides incontrovertible proof that the phenomenon exists and is universal. What Zimbardo has to say about how the experiment, and his part in it as designer and controller, affected his life should make us all sit up and take notice. His insights offer hope and understanding. There is a real chance that – if we wanted to – we could devise strategies for controlling the more beastly aspects of human social behaviour.

If you read my text carefully, you will see that I rarely say that bureaucratic actions should be stopped, simply that they should be thought through better, that decision processes should be transparent, and that there should be simple procedures to achieve redress.

And that brings me to the bigger issue: my attitude to politicians. I get a lot of flack (you are not the first to complain), so I revisit my thinking regularly and I agree that at one level I must be wrong. There must indeed be people who go into politics for good reasons.

I also have to admit that the fire which fuels my distrust has subsided with the departure of Tony Blair and his familiar, Alistair Campbell. I see Tony Blair as a political version of Jordan. He bemused people with his charisma just as she bemused people with her chest. Whatever one thinks of Gordon Brown and his policies, he cannot be accused of being vacuous or of not being a serious thinker. Whether or not he is a conviction politician does not matter. He is competent, he has a track record, and when he sets himself a task, he usually gets it done with limited negative fall-out. The fact that he believes the constitution should change in a direction that I would like is an added extra (although not far enough, I hasten to add.)

One of the aims of my blog is to examine ways in which democracy, a fragile system, can be strengthened so that incompetents like Blair and his sidekick can be stopped before they do too much harm. And one of my themes is that the separation of powers, which is at the heart of all serious democratic models of government, should be preserved and extended. No-one has a monopoly on wisdom and the spreading about of ultimate authority is an indispensible safeguard.

An aspect of this, covered in "Cheerleaders", is that MPs should have a separate role from the government executive. They should represent their constituents (i.e. act on their behalf) more seriously, keeping a watchful eye on what the government is doing, instead of blindly cheering them on or constantly attempting to put a spoke in the wheel depending on their party affiliations.

Now back to my problem with politicians. Common Sense provided a helpful parallel between politicians and immigrant workers. I should like to offer another. But I must put up a big warning sign here. It is a powerful simile to illustrate what I mean, no more and no less, and you must not take it any further than that.

If you want to find a concentration of paedophiles, you might look for them at work in children's homes or in other places where children are gathered together away from the supervision of their parents. This does not – of course – mean that everyone who works in these places is a paedophile, or even that a high proportion of them are. But these places are magnets for people with paedophile tendencies.

Now, if you want to find a concentration of control freaks – people who enjoy interfering in other people's lives and telling them what to do – you might well look at the political classes and the places where they gather. As with paedophiles, this does not mean that everyone there is a control freak, but the political process is a magnet for people with controlling ("I know best") tendencies.

I would further argue that, unlike working in a children's home where an ordinary person stays ordinary, working in politics engenders an intoxication with power in all but the strongest.

So my parallel is between uninvited and inappropriate fiddling with private parts, and uninvited and inappropriate fiddling with private lives (if you see what I mean).

Personally, I find power distasteful. I enjoy my life and I believe it is up to others to enjoy theirs with minimal interference if they harm no one but themselves. So the option of seeking office is anathema to me. To go back to Common Sense's parallel, I would prefer to clean lavatories with the immigrants.

Late in life, I became interested in thinking through my ideas about the political world. And I now realize how much my thinking has been influenced by Karl Popper, whom I have not read for at least 35 years. But his ideas have stayed with me. Openness and opportunity for all is what I would like to see and, for much of my life, I have watched it grow in fits and starts. I grieved when I saw it crushed underfoot by unthinking men such as George W. Bush and Tony Blair.

You can link to Common Sense here.

Philip Zimbardo has a website here.

Jeremy Paxman has written a fascinating analysis of the inner working of the politician, body and soul.

More information about the Iraqi translator asylum issue here.

The link to my article Cheerleaders is here.

 

This discussion continues at https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=37259763&postID=3469532051110072827

Comments

[Common Sense]

I've read Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect and I'm not about to argue about the corrupting effect of licensed abuse. Nor do I depart from the (often misquoted) Lord Acton: "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely" (the "tend to" bit, so often omitted, is very pertinent). But I also quote Acton's contemporary Disraeli: "all power is a trust ... we are accountable for its exercise ... from the people and for the people all springs and all must exist". Accountability is critical in the exercise of power and Blair – who, by the way, should be lumped with Bush (eg as "unthinking") with great care – was gravely at fault in progressively discounting the Commons as a forum in which to be accountable.

But look, you assert that "a person stops behaving normally when placed in a position of authority" as if we don't all assume – or allow ourselves to be placed in – many positions of authority in our various roles in the world. Any parent (save for the proverbial doormat) is in a position of power over the child. One who keeps a dog is in a position of authority. A shopkeeper has authority over his customers ("my premises") as does a busdriver over the passengers, a doctor over her patients, a traffic warden over parkers, the teacher, the solicitor, the accountant, the police officer, the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker. If the argument is that we should eschew any role or relationship in which there is a scintilla of power or – not quite the same thing – authority, we shall be living like amoeba (not, of course, like termites or wasps whose living arrangements depend wholly upon deference to power and authority). When you claim to find power "distasteful", you need to look at your own life and confront honestly the degree to which you willy-nilly exercise power therein, whether in familial and personal relationships or in passing daily transactions.

I don't like tinpot Hitlers (to use a phrase from my Dad's generation) any more than you do. I don't disagree with all of the examples you offer of officiousness in officialdom – though I think anedcotes usually need to be handled with caution, one of the reasons why I can't get excited about the supposed rights of the village flower-tender. I do think that health and safety regulations have become restrictive in all kinds of ways but that is in some measure because a cottage industry of complaints and rights-claiming has grown up, built on the mendacious no-win-no-fee business designed to exploit vulnerable and cash-strapped people's notion that they might get compensation for some imagined disadvantage.

But I don't think it advances the debate to lump together politicians, any more than it reduces road rage to characterise traffic wardens in the way that motorists (especially when caught breaking the law) tend to do.

[Paulus]

I concede a number of your points. Yes it is true that at different times we all don a mantle of authority. You cite examples of parents and children and dogs and their owners. To my mind, these are the only two examples that offer a parallel with the government and the governed, i.e. there is no choice on the part of those required to submit. In your other examples, it is possible to go somewhere else.
However, there are key differences between these examples and government. The successful culmination of the parent/child relationship is the eventual breaking of ties of authority. And the word owner defines the nature of the human/dog relationship (I hesitate to mention slavery to explain why this is not a good model for designing inter-human relationships).
I also don’t think that the parent/child model is an appropriate way to design a structure for adults living in a community. Not long ago that is exactly what we had in Britain; the monarch was father of the country. And leaders still are in many parts of the world where Saddams and Mugabes lock “naughty children” away and beat them and worse. And feel justified in doing so.
Each of us has only one life and it is wrong that other people should presume to curtail the enjoyment of that life except where someone else is harmed. This is where democracy comes in and why it is so important that it is properly structured. It should be the job of an elected government executive to propose the rules which define the boundaries of freedom. But two things should constrain them in their deliberations. First, a proper code of civil liberties which defines boundaries beyond which legislation must not stray. Second, an independent group of elected representatives whose job is to scrutinise proposals without being in the thrall of the executive.
You put this so well:
But I also quote Acton's contemporary Disraeli: "all power is a trust ... we are accountable for its exercise ... from the people and for the people all springs and all must exist". Accountability is critical in the exercise of power and Blair – who, by the way, should be lumped with Bush (eg as "unthinking") with great care – was gravely at fault in progressively discounting the Commons as a forum in which to be accountable.

It is for this that Tony Blair should not be forgiven. It was unthinking, and like many of the restrictions on freedom that were imposed at the same time, it was done in a mood of hysteria and from a misplaced reliance on personal conviction.
I hope it can be undone. But it will not be easy because it is hard for many of us to appreciate the enormity of what has been done. We have come to be complacent about our freedoms. Democracy is fragile. I quote from a review of Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy by Eric D. Weitz in the Economist:
“… an often gripping work from which two main lessons can be drawn. One is how quickly democracy can slip away. In 1928 the Nazis won just 2.6% of the vote; five years later Hitler was in power. The other … is how often democracy is under most threat not from enemies abroad but from those who use its institutions and claim to speak in its name.”

[Common Sense]

Ok, several things. Parents and dog-owners are certainly not the only power-wielders whose 'victims' have no choice. Successive generations of writers – playwrights especially, because they can present the power struggle in dialogue form – have explored the nature of power and subjugation between couples and intimates: Shakespeare, the Restoration writers of comedy, Strindberg, Pinter, Mamet, many others. What's more, governments in properly organised democracies do indeed offer a "choice on the part of those required to submit". I know that there are those who demur at the invitation to vote – which, who knows?, may be offered again next month – but they can't then claim that they have no choice. I have felt that successive elections have offered me plenty of scope for tactical voting. My natural inclination has been to vote Labour and I did so from the first election in which I could vote until 1997, the last time I so voted in a general election. In 2001, I already thought that Blair had taken us to war too many times (this was before the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan) and I deplored the government's reactionary policy on immigration. By a stroke of luck, the local MP (we then lived in Crouch End, London) was the minister with responsibility for immigration policy and the swing against her was the second largest against Labour anywhere in the country. Happily for the respectability of the Hornsey & Wood Green constituency, the swing was to the Liberal Democrats, not to the Tories or the unashamedly racist parties. In 2005 the seat fell to the Lib Dems, their first in north London for generations, but by that time we were voting in the west country. The local MP is a Conservative but a controversial one and the Liberal Democrats ever entertain a lively hope of unseating him. Frankly, there is no point in voting Labour here, save that our parish council has a single Labour councillor, astoundingly the representative for our ward (which on the face of it is a very middle class village). I gladly vote Labour in the parish elections because I think it important to keep a Labour voice there. So you see, the electors have lots of choice and lots of power.

As to Blair and his disregard of the House: I don't think this was a sudden event or any sort of Machiavellian plot. I think it was "unthinking" but perhaps not in the way that you mean. I feel sure that Blair was most guided in his political career by his religious belief. I think he was more of a God man, veering to a Catholic man, than he was a Labour man. His handling of party management, in which he was very lucky to find the party co-operative and quiescent so long as he was able to deliver electoral success, was singularly poor, the worst since Ramsay MacDonald. He was extraordinarily lucky that no issue ever precipitated a wholesale revolt on the back benches (shame on the backbenchers). But my sense of it is that this was not a cynical exclusion of the party from the role of government, it was just a failure of sensibility about the party because Blair had no real party base. Unlike Brown, Prescott, Benn (Tony and indeed Hilary) and other modern Labour bigwigs, he had never cultivated the myriad sub-groupings within the Labour movement. It never occurred to him that it was necessary.

As a government, Labour has been much too influenced by the security services, which is really where the controlling freakery is coming from. Historically, Labour has always been too impressed by professionalism (or what it sees as professionalism) and too ready to listen to those who claim to speak with the voice of experience. Tories are (still) more inclined to listen to those who went to the right school, know the right chaps and belong to the right clubs. Who is to say which party swallows more bullshit?

[Paulus]

Sorry it has taken me a couple of days to get back to this.
You make two points: 1 power and subjugation between couples and intimates, and 2 tactical voting.

1 This first point in interesting but not strictly relevant. Why do people regularly place themselves in positions (often but not always relationships) where their freedom is restricted? I find it intriguing that Philip Zimbardo moved from his Stamford Prison Experiment work to studying shyness, which he sees as a private self imposed prison. There are many other private prisons, including those constructed for themselves by women unable to leave relationships with domineering and abusive partners. I do not understand these dynamics, so have little to say about them. But I plan to read more. This type of psychological entrapment is, however, not the same as having to subject oneself to the laws of the community in which you reside.

2 The fact that people feel the need to vote tactically supports my position. Why should people have to vote for a party that they do not support in order to undermine the one that they hate more? This is a stupidity and it reinforces the argument that the system should be changed. My own decision not to vote is based on exactly this. When I went, in my youth, to join the Labour Party, the first thing I was told was how they used the planning system to gerrymander elections. If you have a system with dishonesty and deceit at its core, you don’t have a snowball’s chance of moving towards a society where people value honour and decency.

I have little to say about your reflections on Blair, though I find them interesting. I am not close enough to what goes on to make that kind of judgment. I see his actions as despicable because he did so much harm, not only for no gain, but he also caused irreparable damage in many areas. And from what one hears, he did it against the advice of those who understood the situation better. I don’t think that religious conviction is a good excuse for damaging (and ending) so many people's lives and for undermining civil liberties.

It is interesting that he has now taken on the job of Middle East envoy. My wife thinks he has taken it from vanity, from an addiction to the feeling of importance. I, on the other hand, wonder whether he has, at some level, realized what he has done and is taking it on as a penance.

Most likely, he is so vain and stupid that he thinks his naïve enthusiasm can make a difference.

[Jock]

Interesting debate. However the question that always exercises me is how to achieve change without first engaging fully with the current system, to the extent of seeking power on a mandate for change. It seems to me that, short of popular revolution, which most likely must be facilitated by the rise of some kind of visionary demagogue anyway, the only way to change is through working from the inside. Commentators, the fourth estate, can only do so much - like Hayek through Thatcher, they've still got to find a political sponsor with the potential to win, and win big.

[Paulus]

Dear Jock
Good to hear from you. I hope that you have followed the link to Common Sense’s Blog where this discussion continues.

You are right that achieving change will eventually, require engagement. Because of my advanced age, that is not – for me – a real option. So I don’t have the unenviable task of choosing between the present political parties, none of which I find satisfactory.

However, I feel that I do have something to say and I hope to get heard. Specifically, I find that none of the suggested systems of proportional representation which are currently on offer are satisfactory. Their big weakness is that they confer even more power to political parties. I am at present working on an alternative suggestion which would return power to elected members of parliament. It would make them more responsible to their electors and less dependent on their party machines.

As for implementation, again you are right. There must be people working from the inside. But it is hard to see how they can avoid being swept away from their objectives by the realities of our present electoral system.
So an alternative/additional strategy is this:
• Focus attention on the weaknesses in the system
• Highlight its stupidities and venalities
• Jump on board the only popular trend that could help – the falling electoral turnout – by organising a movement of voter strikes
This would deprive government of legitimacy and force a rethink.
But in order for this to work a viable alternative voting system must exist and its advantages must be both understandable and popular.