Full faith in his own powers

How often it happens, that, when a catastrophe occurs, if we inquire into the cause we find it originated through the obstinacy of one with little ability, but having full faith in his own powers.

Victor Hugo - Claude Gueux (1834)

Why does political life attract so many with little ability, but having full faith in his own powers? Plus full faith in her own powers we may as well add. Why so many untalented egoists? It’s an important question we rarely get round to answering in any depth. Perhaps that is because it feels somewhat dismissive like the veiled abuse we refer to as serious political discourse. 

Yet the question remains - why does political life attract so many obvious egoists? We know it attracts them in droves, so why don’t we voters make some practical political use of our knowledge?

Egoism in politics leads to –

A pseudo-moral outlook where a normal moral compass won’t do because other people then have to be treated as moral equals. Can’t have that. The political egoist leans towards an amoral political compass based on the flexibility of political doctrine rather than solid moral mantras such as do as you would be done by and its variants. Normal people feel that do as you would be done by is the fundamental moral deal. They feel a moral obligation to other people in their bones but egoists do not. An egoist’s pseudo-moral outlook leads to –

A pseudo-honest outlook where real life becomes life as the egoist thinks it ought to be. Life as it ought to be is much simpler, much more suited to sound-bites and more satisfying than gritty, problematic reality. In the world as it ought to be, the political egoist has a more central role and reality a lesser, more subservient role. For the political egoist, political doctrines guide reality and honesty simply disappears.

Not that this says anything new, but modern political life allied to the media and celebrity culture seem to have made the problem of political egoism more acute. There is a flippant observation which says - politics is show business for ugly people and when we focus on political egoism we see more than a little truth in it. There is a strong element of dishonest but showy virtue-signalling in political life. A sense that far too many political actors are not only useless at the job they are supposed to do, but actively harmful in how they continue to stroke their own ego amid the failures.

We often see the egoism whenever a political actor is obviously unable or unwilling to grasp simple arguments, ideas and lines of reasoning. When he or she insists on a world as it ought to be instead of the world as it is. Egoism leads to two core problems – a rock-solid inability to see the obvious or a rock-solid unwillingness to see it.

A further problem is caused by political parties because the nature of party leadership can push entire parties towards an essentially egoistic political ethos which in turn attracts more egoistic personalities. The world as it ought to be is so delightfully easy to preach.

We may wonder why political parties tend to be so middle class and so out of touch with the electorate they supposedly serve. We may blame pressure groups, vested interests and the media for the shortcomings of our political parties, but a deeper problem is the people parties attract. They attract, promote and sustain the wrong people who inhabit a world which does not exist. They think it ought to exist and that is enough for them. They also think it should be enough for you.

Political parties frequently seem to mistake egoism for self-confidence, which to some degree it is. Mainstream media like to focus on egoists for good, solid headline generating. Egoists are dramatic, quotable, controversial, amusing and always liable to make headlines as they willingly involve themselves all kinds of controversies and high-profile spats they don’t actually understand.

The glaringly obvious problem is that political egoists don’t care about the electorate, they only care about manipulating the electorate. Once ensconced in a safe seat they don’t even care about that. The only bright spot in all this is that exposure to the internet tends to highlight egoists in a way that newspapers and television never really did because they need them as invaluable headline generators.

Yet who knows? Things may change as mainstream media become less relevant. Maybe we’ll eventually admit that we have a problem with egoists.