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.
