Politics as an art, Politics as a science

As the iconic Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies noted, Politics is an art and a science. Not only is it the most influential and powerful field of human affairs, but it has to both directly change and affect reality based on hard facts and science, whilst pleasing the human need for narrative and community.

Since the turn of the 20th century, we've become well aquainted with the critique of seeing politics as a science. The liberal idealists before WW1, fooled by their increasing mastery of nature, attempted to apply the certainty of our knowledge of hard science, to the social science of Politics. The 37 million casualties of WW1 are the graves of the failure of seeing Politics as a problem of science to be analysed, tested and solved. Indeed the entire field of Realism who's writers like E.H.Carr and Hans Morgenthau, made taking down the idea the basis of their writings and career.


But how many graves are we willing to count before we see a revolt against the idea of politics as an art?

That thought has been running through my mind recently, as I watch the statements and actions of Sarah Palin, the US Vice Presidential Nominee for the Republicans who at this moment, is making me long for a third term for G.W.Bush instead of the risk of McCain administration. Take this recent response from Palin, in her very first press interview (only 13 days after actually becoming the nominee) about her decision to join the national ticket:

PALIN:...on January 20, when John McCain and I are sworn in, if we are so privileged to be elected to serve this country, will be ready. I'm ready.

GIBSON: And you didn't say to yourself, "Am I experienced enough? Am I ready? Do I know enough about international affairs? Do I -- will I feel comfortable enough on the national stage to do this?"

PALIN: I didn't hesitate, no.

GIBSON: Didn't that take some hubris?

PALIN: I -- I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can't blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can't blink.

So I didn't blink then even when asked to run as his running mate.

The single most important decision in your life, and one perhaps critical to the future of the country, and she wants to appeal to us by showing she didnt even think about it. Let me repeat, this is not her first reaction, her exposed response, but the considered, media analyst spun prepared answer: and she chose to play up the fact she didn't have to think about the decision.

It's easy to make too much of a single response (who ever wants to say they had second thoughts when called to duy-a word i had expected Palin to drop in-) but its precisely the belief amongst the public that highly attuned individuals who've risen through the political establishment can intiatively feel the needs and wants of the political opinion, that is once again threatening to lead us astray.

In an earlier post I praised the Palin pick politically, but it feels time to put the positive in context. Leaders thinking they know the true whims of the public, the true nature of the societies they lead, from the ways of the market, to the affect of a new policy on the behaviour of the citizens, have usually been regularly disabused of this notion by way of sudden, screeching electoral defeats, painfully handed out by a pissed off public, aware their pocket change is shrinking, their neighbourhoods less secure, and their countries international reputation in decline.

Yet in America today, one struggles to see this usual democratic act in practice. I hasten to add here, that i dont for a moment believe that US citizens have to elect Barack Obama or forfit their title as aware and responsible democratic citizens. There are still many legitimate concerns many rightfully hold that ought to be discussed at length and debated before he is granted the supreme privledge of leading his country.

But this is not the debate America is having. Instead, in celebrating its hail mary pick of Sarah Palin, the McCain camp is now actively pursuing the argument that all that it takes to be a great, or even acceptable President of the United States of America is to have a rural born upbringing, spend most of your life outside Washington, visit church occasionally, and if you could breed a little bit too that would be swell. This apparently is the perfect education for a would be President.

This would all be a swell social experiment, were not the stakes so high (Two land wars in the Middle East/Central Asia, a flatlining economy, a resurgent Russia, India, China, Climte change, a rise in Anti-Americanism,the effective expiration of the post ww2 institutional structure-UN, etc etc) and had we not already tried this 8 years ago with the election of a certain George. W. Bush


As every record out of the Administration, friend of foe has painted, Bush is not a bad or evil man. Simply an uncurious one. A man who has a few key themes (to call them ideas is to give them too much complexity and weight) and feels this is enough to bring order and peace to a confused and chaotic world. We tried that and it failed. To prove my last claim however you need look no further than the Bush Administration, who leads a nation that is technically as unparallelled in power as the one they first took ownership of in 2000, yet the tone and nature of their policy has radically shifted. From claiming the end of history in 2002, to recongising the realities of great power politics in 2006, the Bush Administration has experienced and learnt from its own crash course in trying to see all Politics as an art, and finding the science is unwavering.

The Sarah Palin's of the world, however good intentioned and motivated however have not and will not learn this lesson. Not whilst we let them get away with, indeed actively encourage the public to praise their blind ignorance and unawareness of the facts, details and history.

The 20th centuries writings on International Relations began by taking central aim at the claim Politics could be reduced by a science. Perhaps its time for the 21st century to usher in its own path by returning to critique the other idea, Politics as an art. And to hell any who uses the label elitist, better aware and right than pure and dead I say.

G.W.Bush aimed to remake the youth in a conservative image. He may well end up succeedinging in this aim, if the unparalleled naievity and idealism of his party forces future generations to adopt cynical conservatism/realism simply as a means of survival.