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Political Animals Evolving
March 11th, 2008
Sometimes I wonder if becoming satisfied with politics itself would do more to alleviate human suffering than the political ends we struggle to attain. Perhaps more pain is experienced in the political process than benefit gained from it. It is not only that so many reforms promise so little progress in tackling the kind of global issues which constitute sustained and genuine threats to civilization. Rather most of us who care about the world and the fate of our nation have learned to harbor a constant anxiety regarding the future. There is a deep and abiding pressure in many of us to cleave to a position and advocate for it even when we know little about that issue, even we have completely disengaged ourselves from the political process itself. We argue with our friends, with our families, with ourselves. It is as if we feel morally obligated to partisanship - a bit strange, but decent in its own way
Aristotle held that humans are a political animal, whose common reason and social coordination are essential to our deepest being. His notion was lofty. People must reason together to determine their fate and grow to their fullest. By laying out our positions we give shape to ourselves while recognizing our relationship to others. Yet, if humans are a political animal - and I believe we are - then to avoid politics is not merely to avoid its inevitable frustrations and disappointments. Rather, to avoid politics is to avoid our full humanity - the ultimate disappointment.
Yet, few of us want to engage in the battlefield we call politics. For if war is hell and politics a battle, then politics is a sort of hell - a truth confirmed by all too much which burns around us. So, if we are political animals, forever cursed to construct our worlds with neighbors, then by making of politics a hell on earth, we generate that hell when we seek to be human. For once we begin to discover our selves - in concert with others and linked to the causes and concerns of our time - we are set at once against our fellows. Then, politics becomes a sphere of alienation - from our brethren, from our world, but worst of all within ourselves - a pity, when politics could be so much more.
Of course, only pieces of war are really hell and parts of politics a battle. Let us not exaggerate in metaphor. People do learn and grow through their participation in the political process. There are the leaders like Carter, Mandela, Kissinger, Havel, and McNamara who seem to me to have grown wise through their participation. Sometimes that wisdom has come through spending their lives doing good, sometimes through error, and sometimes by simply watching the world with careful discernment. And there are lessons for us all in our political participation: how to listen and reason and find our voice; how to know the ways of humanity and the potential for change; and how to decipher our worlds and carefully craft a future with others. Through politics we find ourselves in common cause and must comprehend the minds of foes. Politics can still be expansive, but we must find a way do it differently.
The great problem of our age lies in forging a politics of higher aspiration. For through such aspirations we might lean toward the attainment of great deeds and find ourselves as we discover our common ground. How can we work together to bridge our divides and construct a path to the resolution of all our world’s most vexing woes - climate change, nuclear terror, overpopulation, poverty? The list could go on; it is as long as the time we have taken in agreeing upon it. The methods we apply and the pathways we take are perhaps as obscured today as the thousand ties which bind us together. Yet, in failing to forge the former we sacrifice the latter.
So, what will it take for political participation to provide for our development as individuals? Is it even possible to grow and learn through political participation today? And if so, how can we do it?
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