Politics as a game of thrones
Credit to Author: ANTONIO CONTRERAS| Date: Wed, 03 Apr 2019 20:33:22 +0000
IT takes one noble gesture for someone to leave the comforts of living a private life and ascend into the tumultuous world of public service. The pressure to be perfect is such a burden, more so as a politician is expected to mediate and navigate a highly contentious and imperfect world.
It is simply mind-boggling how we can expect the honest, dignified, principled and upright to ever survive unscathed not necessarily by corruption but even just by compromise. After all, politics is simply about mediating conflicts and taking action to ensure that the political community will remain standing despite divergent opinions, and that the ship of state will sail through turbulent waters whipped by winds coming from different directions.
Many people think that virtuous leaders are the best suited to lead the journey. This is what most political theorists have offered as a template. Yet, when we actually reflect on the darkest periods in human history, the ship of state was stabilized not by honest leaders, but by leaders who are not afraid to enter into compromises if only to attain the greatest good for the greatest number. Much as it is hard to admit, it seems that in order to lead, one has to be willing to take up highly contentious means if only to achieve the end of serving the greater good. Machiavelli is such a maligned name, but hateful as his politics may have been, his type of princes were the ones who actually made a difference during difficult times.
This reality is captured vividly in the popular HBO series “Game of Thrones” where there is a short supply of characters that can be imaged as Aristotelian or a disciple of Plato or St. Augustine. Not even Jon Snow, who had to execute even a child just to show how it is to be a just leader. Daenerys kept unleashing her dragons on anyone who threatens not only her loved ones but also anyone who threatens her throne. Even the passive-aggressive Sansa Stark, a woman who can be characterized as the one truly possessing quiet courage, officiated the execution of Little Finger by masterfully manipulating her sister Arya to do the work for her, and of Lord Bolton by feeding him to his own bloodhounds.
This is the image of politics at its most real. It is not the world just of evil women like Cersei Lannister or of the Whitewalkers, but also of people who appear virtuous but are in fact capable of using ruthless and evil means to maintain the balance of power. Perhaps the only good souls who led lives of virtue in the series were Ned and Caitlyn Stark, and this is precisely the reason why they both ended up dead. Cersei perfectly captured the representation of politics as a game of thrones when she described it as one where you either win or die. Death in politics can come in many forms other than physical. It could mean defeat, failure to govern, or leaving a legacy of a ship of state gone astray. Leaders with an overdose of goodness, unwilling to dirty their hands and play the game, only succeed in fiction, and not in reality.
A psychologist friend once told me that there are some jobs that require an attribute that by itself we label as flaws. To be an effective soldier or policeman, one needs to have the ruthlessness that would be needed to kill. It is here that we have to admit that in order to be a good politician, one needs to possess the attributes that would be required to mediate conflicts. While fairness is one attribute, it is also equally important to be ruthless when needed. There should also be a willingness to enter into a compromise. Forging a compromise necessarily entails occasional concessions and the readiness to sacrifice even something that is most treasured. Part of the requisite for an effective compromise is to be able to contain its adverse fall-out, even if it means concealing the truth from those whose interests were sacrificed. These are the tough calls that political leaders have to make.
And yet here we are, deluding ourselves that politics only deserves the most upright and honest. We continue to look for the most perfect human specimens – the most honest, upright, principled and God-fearing person – to populate our political illusions. Consequently, we expect them to be incorruptible and uncompromising, even as we thrust them into a world where the naively good will be devoured.
And worse, we expect our leaders to be what Plato wanted them to be – to live simply and without wealth and property—that we insist that they take the vow of poverty. We ask them to divest their wealth, impose on them a rule that they cannot have other sources of income while in office, even as we pay them with uncompetitive salaries. We require them to be transparent, by filing their statements of assets and liabilities. We demand of them that they distance themselves from friends and family lest they be accused of corruption.
If there is anything proven by these safeguards to prevent our politicians from being compromised and corrupted, it is to admit that virtue has to be forced into the world of politics. But doing so often undermines competence.
However, incompetence is not a ground for termination. For moralists, lack of capacity is less a problem compared to the possession of virtue among political leaders. They look for saints and heroes. They celebrate the template that produced a saintly Cory Aquino, and we ended up with her mediocre son.
We look for saints and heroes, when what we should be electing are leaders. People become saints and heroes when they are already dead. What we need are leaders for the living.
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