David Schuman's
"Politics As Evil People"
(from Preface to Politics)

About Being A Person in a World with Other People

There are, I believe, a number of essential questions we each have to ask ourselves in order to even begin to sort out who we are and why we do what we do. Most often, for most of us, we assume answers without knowing the questions, propose solutions without understanding the problems, and take actions without thinking about the consequences. We believe and act on myths: the American Dream, Christian ethics....For us, these are valid. Unexplored, but valid. We obey. A principle is a principle--do it and like it, maybe even love it, but always without knowing exactly why it is being done.

What I want to argue is that, basically, we live in a society that thrives on its citizens' self-ignorance. ...Our political system runs best in an atmosphere of one person's inability to know and relate to other people. In essence, we live in isolation, according to others' rules. We might be what we are taught, or we may be as we were trained. Either way, we are what others want us to be--and that seldom includes much self-knowledge....

For a moment, let me argue that, indeed, we are all much alike. Further that the sameness is nothing new, but simply the natural result of our political ideology. To cut away our past, to be blind to things that have gone before, is an almost sure method of being trapped in a world that is impossible to understand. The question, now, has to do with being an individual.

An obvious place to begin talking about a person is in terms of the roles he or she plays. A person may be what that role is. To try to understand that role is to try to understand parts of the core of our culture. To begin to understand who we are, we must examine the role our government wants us to play in relationship to it. It seems obvious, then, that any truly helpful self-knowledge must incorporate an understanding of how our government wants us to act and what kinds of rules it wants us to follow.

We are taught to ignore this. The "political" process is something that is abstract and vague, something that others are involved in. It is, for some reason, dirty. So we do not involve ourselves in any kind of active relationship with the government nor do we pay much attention to the dues we are made to pay. Instead, we involve ourselves in individualism, never thinking about what that might mean.

For reasons of sanity, we all seem to argue that we are individuals. Indeed, being an individual is very important. We are unique. We think our thoughts, we do our thing. We are what we are and can be no one else. But that may well be a static, potentially suicidal approach to being one's self. Deep down inside, if we ever bother to go there, is probably the fear that we are not terribly unique. We are not different. Our thing is their thing, and we are they.

This state is built on the sameness of people who do not know themselves. Read James Madison and marvel; read James Madison and ask: Are we as evil as he believes; as incompetent as he thinks? Ask what it means to act as if he were right.

As Americans, we all know that people cannot really have freedom unless they are individuals. To think otherwise is to be some kind of fool, or worse. Ours is a culture of a people wronged who go out and kill the villain. Can't count on the cops or anyone else. The hero or heroine is not only good, but also alone. The hero has the freedom to go anywhere but to stay nowhere. America is flooded with Walden Ponds. We each want--and often grow to need--our own shack by a pitiful pond that is within walking distance of town. We must, after all, remind people that we are individuals, lest they forget.

Neither the image nor the meaning needs much elaboration. To be an individual is to be free, and to be free is to be free from things. This is neither new nor startling. It is, if you will excuse the term, a fact. Our freedom is freedom from. We often take our identities from the groups we are in, and then refuse to participate in those groups. We are in, but not of; we are defined by those very institutions and people we refuse to acknowledge. We seem to be free from dirtying our hands, but not free to cleanse ourselves.

To repeat, to be an individual is to be free, and that freedom is negative. It is the freedom of the freeway. People kill themselves by jumping off mountains with wings tied on...but they do it themselves. Ours is an alone freedom.

But things are much more complex than that. Much more complex than beginning to understand the relationship between the State and the individual and freedom. It is more complicated than saying that our concept of freedom may lead to a kind of political impotence.

There is another powerful myth that is important to mention. We are the great leveling country. Read Walt Whitman. We are the land of the common person. Noble, proud, practical and common. More than that, we have a government that can be run by anyone. It was carefully planned to run rationally, according to principles that assumed each human element was replaceable and interchangeable. It demands that, while we may think of ourselves as individuals, we must fear being different. Further, we must fear those who appear different.

So we elect people who are common, or some close approximation. Somehow we feel safe that way. To elect common people to stereotyped roles in an impersonal political system reminds us of something like democracy, and has something to do with equality, and makes us feel a little safer from corrupt politicians. The idea is simple: We trust our government to those common, and continue to think of ourselves as uncommon.

And that is the whole point, isn't it?

There is, of course, no particular reason why you should accept what I have written. It is vague and abstract and not flattering at all. For the rest of this chapter, I shall try to show why I argued as I did. Let me begin at the beginning, with James Madion's Federalist No. 10. A background on the paper seems in order.

James Madison attended the Constitutional Convention. For a number of reasons, he stands out. It is Madison who informs us of that convention; he kept an informed and intelligent diary of the convention debates. More importantly, along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, he wrote a series of papers defending the Constitution for the citizens of New York State. The papers--The Federalist Papers--are brilliant propaganda which do much to explain the Constitution. The following is Federalist No. 10, in which Madison writes about our citizen's relationships with each other, what they should be and how they should be handled.

Two suggestions: Read it at lest twice--one for what it says and again for what it doesn't say. Omission is important (if one knows just what to look for).

access: Federalist No. 10

In many important ways, Federalist No. 10 gives away most of the plot, a plot we have accepted almost unknowingly. As it seems to have worked out, we, bright and brave college students; we, bright and brave future businessmen and women; we, Americans, really do not like or trust each other very much. At least we are not supposed to. We do not relate to each other well enough to make mutual decisions. Federalist No. 10 is the story of mistrust. Madison speaks of the rabbleness, of the potential evil doings of public meetings and democratic practices. He poses the essential question:

How can we trust government to the people when we have no faith in them?

People, self-serving, self-centered , selfish people, are the raw material for our state. We are encouraged to be a provate, materialistic people. We are essentially an uncommunitarian, anti-political people who may act differently in spite of--certainly not at the urging of--the state. Harsh words, these. Let me try to explain.

Madison knew something that we must learn. He knew there was a close connection between how people relate to one another and the structure in which that relationship takes place. It is important to understand Madison's argument in different terms.

If the problem is how to create a system that will continue regardless of the basic inability of citizens to rule themselves, the answer is deceivingly simple. Structure the system so that its citizens will become mired in a self-grabbing, self-gratifying way of life. Make it so that petty people, materialistic people, will be allowed, whether acting singly or in small groups, to go about the task of robbing the poor, robbing the rich, robbing the consumer, or even building a better mousetrap. Madison, in all his political wisdom, worked it out so that we could pursue our own private, material interests. The plan was not a stupid one; for certain, it has had lasting effects.

Have you ever seen a fairly large group of children "playing" on a playground? There are balls and bats and fields and courts and sandboxes and toys. Here, these young citizens of the future grab and kick and cry and fight over the toys or games they are to play. Sometimes groups form and play their own game--are able to play their own game--but sometimes they just make nasty remarks to other groups. The critical element in the playground is that the whole hassle is pretty harmless. The children are being looked after, taken care of, and ultimately directed by adults. Theirs is a choice of what to do in the sandbox. If Madison is correct, that is good training for the system, good practive for the future.

The point is obvious: Do we make decisions of any more importance than the toys we are going to play with? Houses, cars, boats, big motorcycles, little pills--what difference does it make? Face it, we are playing by their rules on their playground. The strategy of Federalist No. 10 is to divide and make politically impotent; it does and we are.

The idea of a political state built on the evilness--and, hopefully, the powerlessness--of its people sounds pretty silly. It should. Regrettably, to consider what students are taught about the system is to consider just such thoughts. The following questions are quoted from a very reputable textbook:

1. "How is it possible to maintain a real equality of influence and power over government?" (In other words, won't a minority of people gain power?) 2. "If everyone is to have an equal says, how can the decisions of government be made with sufficient knowledge and expertness?" (How can we expect "ordinary citizens" to understand?) 3. "How can a popular government act vigorously, speedily, and decisively, particularly in crises?" (Citizens are just too slow.) 4. "How can a system of popular government ever cope with ...larger groups...tyrannizing smaller groups?" (We count on the worst in people coming out.) 5. "Can a system really operate with the consent of all?" These are not abstract questions but live issues....In one way or another every popular government must surmount these problems....

There is no doubt that these are hard questions. While not exactly in the same class as "Have you stopped beating your wife?", they are close. At the root of these questions lies an unarticulated, seemingly reasonable bias: How do we form a popular government in spite of the weaknesses of people? Look at these five basic questions and at what they assume about you: that, among other things, you are probably not able to understand the complexities of government; that you will probably get more power than others if you are able; and, finally, that if you have the power, you will tyrannize others.

The beauty of it all is that we have been taught that we are not like that--but that they are. The self-protective mechanism is simple: "If others were only as good as I, then I could begin to act as kindly and generously and good as I really am." Score another one for Madison.

Maybe that is being too harsh, maybe we do have faith. Faith in a few, at least. There is another text, another book about American politics, which does add some fun to texts. It is The Irony of Democracy and irony of Irony is that it is elitist. Simply stated, there is a faith in the people--but only in some of them.....


Impersonal Versus Material Me

Student of Politics, the world is complex if we are to accept the "irony". The masses, the most of us, are potentially dangerous. We are full of violence and prejudice and had better not be trusted with deciding things for ourselves. Our virtue is our inactiveness. We are act-less, therefore we are. But the analysis is more complicated. The elites are not to be trusted, either. This vision of politics--the Madisonian one--reminds us over and over again that government is a necessary evil. It is necessary, in part, because of our own evilness.

Because we have no faith in ourselves, we must place our faith somewhere else. Usually it is in those things we can see. Cars, clothes, boats, buildings--each a measure of wealth, each a measure of our own worth. Because we become isolated personally, we begin to relate impersonally. We relate in terms of things: first in terms of how many things there are, next in terms of how expensive we think those things may be. If we are all evil and materially consuming, it is only natural that we put our values into making, advertising, buying, and comparing material objects.

Henry Ford knew that, and so did Dale Carneigie. Build a whole lot of things--in masses--and sell them with a smile. We are what we own, or what we are making payments on.

This means, in large measure, that we must protect what we have. We must fully understand privateness, and especially the concept of private property. If we are in a measure defined by our property, then that property must be ours. I own things, and you own things, and the state owns things. What we are denied is joint ownership. What we seemingly cannot do is control those things we "the people" own in common....

In may ways, we are much like our parents. Maybe there are style differences: drugs, dress, and the like; but, the basics are similar. We know we must train ourselves to be private, to get ahead, if we are to fit into this land of the free. So, we go to college to learn a trade, to become a professional, to prepare to be rich. Education for increased earnings. Education in how to live a life geared to privacy. We must learn to listen and follow directions well. We must produce when told.

The structure of college is the structure of society, and the ends are the same. We go from class to class, learning truths contradicted by truths. We write our exams and our own papers. Those who can best compartmentalize truth, who can learn most of what they are told, and who can do so alone get prizes. To excel is to be super average. To excel is to be rewarded materially.

That is like the state and our parents. We all agree on ends and on how they are to be judged and rewarded. We understand--at a subtle, sophisticated, gut level--why the state protects its property. Our institutions and our ideology are geared to similar principles. In important ways, we agree with what is. We agree to mistrust ourselves with our own ruling, we agree to judge ourselves, in large part, in terms of what we buy and we agree on the basic rules of materialism, "capitalism", corporate wealth, and the like. James Madison would be proud.

Some problems are obvious. Because we mistrust others we have lost control of all those things we might have in common. Every issue, every topic, every decision which might include all of us, is denied most of us because we have so little faith in the ability of people to make political decisions. Let us review what the Federalists, as exemplified by Madison, believed:

1. People could not be trusted to rule themselves. Indeed, the only thing worse than a few people trying to rule themselves was many people trying to rule themselves.

2. The morality of the system was in almost no sense public. Morality was a private thing, a commodity of the individual based on self-interest.

3. Citizenship was based upon an individual's remaining private. The system depended upon materialism, self-seekingness, and self-interestedness, and the citizen became trapped in this self-view.

4. The system was created by people of the Enlightenment who believed that if only the right (read rational) set of institutions were discovered, then the system could run indefinitely, in spite of people.


But Me?

Built into what the America of Madison means is that each of us acts in certain kinds of ways. We are, in truth, often threatened folks. It is, after all, a way to relate to the world we've come to know--and I mean this--to love....

The world, for an uncomfortably large number of people, is a threatening place. Think of a day in college: grades, money, popularity, professionalism, sex, roommates, etc., to better see the fear.

School is spring training for life.

Why are you in school? Just what are your motives? In an amazingly optimistic way, let's start our list with something nice. It is possible that people go to college to gain wisdom. Or (less grand and noble) we fear ignorance; or (more accurately probably) we don't want to appear stupid. That, of course, is the top of our list--the most impressive of our motives.

Why the hell are you in school? For future money? Maybe. For a wife or a husband with a college degree? Maybe. 'Cause your friends or parents silently (or not so silently) demanded it? Could be. Just a terrific set of reasons. But they are, in the end, not the most important or interesting topics. What counts--at least two things which count--are what you see and what you do.

We know, as one of those "facts", that college or university can put you through changes. Personal changes, value changes, social changes, which you will probably like, and which are for the good. It has been known to happen before. There is even a kind of secret history of people who have gotten wiser and better and who started the process in school. In spite of a whole lot of mindless effort and action, learning can and does go on. It is a learning that has to do with serious and important questions.

But two things seem to get in the way: students and teachers.

We are painfully aware that there is a very good chance that any class you walk into will be fairly shallow, uninteresting, and destructive to your good mood and desire to learn. After all, the university is peopled by those who have, in a strange way, done the very best in the most ordinary way.

More precisely, if we learn from example, it is important to remember that people in the university are often malignant forms of what is normal and ordinary. That a person made good grades and got high scores on standardized tests means nothing more than this: a person made good grades and got high scores on standardized tests.

There are an amazing number of other reasons why teachers aren't good at teaching, but what I wanted to say was they are mostly just normal--malignantly normal.

Students aren't much better, in some cases. What has always been most curious to me are those who know what's wrong; who know their compulsions, and who are so "sophisticated" they laugh at themselves.

We annoounce our anxieties about grades or money or whatever--we then explain why the anxieties are silly and talk about how we are "stuck" with them. After this formal announcement we then go about being anxious, unhappy, unpleasant, or the like.

That kind of self-analysis doesn't really do much good. In fact, it is often little more than a self-delusion which we "smart" people do. It works in a wonderful way: as we make fun of ourselves in sophisticated ways (but still act out those myths we are supposed to act out) we just make fools of ourselves. We're simply much less witty and insightful than we think we are.

So we all walk around threatened by one thing or another. We are forced to miss many things--like an education in college--because we fear either looking for the truth or looking at ourselves. Every time we step back, or turn our head, or close our eyes to those things, we have only ourselves to blame.

Being threatened is another way of saying we are afraid, and that is another way of acknowledging the force of the system in which we live. If we can go to school and be scared enough to avoid being educated, what chance do we have when we go outside of college and try to do good?

If you're scared now, you're on your way to becoming a dynamite citizen.


Politics

But we must understand more than what the Founding Fathers wrote. We must go beyond their words and even our own actions. We must begin to get at what was not said. We must try to figure out what the world of James Madison lacked.

What Madison excluded, what he feared and so eloquently attacked, was politics. Those things shared, the things we have in common, to him were not best served institutionally. The idea of community is not mentioned--only the idea of "interests". If politics were a science, then there could be a fairly accurate definition of those things political. But regrettably for accuracy, politics seems to be beyond the precision of science, and the impurities of language. The best that can be done at this stage is to discuss a few of the concepts involved in politics.

Politics, to overgeneralize, is the activity by which poeple live together. It is the process of adjusting aims and activities between you and others: the one and the many. Aristotle believed that it was Society's highest form of activity. It was, he thought (and I believe rightly), through citizenship--through people deciding how to act and then acting that way--that an individual could develop his or her capabilities to the fullest. Through this participation, people helped define themselves.

This definition implies much. It is meant to make politics have something to do with morality. What is implied is that politics means taking a stand, being passionate about something, defining what you believe to be right or wrong, good or bad, and then acting on that belief. It is not an easy kind of activity, especially when one is taught to reject just such propositions. But it seems to me that politics involves the inner tension of trying to figure out--and then doing--good in a world where we do not know what good is and where no choices seem clear cut.

Politics, then, is something profoundly human, something with its roots in morality and its sources of action in deeply felt inner tension.

Through political action, the individual becomes responsible. To either destroy or check the power to act is to destroy an individual's capacity to do good. By destroying the personal responsibility for power, one destroys its moral roots. It is precisely this kind of equation that Madison failed to acknowledge. We were denied the possible joys of making joint decisions, yet seem to be responsible for the actions of others. Politics includes the possibility of sharing happiness or unhappiness--but not so the Federalist state.

Finally, there must be some place for politics to take place. Politics needs an arena, a public space. There must be arenas, terms of issues and ideas and even physical space, where citizens can come together and work out courses of action. Space is both psychological and physical. Thus far, our only public space is the ballot box, which is neither public nor really space. There is always the idea of going into the streets, or of sitting in a building, or of bombing monuments. Those are only the choices of how to create space, a problem which is ahead of where we are now. To deny the citizen a public space is to suffocate political activity. That is very close to the precise state of our political life.

But we have a tradition, a view of ourselves that denies us the opportunity to share. Certainly we give something to charity, or buy Girl Scout cookies, or avoid littering. But we do not involve ourselves in those decisions that control our lives. Madison talks about dividing power, pitting it one against the other; he talks about the selfishness of people, pitting them one against the other.

We are structured not for cooperative acts but for private ones; we are given a form of government that calls not for the best in people but only the minimum in them. What we must realize is that we are living a self-fulfilling prophecy: that by founding a government geared to selfishness, we can maintain it only by being selfish. By participating within the structure, we are acting out Madison's belief that we are unworthy.

To repeat, Madison outlines a life alone; a life of technical skills, of savings bonds, and of min-vans which carry our hopes for happiness. A common life without community, a public life without politics and popular decisions without people.

What I am arguing is that our basic view of humanity condemns us to an autistic public life: We are powerless over ourselves. We are mute. We consider ourselves an evil people condemned to a life without trust, without power, without politics.