The previous post Global Decline treated the level
of politics in the meaning of how maturely politics is carried out in the rule
of countries during modernities. In the present post I will look into the content
of political thought. The figure shows this distinction and illustrates the
different paths of development of the two concepts.
Politics can be defined in several ways. In a broad sense
politics concerns the relation between groups of people like estates or classes
and the tactics, strategies and ideas involved in handling these relations.
This no matter if the relations are harmonious or characterized by conflicts. Understood
in this way humanity has always had politics, both in and outside
civilizations. In most of world history politics in this sense has concerned
the question of power. Which group and which individual rules who. This is also
the case for the greatest part of the history of civilisations despite their
more advanced thinking.
In a more strict meaning politics is about political ideas
or ideologies. Realistic or utopian ideas about the best way to organize and
rule societies. In this sense politics is something primarily characterising civilizations’
modernities. This type of politics is not primarily about power. Even though as
illustrated in Animal Farm we have very often seen that it degenerates because
of the wishes for power by a person or a group, the ideas remain dominant.
Thus before modernity the question of power dominates
politics. The upheavals in the 17th century e.g. the English
Revolutions and the Fronde in France, were about the distribution of power
between king, nobility and gentry. But from the American and French Revolutions
which mark the beginning of our modernity, ideas about society and distribution
of wealth became decisive.
This lasts until a time around eight decades before the
end of modernity. From then the question of ideas is gradually again replaced
by the question of power. This happens through a process of political simplification
and polarization, something which we are experiencing now. In the end, after
modernities people and historians will be unable to understand the content and the
extent of politics based on ideas. They will typically interpret their own and other
past modernities as having been competition for personal power. In our
civilization we will reach this level of lack of understanding around 2200, i.e.
one century after the end of our modernity.
As illustrated in the figure above, politics based on
ideas and the public interest in them remain at a constant high level throughout
most of a modernity. Clearly this level is not the same as the degree of
maturity with which these ideas are implemented. But as we will see below, during
their decline in the end of a modernity the two developments converge.
Examples of such ideas or ideologies range from Rousseau’s
Du Contrat Social over different varieties of Liberalism, capitalism, Marxism
or Socialism to Fascism. But also the political programs of political parties
are examples. Such ideologies or clusters of ideas are what the French
philosopher Lyotard called Grand Narratives. As pointed out by him and others,
these ideologies are loosing their attraction in the present late or “post”
modern era.
This process may be seen in the following way:
An ideology consists of a number of opinions about past,
present and desirable future conditions and means to realize the latter. Viewed
in a schematic manner these opinions represent different dimensions, where each
opinion is somewhere on an axis. Abortion or the desire for money can be seen
as good or bad or somewhere between these poles. The entire ideology consists
of a more or less complicated structure of such dimensions held together by a narrative
which explains and justifies them. Many political parties have identified
themselves with specific versions of ideologies. The individuals in a society also
have their own set of opinions or dimensions on different topics. Their degree
of adherence to a certain ideology or political party is based on the degree of
overlap between their opinions with those of the ideology or party.
Of course all this is pretty banal. It becomes more
interesting when put in a historical context. In contrast to the complicated
picture of ideologies in modernities, the political opinions before the Age of
Enlightenment were relatively simple and mostly concerned to which person or
group power should belong. Then came two centuries dominated by true ideologies.
Now nearing the end of our modernity we see certain trends simplifying and
ultimately dissolving the complicated political thinking based on ideas or ideologies.
There are several reasons behind the political simplifications.
One cause is probably that as with old fashions people get tired of old ideas.
Another is that through development the societies and hence the thinking about
them become increasingly complex. Many people including politicians find this
difficult to grasp no matter the intellectual hyper-reflexivity postulated by Giddens.
This is even more the case for non-intellectuals. It may lead to the political
indifference postulated by thinkers like Lyotard. But what is worse, there is
also another reaction; the well-known wish for simple solutions.
Applied to the mentioned dimensions of political opinion the
simplifications can be summarized as five trends:
1] The number of political questions or dimensions
regarded as important is reduced to a few. Then a political world view can easily
be remembered and formulated as a handful of slogans.
2] More and more often people place their opinion concerning
each of the dimensions at one of the extreme poles. The nuances between them
are lost. You are either pro-choice or pro-life.
3] The dimensions tend to collapse i.e. become tied
together. If you mean one thing on a certain topic, then your meaning on other
topics is given. You loose more nuances in this way as opinions become rigidly
locked together. If you are pro-life you are also pro-gun and anti-Obama-care.
4] Often one of the dimensions become dominant and all-decisive,
and thereby it determines the rest of the group of interlocked opinion-dimensions.
For Evangelicals abortion has often been the dominant dimension leading to other
opinions and to a vote for Donald Trump despite his obvious sins.
Clearly trends 2], 3] and 4] together come close to being a
definition of extreme political polarization, and all four can be seen in
present politics in many countries.
When we make historical comparisons with previous civilizations
or we simply extrapolate a fifth trend becomes clear:
5] Increasingly the dominant dimension will be the question
of who is the leader; who shall rule the country? The person who should is then
seen as only good and without faults. The person at the other pole of this dimension,
the one who should not rule is viewed as utterly evil. Donald Trump is a good
example of this personalization of politics. But the trend is a general
phenomenon as can be seen in many populist and autocratic rulers around the World.
Voters, parties and demagogues mutually reinforce the five
trends. Typically parties start exploiting and
thereby amplify the simplifications which are spreading in the
population. Then politicians begin to believe their own lies. Demagogues start
to exploit both voters and parties. In our modernity where the elites mentally are
now approaching the level of the population, even intelligent and cultivated
people and media are affected by polarization.
Political parties fall into their own trap. Even though
the parties themselves initially may not be that polarized, they use polarizations
of the electorate to gain votes by making the divisions more extreme, placing
themselves and the opponents at the opposite extreme poles of the dimensions. Thereby
the parties demonize each other. Now it is difficult to retreat from their own
rhetoric if they want to keep their new voters satisfied. And sooner or later
simple cognitive mechanisms make the politicians of the parties identify with
their simplifying and polarizing rhetoric. Thus what was initially tricks to fool
voters have become reel characteristics of the parties.
Denmark is right now carrying out an interesting
experiment. Especially since the beginning of the Corona-pandemic this country was
well underway to American conditions. The political parties had made many
voters believe that their opponents were wholly bad. Social media were filled
with outright hatred. But the parties had not yet become fully identified with their
rhetoric. Now after the recent elections they have showed incredible courage by
forming a coalition government consisting of both sides of the division. It
will be interesting to follow whether this will also reverse the polarization of
the electorate or the feelings of betrayal will cost so many voters that the
experiment will fail.
Another trap is if parties rely on a populist demagogue as
a tool to gain voters. They risk that the tool reduces the party to become his
or her own tool.
Presently, political opinions are still of great
importance. It is also a fact that throughout modernity persons often have been
important in politics. But over the next decades the question of who is the
leader will become all- dominant. This dimension will tower far above the more
political dimensions. These will continue to matter, but mean less and less. As
these lower ranking dimensions of opinion are tied to the dominant dimension of
the leader, this person can change policies anytime. Then we can no longer talk
about political parties. In the end, probably shortly after 2100 politics will have
lost most ideas and ideologies and will only concern power of persons and
groups of persons.
Then modernity will be over.
As said, the ideological content of politics described
here is something else than the level of political maturity treated in my last
post. But in their decline the two developments run in parallel and reinforce
each other. Or put another way: the same developments undermine both the ideas
and their implementation. The Greco-Roman (ca. 330-30 BC) and our own modernity
have a simultaneous decline in the ideological content of politics and political
maturity. Both the simplifications, the polarization and the increasing role of
persons are points of overlap. We have a dangerous mix where politics is
carried out in an irresponsible manner which is without ideals and tries to
reduce the complexities of World, society and politics to a few simple dichotomies.
Wise strategies are replaced by opportunistic acts by the dominant leaders who
alone decide. Complex societies cannot be administered in such a way. And this even
less if one half of the population values the opposite extremes of the
dichotomies.
As said, after the end of a modernity people and
historians will increasingly wonder what all the fuzz and the conflicts in the
three centuries were about. Like in a historical novel it will be reinterpreted
as having had to do only with hate and love. Political parties will be
understood as factions only fighting for dominance, heir leaders only aspiring
personal power. But exactly this is what political parties and political groups
and their leaders will have developed into. Several political parties in the World,
not least the US Republicans are already moving in this direction.
Like in the previous post we may ask if the depletion of
politics is unavoidable? The experiences from the Greco-Roman and the Oriental civilization
seem to suggest that this is the case. But again the Song Dynasty (960-1279) in
the second Chinese modernity gives hope. As we saw, this modernity did not move
only up and then continuously down in politically maturity, but rather both up
and down and up again. And when we look at the content of politics,
polarization and personal power did indeed matter, but ideas continued to be
immensely important to the end, not least in the form of the Neo-Confucian
party. Thus in principle the present depletion of politics can be stopped. But
this will demand responsible and courageous political elites in the leading
parties.
