{"id":1131,"date":"2010-10-06T21:28:45","date_gmt":"2010-10-06T19:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filosofille.wordpress.com\/?p=343"},"modified":"2026-05-12T09:13:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T08:13:00","slug":"qa-25-oct-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/qa-25-oct-10\/","title":{"rendered":"QA 25. (Oct 10) How to raise better politicians"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a>The <\/em>Cape Times (Cape Town)<\/em> published an edited version of this as \u201cIf we are cynical about our politicians, we <\/em>will<\/em> get the leaders we deserve\u201d, 1 November 2010<\/em><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Against the horizon of the media tribunal disputes here, I have been thinking about how we chatterers create the conditions for the political leadership we get, and wondering if we couldn\u2019t do it better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politicians must be the last group of people that can be maligned in polite society with impunity, or even relish. A bunch of crooks, fat cats at the trough, only out for themselves, inept, corrupt<\/em>. Right? You hear it on the train, in the coffee shop, at the golf course. You read it in the papers. It\u2019s not uncommon. But it\u2019s a big problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

In fact, it\u2019s misguided on every level. One: it\u2019s bad logic, a flawed thought that assumes what it sets out to prove. Two: it\u2019s toxic to democracy. This kind of cynicism tears down, but builds nothing. It offers us only the tools of suspicion, manipulation and regulation. That\u2019s not freedom. Three: it\u2019s a disservice. A good leader is just someone who hasn\u2019t been caught yet and a great leader can only appear as an exception to the rule \u2013 incomprehensible, miraculous, messianic \u2013 which is neither helpful nor true. Four: it\u2019s nasty. It\u2019s unpleasant, ugly and mean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The very worst thing about this politicophobia is that it promotes more and more corrupt politicians. Any right-minded person would hesitate to enter such a morass. Those in office who sincerely want to work in the public interest are continuously undermined. And those who seek self-enrichment at the public\u2019s expense go merrily about their business, doing just what\u2019s expected of them and thus proving the cynics right. What a hollow victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The alternative is not blind idealism, which is the flip side of the same coin; the most virulent cynics are, after all, broken-hearted and resentful idealists. And it yields the same result \u2013 bad politicians. Idealism is a problem when it closes its eyes, when it can\u2019t accept unpalatable facts, when it insists its beliefs about reality are more real than reality itself. Reality does not take kindly to this, ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We shouldn\u2019t imagine ourselves as standing on the sidelines shouting \u201cyay\u201d and \u201cboo\u201d. There are no sidelines. One way or another, we are all in this field together, and what happens next depends on choices we make now. Like it or not, that\u2019s how it works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then how could we prepare the ground for better politicians? How can we lead our leaders better? Since cynicism and idealism are characterised by wilful blindness, first of all we had better open our eyes. We will need to be clear-sighted and aware of what\u2019s happening. This new vigilance is part of cultivating a new attitude: trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you do not trust people, people will become untrustworthy.\u201d So says the Tao Te Ching<\/em>, and our previous administration demonstrated it very well. At every juncture where they could have consulted people, they didn\u2019t. It\u2019s not surprising that people got unruly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are, I think, three strands to correcting this error. Certainly, the government needs to listen seriously to the people. When we are trusted, we will be trustworthy. Historically, South Africans have shown this time and again. \u201cBeing trustworthy\u201d means showing up, constructively and substantively. This is the second strand: if we are to have a participatory democracy and people-centred and people-driven development, we the people must take our place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third strand is that we have to trust the government. If we don\u2019t, how can the government be trustworthy? If we trust our leaders, they can rise to their position and we can hold them to account with dignity and respect. When we mistrust them, we cultivate corruption and then pile on more layers of regulations and checks and balances to limit it \u2013 which never work anyway. We hobble state power instead of harnessing it for the public and social goods that we so urgently need. This is crazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An outlook of vigilant trust, however, which is neither pessimistic nor optimistic, can also generate what we value in our democratic order. It can call for a free press to keep us informed, to present different opinions, to analyse, to investigate and to expose bad behaviour. It can call for electoral processes that are credible, free and fair. It can call for systems of accountability and transparency in government. These appeals are more supportive and better supported than when they\u2019re made from mistrust and suspicion, or even from a merely technocratic logic of \u201cbest practices\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I won\u2019t deny that power tends to corrupt. But notice that \u201ccorrupt\u201d refers to an original integrity which has become tainted. V\u00e1clav Havel, who also journeyed from dissidence to power, spoke very lucidly about this in a speech<\/a> he gave in 1991. To the extent that we are involved in the political sphere, perhaps it applies to each of us, journalists, citizens, politicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPolitics,\u201d Havel said, \u201cis an area of human endeavour that places greater stress on moral sensitivity, on the ability to reflect critically on oneself, on genuine responsibility, on taste and tact, on the capacity to empathise with others, on a sense of moderation, on humility. It is a job for modest people, for people who cannot be deceived\u2026  I have no idea whether I am such a person. I only know that I ought to be, because I have accepted this office.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Cape Times (Cape Town) published an edited version of this as \u201cIf we are cynical about our politicians, we will get the leaders we deserve\u201d, 1 November 2010 Against the horizon of the media tribunal disputes here, I have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[30,238,239,240,241,242,243,244,245,246,247],"class_list":["post-1131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-everyday-philosophy","tag-cape-times","tag-citizenship","tag-cynicism","tag-idealism","tag-leadership","tag-media","tag-media-tribunal","tag-politicians","tag-politicophobia","tag-trust","tag-vigilant-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2359,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131\/revisions\/2359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}