Politics, and its art
In the United States, an actor who plays the part of a district attorney on a popular television series has just decided to seek the Republican Party’s candidacy for president. Fred Thompson of «Law and Order» (who, to be fair, has been a lawyer and a senator in real life) gave some joy to party supporters who fear that other candidates, including Rudolph Giuliani, may not be conservative enough. Giuliani, meanwhile, became famous as a district attorney and then mayor of New York because of his take-no-prisoners attitude to fighting crime – an attitude popularized greatly by the legendary Clint Eastwood in his «Dirty Harry» film series. The libertarian-conservative Eastwood himself was elected mayor of the town of Carmel in California in 1986 before abandoning politics and going on to direct masterpieces. The governor of California today is Arnold Schwarzenegger, an Austrian-born former body builder who, like Eastwood, often played the part of the merciless crime-fighter. Topping them all is Ronald Reagan, the second-rate actor but active union leader who became governor of California and later president of the United States for two terms. Reagan is the paradigm of this osmosis between politics and spectacle – the measure by which we judge this relationship. The great essayist, novelist and most incisive political observer and (therefore) failed politician Gore Vidal described Reagan as the puppet of those who truly run America. But what does this suggest? That an unseen few forge policy while others – their straw men, their salesmen – sell this policy to the public? Obviously, many politicians (and not just former actors) serve the interests of the individuals or groups that helped to get them elected and so do not base their decisions on the freedom and impartiality that voters would like to see. But the election of people with a ready-made public persona and sometimes little else in terms of talent or experience is probably more the proof that society has been changed radically by the dominance of the image in our age of mass media. Politics were born with oratory, with men’s ability to persuade others as to the wisdom or folly of a course of action. This severe art was one of the crowning achievements of ancient Greek civilization and its importance was quickly seized upon by the ever practical Romans, who understood that great oratory was the winged chariot on which one could rise to a distinguished political career. Whoever has read the ancient Greek and Roman orators, or has had the good fortune to hear or read a speech of one from our own time (even if only in a documentary, including words by Winston Churchill) can appreciate the intense theatricality of the art of rhetoric. In our time, a politician’s image, a clever phrase (aptly named a sound bite) is the orator’s new language. Therefore, whoever has ready an «electable» image – such as that of a hardened crime-fighter, a human rights activist or an environmental crusader – is several steps ahead of other candidates who must mimic or adapt an image that has already captured the public’s imagination. We see this all over the world. But, in all cases, the difficulties start after the election, when the politician must face up to reality and meet the expectations of citizens. That is when the success of getting elected has to translate into success in wielding power. Last Thursday, in the televised debate of six Greek party leaders, we saw what happens when the protagonists are confined to a sterile environment, to a ritual that crushes all spontaneity, when all are equally «recognizable» and – more, or less – equally experienced in the art of public discourse. It was a moment designed to show politics without the artifice. And so we saw how lacking in all skills our politicians are, how unable to present a winning idea that will gain support or turn a phrase that will skewer their opponent. Their full range was between two adjacent points: self-pity and the self-righteous condemnation of everyone else. Equally lacking was the political proposal that will inspire, will win citizens to the fight that the country must wage to secure its future in a hugely changing world. The overriding sensation was that we are all trapped in a diabolical serial that plays forever, without change, without end, without anyone going on to greater things.
