Why on Earth do we behave as if Politicians are Some Sorts of Demigods?
Maybe you still wonder how on earth could you believe for so long in Santa Claus. But then what about our politicians?!
Why do we keep thinking they are some sorts of goddesses and gods that can solve all our problems?
Yes of course, we don’t really believe in them and we keep complaining about what they do wrong and how bad they are.
And that’s a bit of a paradox here. In a way they are more like Greek Demigods: heroes with super powers and human temper… dominated by their emotions and their egos.
We are expecting politicians to know everything about everything; to be everywhere at the same time; to prioritise all the possible issues that we think are urgent to address; etc.
They are our leaders: they will lead us to Victory like Achilles in front of the walls of Troy. And when they fail, well, it is not their fault, they are after all in the hands of Faith and Destiny.
And if they fail us again than we just turn our back to pray, sacrifice and follow blindly another demigod.
How come we can have so high expectations?
Don’t we remember that they are just humans after all? And not that different from any of us…
Political debates are always an eloquent symptom of that strange mental bias — we ask them to show us how good and knowledgeable they are about everything — and not only content wise but also personality wise:
were they funny and witty when needed?
serious and offended as required?
did they know the latest statistics about unemployment in the capital city among middle-age males and the lyrics of this summer hit song?
And you can see how the smallest mistake can be spin out of proportion: in France back in 1981 there was a funny moment — since then copied ad nauseam — when the president running for his reelection (VGD) grossly misestimated the price of a loaf of bread.
Verdict: disconnected from the real people… and by the way he lost the election (for many other reasons but that was a symbolic blow).
Well — I’m telling you I would not do well at this kind of game either, but no one would care. So why do we care so much with our politicians? Why do we think they should be omniscient?
We try and teach kids that it is normal to make mistake: “You cannot know everything, and you just need to say so: there is nothing wrong in admitting ignorance. No one knows everything, and Socrates knew that he knew nothing. And by the way, that’s the best way to learn.”
So, why then do we expect politicians to know everything — a quality of the omnipotent Gods?…
Well there is one obvious reason behind this strange phenomenon: they want us to believe that they are some sort of political superheroes (Mrs. Super-Double-Talk, Mr. Razor-Sharp-Smile, etc).
They are craving for our trust as they need it to get and remain in power.
So, don’t expect them to try and rectify the truth — they actually need the myth to live on.
But they are just as human as you and me: they make mistakes, they fail, they can be weak and vain. And since their power comes from us they have to hide those weaknesses or turn them into some sort of strength.
Trump is the master-in-chief in disguising everything as a strength (him against fake news, the G7 and winning the midterm elections) and in returning any bad situation as a good wrestler. But many have preceded and will follow him around the world.
Let me put a quote here that brilliantly explain the threat to democracy when we want to believe that our leaders are some sort of demiurge:
Threats from within: democracy’s resilience to backsliding
“What can be done when the instruments of democracy are used to undermine it from within? Threats to democracy from those in power constitute some of the gravest affronts to the global state of democracy today.
These leaders manage to increase their political power by manipulating electoral norms, restricting dissent and freedom of speech, and reforming the constitution to extend their terms in office — all within the legal framework of the democratic system.”
That is what scares me the most with current trends towards more and more pragmatic or illiberal democracies: Fundamentally we want to believe in heroes, we want to believe in the commander-in-chief, the one who knows better.
That is a strong natural bias — authority is something we have lots of trouble to question — it’s part of evolution as many other mental bias but it can really blind us.
The problem is that once in power they consider their will and the will of the people as one and the same (Lukachenko calling himself “man of the people”). And anything that would come in between (from opposition groups to other institutions like the justice system) should be reduced to silence.
There is something childish in this belief that they are incarnating the people as if they had a direct line (or secret powers) to know what the people want and what to do.
That they abuse our own mental bias is to be expected. But that we can so easily be fooled is a matter of great concern.
The idea that democracy is about a plurality of opinions that co-exist peacefully in one place is no longer the credo. The renewal of nationalism is reviving the myth of the right way of being a Russian, a Hungarian, a Czech, or a Brit. Excluding other ways of living your life. Freedom is easily sacrificed in illiberal democracy as a teenage dream.
We want to believe in the ‘good’ leaders so much that we are ready to give our power to rule and decide to the new providential politician. It is happening again and again especially in countries which recently tried the western version of democracy (representative democracy) or that have been plagued with unstable governments like in Brazil right now.
The dangers are obvious as we can see: populist politicians are master in the art of scapegoating (like Hercules blaming Hera for all his troubles…).
Push backs such as external pressures can be spin as Us against Them — the best strategy to strength the cohesion of the group.
So why is it that we would rather live in a world of myth and stories than to accept that we need ordinary people and not Greek demigods.
Democratic systems should be more resilient to the urge of the Deus Ex Machina and this ought to be built within the system itself. In my view, it means tackling the root of the problem: representation. How can we operate without representation?
And you, what do you think?
