Another Post About Ideal v. Practical Ethics

I really enjoyed having Dr. Barry in our class today. He made a lot of interesting points, not just about manipulation but about politics in general, and his ideas provided a lot of fuel for our discussion even after he left. I'd like to address some of the interesting points he made today about political ethics, and his analysis of LBJ's--and other morally questionionable--actions.

One of Dr. Barry's statments that I found very compelling was his definition of good politics as the responsible use of power. Dave has been raising a lot of concerns--which I certainly think are warranted--about the tendency of officials to feel that their own judgement is superior to those of their constituents. However, it is inevitable and logically necessary that those we represent to elect us have more power than the masses; this is the foundation of our democratic republic. I doubt that many people would argue that in some cases the responsible thing for the government leader to do may be inconsistent with the views of the electorate. The difficult question becomes this: when is it the responsibility of the leader to accurate represent his or her people? When must the desires of the masses be disregarded in order to accomplish the greater good?

One thing that I am not yet totally convinced of--like Adam, I'm still clinging to the hope that politics are not inherently dirty--is the necessity of such tactics as deception and manipulation in order to be a successful politician. I was disturbed by Dr. Barry's statement "perfect can become the enemy of the good." His views seem largely congruent with G&T's description of many people's view towards avoiding manipulation in all cases in politics. They write that many feel a politician who does this“putting his own sense of ‘misplaced honor’ ahead of the goals of the party, movement, or institution” (159). I am deeply bothered by the categorization of a politican who sticks to his or her ideals as behaving selfishly. Although of course we cannot expect any politician to behave perfect all of the time (we cannot expect this of any human being), I do think that idealism is not an altogether bad thing. If we accept the fact that our ideals must often be sacrificed in order desirable ends, we cheapen our own values and starve our own system.

However, I also see where idealism can be at war with effectiveness. I think Dr. Barry was absolutely correct in his explanation of politicians who hold too steadfastly to their ideals of virtue as accomplishing very little. I wish I could refute this point, but I see little evidence to the contrary. I do not even feel like I can completely blame the system of representation we have in place because I feel that this also occurs frequently in unofficial leadership and unconventional participation. For example, I know many people who, last fall, went to the cities to protest--completely peacefully--at the Republican National Convention. However, the only parts of the protest that got very much media coverage were the few people who became violent or disorderly. As a society, we attack those who use immoral tactics to accomplish their means, but, in doing so, we also provide them with news coverage, which is often exactly what their cause needs. The people who try to bring about change using purely ethically-accepted means are often disregarded as un-newsworthy. This system we have in place--not only a political one but also a societal one--seems, in some cases, to reward the wicked and punish the good.