Public Desire in Democracies

Ideally, in a democracy a politician serves the interests of his constituency, his people. Often, however, the public’s desire conflicts with the objectives of his government or party. Because a government cannot risk opposing its people head-on, politicians resort to the manipulation of public desire. A successful politician is one who is able to align the desire of his people with his objectives. It may be argued that a government should satisfy public desire, but that is increasingly rare, these days; governments and politicians have their own agendas.

Sometimes, public desire intersects with the government’s objectives, in which case the politician stokes desire. This is why the “Moral High-Ground” is an important aspect of conflict, it allows the government to stoke moral outrage in a public which is naturally bound up by its ethics.

Public desire is over-sensitive, clumsy, and easily manipulated. And yet, this may not always be a bad thing. When the public has impractical or counter-productive desires (e.g war against a stronger nation), the politician attempts to shape it to the will of the government or the “intelligent elite”.

In all of this, the Media is a tool for both politicians and the people. The politician utilizes the Media to feed the public with information that may shape their desire, whereas the public uses it to express its desire and thereby influence itself. Things are further complicated by the fact that the Media pollutes what it filters, to varying degrees. Thus, it both compresses and generates desire, albeit imperfectly.

Public Desire in Monarchies/Dictatorships

On the other hand, Dictatorships and monarchies have it easy. The government’s desire is served by the people. The Media becomes a mouthpiece of the government. It is much simpler and permits the government great agility in its actions. A benevolent, intelligent monarch (a rare occurrence) has great chances of success.

However, the danger here is that if the government is unable to control public desire, it is generally overthrown. Hence, public desire is kept in check by distractions, misinformation, or raw power.

In The Expedition of Cyrus, by Xenophon (trans. Robin Waterfield), at various turns of the Ten Thousand’s journey, “executive decisions” are preceded with a sacrifice to the gods, whose approval is then deciphered by a diviner. Reading the book, I accepted it with a shrug, putting it down to Ancient Grecian culture.

However, a passage from Machiavelli’s “Discourses on Livy” (Chapter 11 – The Religions of the Romans) throws light on why even a rational leader like Xenophon may have validated his decisions with a sacrifice:

It is evident that Romulus did not find divine authority necessary to found the senate and other civil and military institutions, but it was necessary for Numa, who pretended to have a relationship with a nymph who advised him what to say to the people: the reason was that he wanted to establish new and unfamiliar institutions in the city, and he doubted that his authority would be sufficient to do so.

Actually, there never existed a person who could give unusual laws to his people without recourse to God, for otherwise such laws would not have been accepted: for the benefits they bring, although evident to a prudent man, are not self-explanatory enough to be evident to others. Therefore, wise men who wish to avoid this difficulty have recourse to God. Lycurgus did this, as did Solon and many others who had the same goal. Since the Roman people were amazed at the goodness and the prudence of Numa, they yielded to his every decision. It is, of course, true that those times were very religious ones and that the men with whom he had to deal were unsophisticated, thereby giving him a great deal of freedom to follow his own plans and to be able to impress upon them easily any new form he wished.

On a related note, I’ll be following the Xenophon Roundtable closely – it’s a great opportunity to learn! Read Lexington Greene’s introductory post here.

“Intellectuals analyze the operations of international systems; statesmen build them. And there is a vast difference between the perspective of an analyst and that of a statesman. The analyst can choose which problem he wishes to study, whereas the statesman’s problems are imposed on him. The analyst can allot whatever time is necessary to come to a clear conclusion; the overwhelming challenge to the statesman is the pressure of time. The analyst runs no risk. If his conclusions prove wrong he can write another treatise. The statesman is permitted only one guess; his mistakes are irretrievable. The analyst has available to him all the facts; he will be judged on his intellectual power. The statesman must act on assessments that cannot be proved at the time that he is making them; he will be judged by history on the basis of how wisely he managed the inevitable change and, above all, by how well he preserves the peace. That is why examining how statesmen have dealt with the problem of world order – what worked and why – is not the end of understanding contemporary diplomacy, thought it may be its beginning.”

- Diplomacy, Henry Kissinger