Seamus McCauley has been discussing political ignorance, and in timely fashion US research centre Pew has a report out called What Americans Know: 1989-2007. The clue’s in the subtitle: Public Knowledge of Current Affairs Little Changed by News and Information Revolutions.
It tells us that people are a little less able to answer a few political general knowledge questions than they were nearly twenty years ago. Yes, Jay Rosen et al, pack up your messianic technology caravan until the next revolution.
Being a fan of the Phantom Public myself, I’ve always been sceptical about the political knowledge of voters. But as I grow increasingly Hobbesian in my old age (rule of law first, democracy second) there’s something else I wonder about – the importance of political argument and debate.
Hobbes called it deliberation. Here are his views from De Cive:
some will say, That a Popular State is much to be preferr’d before a Monarchicall; because that, where all men have a hand in publique businesses, there all have an opportunity to shew their wisedome, knowledge, and eloquence, in deliberating matters of the greatest difficulty and moment; which by reason of that desire of praise which is bred in humane nature, is to them who excell in such like faculties, and seeme to themselves to exceed others, the most delightfull of all things.
But in a Monarchy, this same way to obtain praise, and honour, is shut up to the greatest part of Subjects; and what is a grievance, if this be none? Ile tell you: To see his opinion whom we scorne, preferr’d before ours; to have our wisedome undervalued before our own faces; by an uncertain tryall of a little vaine glory, to undergoe most certaine enmities (for this cannot be avoided, whether we have the better, or the worse); to hate, and to be hated, by reason of the disagreement of opinions; to lay open our secret Counsells, and advises to all, to no purpose, and without any benefit; to neglect the affaires of our own Family: These, I say, are grievances.
But to be absent from a triall of wits, although those trialls are pleasant to the Eloquent, is not therefore a grievance to them, unlesse we will say, that it is a grievance to valiant men to be restrained from fighting, because they delight in it.
Thoughts?
7 responses to “Political ignorance and the trial of wits”
Interesting – but if debate, or taking the views of the many, could be proven to have some value beyond the enjoyment derived from it, then perhaps Hobbes’ point is diminished.
One argument in favour of the “popular state” in this context would be the (bizarre but consistent) result that many uninformed individuals will outperform a small group of experts in a significant majority of cases. The phenomenon, and its conditions, are outlined in James Surowiecki’s “Wisdom of Crowds” – don’t know if you’ve read it, but well worth a look.
Philip Tetlock doesn’t think much of experts either when it comes to politics. Hobbes is really saying that deliberation is a poor mechanism for participation, and policy formulation…
The virtue of deliberation, however uninformed, is that it ameliorates the risk of tyranny. Here’s some Machaiavelli:
“Though one man alone is fit for founding a government, what he has founded will not last long if it rests on his shoulders alone; it is lasting when it is left in the care of many and when many desire to maintain it.”
You should be teaching IR Adrian, never mind journalism…
KP
@Ken – NM is right, Hobbes’ big problem is practical – corruption. But his views on deliberation and the impact of wit and eloquence echo modern concerns over the political impact of the news media, its bias and ‘framing.’ Hobbes’ rejection of deliberation as just a talking shop is an important step towards evaluating just what it is about deliberation that we value.
@James – It’s not clear that deliberative assemblies would enable policy-makers to access ‘the wisdom of crowds.’ Certainly not in our representative systems. Polling would surely be the method of choice…
Without wanting to come over all Habermasian, in the large scale modern state there is a ‘necessary’ split between decision-makers in government and deliberation in the various forums of the public sphere. Decisions taken by rulers don’t necessarily have to bear any relation to public sphere consensus (or more likely, the majority view). If they don’t however, laws/actions reflecting them suffer from a lack of legitimacy (even though they are valid and will be enforced).
For me then, the questions become (1) how government ‘reads’ the public (or how it seeks to persuade us – or perhaps trick us into believing – that its view is correct) (2) what happens when governments get it wrong – can they be ejected? (3) how far is deliberation in the public sphere debased by strategic contributions etc
It seems intuitive that those in government believe that they must at least feint in the direction of securing public acquiescence/agreement or they wouldn’t bother with news management techniques (cf Communist regimes delivering the ‘truth’, or a significant (former) US administrator at a press conference: “is someone going to ask me a question that I’ll answer?”)
Ultimately of course, if you’re in power and you’ve got a big stick, who cares for legitimation…
Hi Andrew.
1 Is govt ‘reading’ the public in order to act, or to justify its actions – I assume latter from your intro.
2 Who judges the ‘getting it wrong’? Possibility of ejection will surely influence all political actors, be it thru election, term limitation or putsch.
3 Is politicians’ concern for public deliberation to the extent of seeking to intervene in it simply misguided? Much political intervention is surely aimed at keeping things out of the public sphere, e.g. security, arms deals etc.
Re the first point, I think we have to allow politicians the benefit of the doubt. (Assuming elections do constrain actions, at least to some extent) Governments retain power (a) by performing well, and (b) by ensuring the people acknowledge that they have performed well. There is the strategy of circumventing (a) and just telling a good story, but that’s a highly risky strategy (as demonstrated more than once in recent times). But I think the original impetus behind the New Labour spin machine was the flip-side fear that good performance wouldn’t be properly communicated, and that therefore a reforming Labour government wouldn’t reap the benefits electorally of its good substantive work (think of the dichotomy between the real improvements in the NHS vs the diet of newspaper stories focused on continuing problems).
On the second point, we can all identify the grand moments of decision (ie general election), but to my mind ongoing deliberations fuelled by the media do – at the very least – influence the general sense that each individual holds regarding the integrity / competence / desirability of alternative parties / leaders, so that come election-time, when people are marking their papers based on far from fully rational or explainable) choices, their ’emotionalism’ is informed by a long-maturing background knowledge. This isn’t to say that there are any single influences over individuals’ thinking and that we would therefore require strict controls over (eg) media ownership.
More generally, the constraints on government action are manifold, and/but largely social in nature. I teach a class on British constitutional law to German law students, and every year they are astounded by the absence of legal controls over British government. The fear they express is that the UK could easily go the way of the Weimar Republic. What they don’t immediately recognise is that it is (informed) PEOPLE (in their various roles) who constrain governments, NOT laws (that said, see Graham and Prosser on the havoc wrecked on the British constitution by Thatcher, without the need for formal change).
On the final point, again, the fact that governments try to keep things out of the public domain is itself a recognition of the importance of public opinion. But you’re right, there are a range of dirty secrets that its deemed we really shouldn’t know about (eg the importance of the ‘aerospace’ industry to UK plc). Of course, even in these regards the truth spills out from time to time (think, for example, Matrix Churchill/arms to Iraq affair, or the the more recent Saudi bribes). Of course, constitutional rules should be designed to preempt such intentions, but our current open government/freedom of information matrix doesn’t do the job (and won’t anytime soon given that its government’s hand on the tiller).
Sorry for the apparent meandering randomness of these musings, but when you open big issues…
Regards.