Modern political discourse is degenerate. The feints and fades of a self-assertive politics distract people from acknowledging the actual crisis humanity faces in the twenty-first century. “We’re in power and you’re not,” is what, at times, passes for a coherent political assertion. On the other hand, “you’re fascists and we’re not” is what passes for a coherent rebuttal. ‘We’ is a thin disguise under which ‘me’ can find fulfillment. There are no we. Fellowship does not exist for those who seek personal triumph, those who strive for dominance over their Oedipus. An initial question demands an answer: when has name-calling become the central means of political communication?
“Liberal!” is rebutted with “Conservative!” Exclamation points express outrage, in an attempt to enhance the condemnation of wrong values. One word says it all apparently. The idea of reciprocity is extinct. Calumnies and mistruth are seductive paths to power. The assumption is that reciprocity leads only to greater discord, for treachery is naturally ingrained in men. Those who seek power for personal gain, pursue it as a redeemer wielding a sword. Power is not evil; to demonize power is to demonstrate a profound ignorance about politics. It is, as Buber implies, ‘power hysteria’ that is problematic. “Power”, he writes, “is the precondition for the actions of man.” Political communication, via reciprocal discourse, cannot be conducted as mere functions of a mechanic process or of the political party. The mechanism is preoccupied solely with the end, namely power as triumph, power as cudgel. Power is not an end in of itself. To conceive power abstractly is a temptation far too alluring, but in the end leaves one utterly empty.
Power is the ability to act in fellowship with others. Power is not a right to impose “community” on them. Fellowship is not defined by rules valid once and for all. Free actions cannot be judged and constrained merely by such rules. Morality makes stupid precisely because morality absolves humanity of thoughtful engagement, from acknowledging and affirming human limits within a complex and ambiguous world. The ostensible parsimony imposed by ‘political morality’ seeks to provide easy answers for a life full of paradox and contradiction.
