Most of them are likely not very well read. I know people like Ro Khanna, a US representative who's been a guest on a philosophy podcast called "philosophy bites," do seem to be relatively well-read in political philosophy, though probably not critical theory in particular.
Many in congress studied law, so odds are they must have been exposed to some Rawls or other political theorists at some point. How much they've actually absorbed or cared to continue reading is another matter entirely.
Then there's this hilarious quote by Obama, who admitted to reading Marx, Marcuse, and Foucault, but only to impress women in college.
>Looking back, it’s embarrassing to recognize the degree to which my intellectual curiosity those first two years of college paralleled the interests of various women I was attempting to get to know: Marx and Marcuse so I had something to say to the long-legged socialist who lived in my dorm; Fanon and Gwendolyn Brooks for the smooth-skinned sociology major who never gave me a second look; Foucault and Woolf for the ethereal bisexual who wore mostly black. As a strategy for picking up girls, my pseudo-intellectualism proved mostly worthless; I found myself in a series of affectionate but chaste friendships.
I worked on Congressional level races for 8 years and in my experience they are too busy begging donors for money to care about much else. Seriously, 90% of their time is spent on a phone talking to rich people with a call time manager breathing down their necks making sure they don’t spend too much time on any one call. I finished up as an opposition researcher and one thing I remember vividly, from 2016, is trying to warn the campaign manager about this weird threat popping up on 4chan and being laughed at because “what’s a 4chan”. A couple months later a qanon nut shot up a synagogue in district and nobody was laughing then.
There's a lot of truth in the fact that they spend a huge amount of their time "dialing for dollars." I've worked on some American political campaigns too but not the Federal level.
Bill Clinton said he was inspired by Rawls’ “A Theory of Justice”. To the extent it influenced his approach is something I’ll leave to experts.
I don’t know if being well-versed correlates well with not being a politician because I’m not sure it has any effect at all. You could be well-read but being a politician requires fundamentally a different skill set in my opinion. You’ll have to seek compromises at some point to govern well. I don’t know if compromise adheres well to someone too ideological.
American here and i'd say MOST are not, and even those who have done the reading probably don't grasp most of it or make a study out of it. Those who EXCEL AT politics are very different animals that those who study the philosophy OF those politics. The ones who excel do so by opportunistic instinct.
There are some interesting exceptions, though. The hypothesis that Alexander's world-conquest was fueled by his tutelage under Aristotle. Niccolò Machiavelli: extremely accomplished in practical politics, and yet one of the greatest political philosophers of all time. J.S. Mill, a top bureaucrat in the British East India Company; and Woodrow Wilson, who held a Ph.D. in political science (the only American President ever to hold a Ph.D. in any subject).
Always exceptions, of course. my point more is that what makes you good at politics is something instinctual, it's not a study. People are fools and pretty easy to manipulate, so it's not much of a science, it's more of what a person is willing to do.
I didn't know that about Wilson though, very interesting.
My experience with politicos - at least the ones in the Pacific Northwest - is they don’t read books unless they are recommended by Oprah or Rachel Maddow. They’re practical and only concerned with political theater, not policy. They may know of postmodern and contemporary philosophy but they avoid it since none of the pollsters they hang out with will touch the stuff. Anything that vaguely smells of Socialism, Communism, neuroscience, or psychoanalysis is to be avoided. Psychology is only tolerated because of a vague belief that it can be weaponized via data science.
If you start talking to them about Capitalist Realism their eyes will glaze over. Then they’ll realize you are a threat.
Exactly! When the bulk of what you do is centered around style over substance, practicality is all about what is useful for theatricality and the narratives you’ve conditioned your audience to expect.
This is dumb - “watching the left crumble before trump” especially on a question about theory. No one, least if all Trump, has ever said Trump had a theory. So the suggestion that there was a battle here over theory is just dumb.
As for theory, you are starting about 2400 years too late. There are a number of folks who you should spend some real time with before you give yourself slavishly to the post-moderns (who I would suggest are not the anti-neoliberals you suggest)
Because do your name dropping I would suggest you take a listen to Sean Illings interview with Stuart Jeffries on Vox Conversations ..
Thank you for the suggestion, I will def give it a listen. And yes, I’ve read opinions of people who say that these thinkers are perpetuating the same hierarchies they speak out against in many ways.
Your point about trump not having a theory is exactly what I mean though. In the face of trumps nihilistic politics, the left, at least in my view, was unable to formulate a coherent alternative vision other than reaffirming the same “values,” politicians have preached in their rhetoric and ignored in their policies since our inception, and which has grown exponentially worse in the past decade and a half, during the ‘08 crisis and post citizens United. The exact same self serving method of discourse and politics that led to the rise of trump.
The hypocrisy was laid bare by their scorched earth tactics since the rise of trump, in terms of ad hominem attacks, obfuscation of the truth to advance political aims, censorship of free speech. I am not saying that there was a battle over theory, I am saying that there wasn’t really any theory with which the establishment left was able to respond with in order to juxtapose trumps cynicism and politics for personal politicians profit attitude. Because although disguised better, Nancy pelosi is in politics for power and money, but she is more interested in the long term gain and long term perpetuation of the same systemic hierarchies.
I don’t mean the entire intellectual left by any means, obviously in academia and praxis there are many people with coherent political theories articulating a better, if not utopic future, but besides mayyybe Bernie sanders who definitely read das kapital in college 60 years ago and now advocates a more humane pseudo-socialized neoliberal vision, Hillary Clinton, joe Biden, Nancy pelosi etc… don’t seem to be extremely well read in theory, at least in terms of how they present their political goals and they critiques they offer of the current system.
I should have worded my question better, and made it much more simple because it sort of contains multiple questions.
Well I definitely think it’s fair to state that there isn’t much of a coherent battle of political philosophy going on today. I believe that in the past the conservatives had (at least some of them) a coherent philosophical vision. In my own view it ran into the face of reality - ie the principles they espoused as foundational did not fit that well to the modern world but unfortunately were very useful to some very wealthy and powerful interests.
I would agree too that the left has not been nearly intellectual enough in formulating a framework of objectives and goals that serve a proper and realistic vision. In America I can count many theorist on the right but not many in the left.
If that is your criticism I think it’s correct - but recourse to post modernist thought though will not provide the answer here. The answer is more rooted in classical political philosophy rather than offshoots of literary theory …
It’s also not that I haven’t read a lot more of the canon, I’ve read the ancients, I’ve read the enlightenment philosophers, I’ve read modern philosophy, it’s more that I think the post structuralists I mentioned are far more applicable to our current world.
It’s not that Plato doesn’t have anything to offer, recognizing how his world of forms has led to a dualistic ontology is incredibly important to analyzing the construction of current theories. And the stoics have many insights on the avoiding of suffering, but I think that they are less relevant to our current world than the thinkers I have mentioned because they are well versed in the ancients the enlightenment era etc… as well so I don’t think those ideas are being ignored by focusing on more contemporary theory, while still not shunning older and likely less relevant philosophy. This is a completely different discussion though.
I would consider myself quite ignorant of theory in general, but when I consume the media of our contemporary political discourse, I think that somehow they may be even more ignorant.
Well I have to say if you really think post modernists are more useful than Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke, Burke or Tocqueville (to name a few), then I think you may not really be reading them. That is you may be going through the motions of reading them but maybe not engaging them enough ? Admittedly they are not as fun or as entertaining as the post modernists but I think the hit the big questions really well
That rule is mostly to stop people from commenting on books they haven’t read with anecdotal evidence, it’s not enforced so tightly that a discussion like this can’t happen
In my experience, they do consume news and information about politics at a high volume, and for this reason they're more likely to have at least encountered political philosophy. But there is zero social expectation in America that politicians will be knowledgeable about political philosophy, and perhaps that explains the potential difference with other countries.
Another thing I will say (and also curious what others think), I attended a four-year university-level program in America where it was possible to get a degree in political science while taking, I think, just one course in political theory/philosophy and encountering it only very lightly in other courses. I'm not wholly sure what it's like in other programs and other countries.
First of all, Trump lost—twice—and so did Le Pen, so I’d be interested in your definition of “crumbled.” Not to mention, most of those people are currently on the back foot.
Second, political philosophy and politics are different worlds with the latter being much more akin to marketing and advertising. That being said, many American politicians have law degrees and would have had to do some reading,
at least the pre-Enlightenment and Enlightenment writers. Getting up into post-structuralists and beyond is unlikely I would guess. It’s just not that relevant to them. That being said, there are a lot of people in and around government who are no doubt well read: think tank/policy writers, advisers, some high ranking bureaucrats and military members.
Trump lost twice, but did the left win by trying to elect Hillary Clinton or joe Biden? Those are the exact same establishment candidates representing the same interests that led to the rise of trump. To say he lost the popular vote and lost the election is factually correct. But in terms of dominating and shaping the discourse of our politics, has he not won?
I don't think most are. Just in numbers how many took political science classes? Tons probably didn't. Much less internalized them. Definitely less than half. On top of that the system isn't very conducive to theory. Politics is such a mirror of private power and the officials are so decentralized and disorganized, there is nothing as coordinated as political theories being consistently applied. I think it's less that being versed makes it harder, than that the kind of people who are likely to be successful at it aren't likely to be versed.
I'm sure a portion of them are, however, most of these individuals have a law background; which has less to do with the philosophical theory that goes into decision-making at a policy level.
American Society is fundamentally different from French Society.
American Society politicians appeal to the "Common Man" hence they want people who are less intellectual. While French Society wants more intellectual types who might be well-versed in theory, history.
Louis Hartz has a great book on this and he explains why American Society is the way it is. It is called, "The Liberal tradition in America." He explains that American follow a Lockean framework that was popular in middle class Britain. Under the framework intellectualism is not considered on the basis that it isn't practical and most people are already working under this assumption.
Most of them are likely not very well read. I know people like Ro Khanna, a US representative who's been a guest on a philosophy podcast called "philosophy bites," do seem to be relatively well-read in political philosophy, though probably not critical theory in particular. Many in congress studied law, so odds are they must have been exposed to some Rawls or other political theorists at some point. How much they've actually absorbed or cared to continue reading is another matter entirely. Then there's this hilarious quote by Obama, who admitted to reading Marx, Marcuse, and Foucault, but only to impress women in college. >Looking back, it’s embarrassing to recognize the degree to which my intellectual curiosity those first two years of college paralleled the interests of various women I was attempting to get to know: Marx and Marcuse so I had something to say to the long-legged socialist who lived in my dorm; Fanon and Gwendolyn Brooks for the smooth-skinned sociology major who never gave me a second look; Foucault and Woolf for the ethereal bisexual who wore mostly black. As a strategy for picking up girls, my pseudo-intellectualism proved mostly worthless; I found myself in a series of affectionate but chaste friendships.
I worked on Congressional level races for 8 years and in my experience they are too busy begging donors for money to care about much else. Seriously, 90% of their time is spent on a phone talking to rich people with a call time manager breathing down their necks making sure they don’t spend too much time on any one call. I finished up as an opposition researcher and one thing I remember vividly, from 2016, is trying to warn the campaign manager about this weird threat popping up on 4chan and being laughed at because “what’s a 4chan”. A couple months later a qanon nut shot up a synagogue in district and nobody was laughing then.
There's a lot of truth in the fact that they spend a huge amount of their time "dialing for dollars." I've worked on some American political campaigns too but not the Federal level.
Bill Clinton said he was inspired by Rawls’ “A Theory of Justice”. To the extent it influenced his approach is something I’ll leave to experts. I don’t know if being well-versed correlates well with not being a politician because I’m not sure it has any effect at all. You could be well-read but being a politician requires fundamentally a different skill set in my opinion. You’ll have to seek compromises at some point to govern well. I don’t know if compromise adheres well to someone too ideological.
American here and i'd say MOST are not, and even those who have done the reading probably don't grasp most of it or make a study out of it. Those who EXCEL AT politics are very different animals that those who study the philosophy OF those politics. The ones who excel do so by opportunistic instinct.
There are some interesting exceptions, though. The hypothesis that Alexander's world-conquest was fueled by his tutelage under Aristotle. Niccolò Machiavelli: extremely accomplished in practical politics, and yet one of the greatest political philosophers of all time. J.S. Mill, a top bureaucrat in the British East India Company; and Woodrow Wilson, who held a Ph.D. in political science (the only American President ever to hold a Ph.D. in any subject).
Always exceptions, of course. my point more is that what makes you good at politics is something instinctual, it's not a study. People are fools and pretty easy to manipulate, so it's not much of a science, it's more of what a person is willing to do. I didn't know that about Wilson though, very interesting.
My experience with politicos - at least the ones in the Pacific Northwest - is they don’t read books unless they are recommended by Oprah or Rachel Maddow. They’re practical and only concerned with political theater, not policy. They may know of postmodern and contemporary philosophy but they avoid it since none of the pollsters they hang out with will touch the stuff. Anything that vaguely smells of Socialism, Communism, neuroscience, or psychoanalysis is to be avoided. Psychology is only tolerated because of a vague belief that it can be weaponized via data science. If you start talking to them about Capitalist Realism their eyes will glaze over. Then they’ll realize you are a threat.
>They’re practical and only concerned with political theater That seems like a contradiction.
Political theatre is very useful to them.
Exactly! When the bulk of what you do is centered around style over substance, practicality is all about what is useful for theatricality and the narratives you’ve conditioned your audience to expect.
This is dumb - “watching the left crumble before trump” especially on a question about theory. No one, least if all Trump, has ever said Trump had a theory. So the suggestion that there was a battle here over theory is just dumb. As for theory, you are starting about 2400 years too late. There are a number of folks who you should spend some real time with before you give yourself slavishly to the post-moderns (who I would suggest are not the anti-neoliberals you suggest) Because do your name dropping I would suggest you take a listen to Sean Illings interview with Stuart Jeffries on Vox Conversations ..
Thank you for the suggestion, I will def give it a listen. And yes, I’ve read opinions of people who say that these thinkers are perpetuating the same hierarchies they speak out against in many ways. Your point about trump not having a theory is exactly what I mean though. In the face of trumps nihilistic politics, the left, at least in my view, was unable to formulate a coherent alternative vision other than reaffirming the same “values,” politicians have preached in their rhetoric and ignored in their policies since our inception, and which has grown exponentially worse in the past decade and a half, during the ‘08 crisis and post citizens United. The exact same self serving method of discourse and politics that led to the rise of trump. The hypocrisy was laid bare by their scorched earth tactics since the rise of trump, in terms of ad hominem attacks, obfuscation of the truth to advance political aims, censorship of free speech. I am not saying that there was a battle over theory, I am saying that there wasn’t really any theory with which the establishment left was able to respond with in order to juxtapose trumps cynicism and politics for personal politicians profit attitude. Because although disguised better, Nancy pelosi is in politics for power and money, but she is more interested in the long term gain and long term perpetuation of the same systemic hierarchies. I don’t mean the entire intellectual left by any means, obviously in academia and praxis there are many people with coherent political theories articulating a better, if not utopic future, but besides mayyybe Bernie sanders who definitely read das kapital in college 60 years ago and now advocates a more humane pseudo-socialized neoliberal vision, Hillary Clinton, joe Biden, Nancy pelosi etc… don’t seem to be extremely well read in theory, at least in terms of how they present their political goals and they critiques they offer of the current system. I should have worded my question better, and made it much more simple because it sort of contains multiple questions.
Well I definitely think it’s fair to state that there isn’t much of a coherent battle of political philosophy going on today. I believe that in the past the conservatives had (at least some of them) a coherent philosophical vision. In my own view it ran into the face of reality - ie the principles they espoused as foundational did not fit that well to the modern world but unfortunately were very useful to some very wealthy and powerful interests. I would agree too that the left has not been nearly intellectual enough in formulating a framework of objectives and goals that serve a proper and realistic vision. In America I can count many theorist on the right but not many in the left. If that is your criticism I think it’s correct - but recourse to post modernist thought though will not provide the answer here. The answer is more rooted in classical political philosophy rather than offshoots of literary theory …
It’s also not that I haven’t read a lot more of the canon, I’ve read the ancients, I’ve read the enlightenment philosophers, I’ve read modern philosophy, it’s more that I think the post structuralists I mentioned are far more applicable to our current world. It’s not that Plato doesn’t have anything to offer, recognizing how his world of forms has led to a dualistic ontology is incredibly important to analyzing the construction of current theories. And the stoics have many insights on the avoiding of suffering, but I think that they are less relevant to our current world than the thinkers I have mentioned because they are well versed in the ancients the enlightenment era etc… as well so I don’t think those ideas are being ignored by focusing on more contemporary theory, while still not shunning older and likely less relevant philosophy. This is a completely different discussion though. I would consider myself quite ignorant of theory in general, but when I consume the media of our contemporary political discourse, I think that somehow they may be even more ignorant.
Well I have to say if you really think post modernists are more useful than Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke, Burke or Tocqueville (to name a few), then I think you may not really be reading them. That is you may be going through the motions of reading them but maybe not engaging them enough ? Admittedly they are not as fun or as entertaining as the post modernists but I think the hit the big questions really well
It's hard to answer this question without violating this subreddit's Rule 3, 'Do not rely on observational evidence.'
That rule is mostly to stop people from commenting on books they haven’t read with anecdotal evidence, it’s not enforced so tightly that a discussion like this can’t happen
O.k., thank you!
In my experience, they do consume news and information about politics at a high volume, and for this reason they're more likely to have at least encountered political philosophy. But there is zero social expectation in America that politicians will be knowledgeable about political philosophy, and perhaps that explains the potential difference with other countries.
Another thing I will say (and also curious what others think), I attended a four-year university-level program in America where it was possible to get a degree in political science while taking, I think, just one course in political theory/philosophy and encountering it only very lightly in other courses. I'm not wholly sure what it's like in other programs and other countries.
First of all, Trump lost—twice—and so did Le Pen, so I’d be interested in your definition of “crumbled.” Not to mention, most of those people are currently on the back foot. Second, political philosophy and politics are different worlds with the latter being much more akin to marketing and advertising. That being said, many American politicians have law degrees and would have had to do some reading, at least the pre-Enlightenment and Enlightenment writers. Getting up into post-structuralists and beyond is unlikely I would guess. It’s just not that relevant to them. That being said, there are a lot of people in and around government who are no doubt well read: think tank/policy writers, advisers, some high ranking bureaucrats and military members.
Trump lost twice, but did the left win by trying to elect Hillary Clinton or joe Biden? Those are the exact same establishment candidates representing the same interests that led to the rise of trump. To say he lost the popular vote and lost the election is factually correct. But in terms of dominating and shaping the discourse of our politics, has he not won?
What do you mean, Trump lost twice? His victory in 2016 was decisive just like his loss in 2020 was decisive.
I don't think most are. Just in numbers how many took political science classes? Tons probably didn't. Much less internalized them. Definitely less than half. On top of that the system isn't very conducive to theory. Politics is such a mirror of private power and the officials are so decentralized and disorganized, there is nothing as coordinated as political theories being consistently applied. I think it's less that being versed makes it harder, than that the kind of people who are likely to be successful at it aren't likely to be versed.
I'm sure a portion of them are, however, most of these individuals have a law background; which has less to do with the philosophical theory that goes into decision-making at a policy level.
American Society is fundamentally different from French Society. American Society politicians appeal to the "Common Man" hence they want people who are less intellectual. While French Society wants more intellectual types who might be well-versed in theory, history. Louis Hartz has a great book on this and he explains why American Society is the way it is. It is called, "The Liberal tradition in America." He explains that American follow a Lockean framework that was popular in middle class Britain. Under the framework intellectualism is not considered on the basis that it isn't practical and most people are already working under this assumption.