The Sunday News
Cetshwayo Mabhena
That all human beings are political animals is a message that was generated and circulated as mighty wisdom by Aristotle.
This otherwise convincing idea was based on Aristotle’s concept of the “naturalism of politics.”
The concept of political naturalism holds that human beings from individuals to communities are naturalised into politics by the natural need to further their human interests and to protect themselves from harm. Man and woman come together to build a family and eventually work hard to preserve that family by protecting it from all that threatens it. Because of the need for greater strength and security families out of fear of threats and dangers, and love for security and happiness came together to form communities that grew into city states and later nations that occupied countries. In the wisdom of Aristotle human beings formed communities and nations out fear of extinction and love for a secure, happy and good life.
The understanding of the reason for politics and governments as the search for human security, the good life and happiness is a prevalent understanding that is still being defended by philosophers and politicians the world over. In ancient Greece, participating in politics was taken so seriously that it was made compulsory and anyone who did not was criminalised and punished as what was called an “idiot” which has become a common reference not to criminals but fools, ignoramuses and other simpletons in our times.
Politics was considered the foundation of life and therefore life was essentially political business. Right up to this day, in the Global North and the Global South, such ideologies as nationalism (belief and defence of nationhood and countries) and patriotism (loyalty to nation and country) are considered noble ideas and duty to God and Man.
In many ways, politics has been imagined and constructed as the very first occupation of human beings to a point that to be human one must be political and those that become political leaders somehow enjoy more access to human goods and services than those that are political followers. In that way politics became a vivid arena of fiercely contested power and the privileges that come with it. Land, water, food, precious stones, wildlife and social opportunities all became political goods and resources that individuals, communities and nations contested and fought over.
The disciplines of Public Administration and Law were largely invented and grown as methods of handling, managing and mediating in the human scramble that came with the politics of power and that of scarce resources. These disciplines try to bring law, order, ethics and method in a game of life that frequently becomes a primitive survival of the fittest occupation where the biggest scoundrels survive over small ones.
Economicism and Politicism
The science of power and the art of management of resources have become central to the understanding of politics. The slogan “it’s the economy, stupid!” originates from the phrase: “The Economy, Stupid!” that was crafted by political strategist James Carville during the volatile election campaign that pitted George Bush Senior and Bill Clinton in 1992, in the United States of America. Behind that slogan and the phrase that easily gave birth to it lies a political idea which holds that to fix political problems a people need to fix the economy first.
Economicism is the ideology that like other ideologies is essentialist if not fundamentalist. Economicists believe that to solve political problems one only needs to address economic challenges then people get access to security and the good life of their dreams. As ideologies frequently do, Economicism simplifies and also confuses the understanding and knowledge of politics by narrowing it to economics and economic factors.
Opposed to Economicists are politicists that think in terms of and practice politicism. This ideological tribe believes that economic problems are just symptoms of political challenges and not problems on their own. The fundamentalist dogma of the politicists is that once elections have been held and clear leaders chosen such problems as the economic and social should somehow naturally die. The power and control of leaders is simplistically expected to hammer and chisel the economy into shape to deliver human security, good life and happiness. Politicism just like Economicism simplifies and ignores the true nature of politics and how the world works. The simplest analytical temptation therefore is to believe that a clever leader is the one that would simply apply both Economicism and Politicism and then the nation and country shall be happy ever after.
The deeper and complicated truth is that political problems frequently manifest through economic symptoms and that economic problems do throw up political signs and symptoms, but both the economy and the polity are not strictly dependent on each other for their well-being.
The gesture of my present article is that both the polity and its cousin the economy require more understanding and appreciation beyond their own nature. Social scientists from ancient philosophers and theorists to present intellectual and political interlocutors have been so full of themselves and their limited and limiting ideologies so much so that the understanding of the humanities, especially culture, has been neglected in total or minimised to uselessness. Social sciences have become more ideological than scientific.
Political scientists are blinkered by political science to the extent that they believe there are no other reading glasses for looking at and studying the world than political science.
Economists also fall victim to the short-sight and the long-sight of economics as a science to the tragic extent that they don’t imagine life and the world outside economic logic. Economicism and politicism are blind and blinding ideologies that have misled and limited the thinking and work of intellectuals and politicians the world over.
The two ideologies have been two related but different false religions that have sent entire countries to hell on earth. Social science continues to fail because it works without the benefit of human understanding that the humanities hold. Political scientists dwell on issues of popularity, credibility and legitimacy. Economists valorises markets and market forces and the need for enabling political conditions. Both the polity and the economy are methodically removed from the human and the social and elevated to the realm of the invisible forces and otherwise metaphysical factors.
Man is Culture?
An essay by the late Senegalese artist and philosopher Sembene Ousmane evinced the idea that “Man is Culture.” The gist of this essay and many others by critical humanists is that the human being is fundamentally a cultural animal. Culture as a way of life and way of doing by a specific group of people is a hallmark of human beings and their existence under the sun. Human beings are living and doing animals. What happens to people in the world largely depends on what they do or what they do not do. As thinking, that is rational and reasonable animals, human beings can even think and do something about nature and natural disasters. Reason and rationality, thinking and knowing that is, are the two qualities that make human beings cultured and civilised.
What makes men and women different from animals is that they are cultured with properties of reason and rationality that guide their actions on a daily basis. Human ideas, desires, passions, fears and loves are the cause of what human beings eventually do. Aristotle was mistaken to see man as a political animal first before a cultural being. Human beings are social and psychic beings whose behaviours and ideas become their way of life and way of doing in a historical and geographic context, anywhere. Both politics and economics as disciplines and sciences are stupid without the understanding of human culture and history. Political and economic problems, in the Global North and the Global South have never really been natural disasters but human cultural disasters, catastrophes caused by the thoughts and actions of human beings in their daily struggle for power and resources. For that reason, politics and economics are importantly secondary to culture as the first quality of the human being, the thinking and the doing animal.
When one writes or talks culture, people have been conditioned to think of traditions and customs of people as the culture when they are just but part of the way people think and do in life. Culture is the first discipline of human beings, a discipline that produces and conditions other disciplines. Polities and economies, the world over, are just but part of the fruits of the human mind and human activity. To fix enduring political and economic problems, anywhere in the world, citizens should address human cultures and values.
The ideas, fears and loves of those that participate in politics, especially leaders, shape the polities and economies of countries. Where Aristotle was right is in that fear of harm and insecurity group people together into communities and identities; and that the love for security, good life and happiness is a passion that drives human behaviour. Great cultural values are values of liberation that centre the security, happiness and good life of communities and nations.
Great leaders of polities and managers of polities are those cultured men and women who know how to deliver human security, happiness and the very good life. To fix polities and economies, populations need to fix first the political culture of their nations, especially that of the political leaders and economic managers.
Corruption, despotism and other political and economic evils are all, first and foremost, bad cultural values and practices whose practitioners should not, in good societies, be allowed near the buttons of political and economic leadership.
Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena is a founding member of Africa Decolonial Research Network (ADERN). He writes from Braamfontein, Johannesburg: [email protected]
