Why can’t we be confused?

The following is an extract from a speech by Francois Deluges delivered last week to the Global Federation of Political Scientists, Psephologists and Rationalists. Deluges, the founder of the French School of Irrational Behaviourism, was brought in at the last minute when Professor Mervin Trendsetter was forced to pull out with a strained hamstring. The speech was met with widespread coughing.

Madames et Monsieurs,

Last weekend, I was talking with a leading political scientist, renowned for the size of his office space. We were discussing the relationship between democracy and violence. At least, I was. He kept trying to turn the conversation to Jurassic Park 3. After a few hours, I finally convinced him that mine was a subject of interest, and he drew my attention to a body of political science literature on this precise subject. Democracy, he said, always made him feel violent. I thanked him, and leapt out the door.

In summary, the literature reached one broad conclusion: electorates are fools. One book, The Systemic Nexus in Democratic Transitions, by Professor Cherry Hercules, ended with that exact line: “It is clear that electorates are fools.” Activists faired even worse. “Who’s the more foolish: the foolish voter or the active fool?” he or she asks, rhetorically. It got me thinking.

Aristotle, by all accounts a peaceful man who never once hurled an éclair into the face of a politician, said that there is no such thing as absolute certainty – although he was never sure if he was right or not. As I look around the world this week – and at your faces now – I see that confusion is rife. These are healthy times.

Now, some would insist, “But Monsieur, you’ve got protesters on the streets and leaders barricaded in fortresses. No one is confused.” And I would say, “Really? I am.” And am I alone?

You see, Cherry Hercules and his, or her, co-academics are wrong. Calling an electorate foolish implies that the electorate is confidently making a wrong judgment. That it thinks it knows what is best, when it does not.

This does not beg the question, should we resort to violence, and if so, before lunch or after? On the contrary, what it displays is the gap in our knowledge. That gap is filled with people who are overlooked, who stand quietly in corners, biting their nails and hoping for the best, unsure that anyone willing to flirt with a microphone should be trusted. They are sure the point is being missed, and that politicians and violent protestors are all disciples of the same short-termism – even though their clothes are different. The overlooked ones are too intelligent to think they know that they know what to think. They are the confused.

Today, I want to propose a new theory: voting is like most other activities that demand reasoned judgment coupled with emotion, a combination of compromise and confusion. The result is very dissatisfying, for voters and political scientists alike. But imperfect does not mean idiotic.

[At this point several prominent Professors leave the room, mumbling about game theory.]

Modern politics, which we can describe as a minority sport, only serves to heighten these natural shortfalls. There are signs of consternation among academics and intellectuals because electorates seem to be doing two opposite things at the same time – a skill unknown in the world of political science. Voters seem to be both contented and disillusioned; apathetic and frustrated; bored and violent.

Many observers are pitching their tents in either one corner or the other… or the other. One group says that people couldn’t care less about politics or politicians. Another that people are so unhappy that they see the only way forward as pelting politicians with fruit or cakes, throwing chairs at McDonald’s, and trashing beautiful and historic cities – and Seattle. The final camp says that contentment is so high that paralysis has set in – “I’m so happy, I can’t move.”

But why is there only ever one answer? Why has historical analysis always said that people either believe in good or bad, socialism or capitalism, dental floss or toothpicks? I suggest that fanaticism is nowhere more prevalent than in political science. Are we ever so sure? I urge you to look at your shopping lists, your music collections, or at my relationship with my parents.

[Deluges then speaks at length about how whenever he calls his mother, she pretends he has got the wrong number.]

In the age of spin-led media-driven soundbite politics, it is very hard for electorates to get in touch with their own emotions. More so when bullets, molotov cocktails and even cream cakes fly in our cities. We are all asking: am I capable of violence? But this doesn’t require us all to take weekend breaks on spiritual farms in the hope of “finding” ourselves. It is perfectly reasonable to feel a mixture of everything. Why is it that formal analysis never leaves any room for humanity? Why can’t we feel a mixture of emotion? Why can’t we be confused?

[With these words Deluge brings his fist crashing down onto the lectern, breaking it in two.]

To read history is to read of multifarious cases of certainty. Biography often insists that in the past (however recent) everyone was certain about everything they were doing. Seemingly insignificant events are interpreted as life-changing moments of definition. Take the recent biography of Gertrude Adams, the pioneering 1960s feminist credited with inventing bra-burning – accidentally. According to her biographer, Adams based her entire feminist thesis on a bizarre gardening accident involving her father. Apparently, a spontaneously combusting compost heap (that resulted in her father being impaled on a gardening fork) gave her the idea of male incompetence, leading to the inevitable burning of the bra. As her father lay singed and pierced in the cabbage patch, she “knew” her calling had come and that, inevitably, she would change the entire structure of western society. It doesn’t explain how.

But the truth is that now, as ever, people are not certain. Aristotle was right, compost heap or no compost heap. Jung knew this too, declaring, “Doubt is the origin of all progress, I think.” Or if he didn’t quite put it that way, he might have. People are happy with some things and not with others, partly depending on the time of day. When are we going to stop treating electorates as simpletons or political scientists, who are supposed to think either a or b?

[At this point, an unidentified voice shouts “Never!” Deluges mistakes this spontaneous outburst for a declaration of support.]

Yes! When did you last search for your independent variable before casting your vote?

The phrase, “By this time, the people were angry, and were eager to rise up and revolt”, is a bare-faced lie. If we could go back to France in 1789, Russia in 1917, or even Scotland in 1997, my bet is that most people would be saying, “Oh God. I don’t know, what do you think? What if this all goes wrong? I mean, I’m all for utopia, only the King/Tsar/Westminster are not totally bad. I have noticed a marked improvement in refuse collection. Perhaps I should give them another chance, rather than overturning the state indefinitely. But then, what if they don’t improve? What if there really is nothing more to them than the surface gloss, the cheesy grins and the ermine? Oh God, what do I do? Perhaps I’ll wait to see if it rains.”

People in western democracies are smarter than you think – that’s why they are confused. Those outside of this room are humans, not freakish automatons. We – for I count myself among them – are unlikely to respond to a political bill-board with unwavering conviction. People know that lots is wrong and that some things are getting better. What they hate is the feeling that it is all happening despite them, not with or because of them. Faced with that situation – long-term awareness versus short-term politics – it is very hard to feel 100 per cent sure about those in or seeking power.

And the same can be said for the protesters. Outside of their dreams, most people think risking their lives by stoning police vans sounds unappealing. It is not only a minority who are violent, it is also a minority who are certain enough of anything to resort to violence.

Fortunately, politicians are feeding this confusion. For this reason, it is not over-egging the soufflé to talk of them slowly digging their own graves, or building their own compost heaps. With politics itself devoid of conviction, except for dogmatic belief in silly sounding schemes that can be easily abbreviated, we are seeing presentation spinning on itself. Voters used to believe a bit in politicians. Then they believed less, but accepted the spin. Now they no longer believe in what the politicians say they, the voters, believe in. Naturally, they are confused.

But alors! It is still ideas that matter most. Conviction can perhaps never be won, but ideas offer progress. And the best idea I’ve heard of is democracy.

[Laughter]

Meanwhile, electorates – the ones not wearing hoods and masks – reward “conviction” campaigners of all varieties with a sort of lacklustre applause and slight shrug of the shoulders. They know that campaign promises are not enough – and nor are exploding compost heaps. Things aren’t bad enough to hate them, but not good enough to love them. Three cheers for the voter as existentialist.

After me, Deluges, there will be coffee and croissants. Naturally, if any of you are convinced you agree with my argument, I will be happy to confuse you. Merci beaucoup.