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ROBERT MENZIES PUBLISHED BY NEW YORK
TIMES MAGAZINE
Politics as an Art
It follows the full text transcript of
Robert Menzies' article entitled Politics as
an art, as published by New York Times Magazine —
November 28, 1948.
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Here is my thesis. |
The business of
politics is of supreme importance. Politics is
both a fine art and an inexact science. We have
concentrated upon its scientific aspects – the
measurement and estimation of economic trends,
the organization of finance, the devising of
plans for social security, the discovery of what
to do. We have neglected it as an art, the
delineating and practice of how and when to do
these things and above all, how to persuade a
self-governing people to accept and loyally
observe them. This neglect is of crucial
importance, for I am prepared to assert that it
is only if the art of politics succeeds that the
science of politics will be efficiently studied
and mastered.
In short, the art is no less important than the
science. In these days this sounds like a
paradox. But it should not surprise any student
of twentieth-century history, for history is a
tragic story of how science (which so easily
becomes an instrument of hatred and destruction)
has outrun the art of living, to the singular
discomfort and confusion and almost to the ruin
of mankind.
As one who has for twenty years been engaged in
political work in his own country, I have been
continually surprised and dejected at the
indifference to politics shown by so many
thousands of active, intelligent and
well-informed men and women. Their spoken
attitude is either one of contempt for
‘politicians’ and all their works, or one of
indifference. ‘I am much too busy to bother
about politics.’ Yet, not only all the major
economic conditions of their ordinary lives, but
also all the great factors which determine peace
or war, international co-operation or conflict,
are the creatures of politics and of political
action. To despise or ignore them is therefore a
sort of suicidal folly.
Such attitudes are the evidence, not of a
superior intelligence, but of a defective
sensibility and imagination. Tariffs, taxes,
plans of national development, the proportion
which exists or should exist between the
administrative and the productive groups, the
facilitation and control of transport, monetary
policies, services of health, the provision and
conditioning of social benefits and industrial
security, these and a hundred other great
elements are the product of the applied science
of politics.
In the daily life of the plain citizen there is
scarcely one hour or one activity which is
unaffected by what the politicians in Congress
or Parliament determine. Even those who seek to
diminish the activities of government and
believe that we are passing too readily from the
productive to the paternal and perhaps to the
authoritarian state cannot reduce the area of
political action except by the use of political
action.
That, briefly stated, is why I believe that
politics is the most important and responsible
civil activity to which a man may devote his
character, his talents, and his energy. We must,
in our own interests, elevate politics into
statesmanship and statecraft. We must aim at a
condition of affairs in which we shall no longer
reserve the dignified name of statesman for a
Churchill or a Roosevelt, but extend it to
lesser men who give honorable and patriotic
service in public affairs.
It is true that most men of ability prefer the
objective work of science, the law, literature,
scholarship, or the immediately stimulating and
profitable work of manufacturing, commerce, or
finance.
The result is that our legislative assemblies
are a fair popular cross-section, not a corps
d'elite. The first-class mind is comparatively
rare. We discourage young men of parts by
confronting them with poor material rewards,
precariousness of tenure, an open public
cynicism about their motives, and cheap sneers
about their real or supposed search for
publicity.
The reason for this wrong-headedness, so
damaging to ourselves, is that we have treated
democracy as an end and not as a means. It is
almost as if we had said, when legislatures
freely elected by the votes of all adult
citizens came into being, 'Well, thank heaven we
have achieved democracy. Let us now devote our
attention to something new.' Yet the true task
of the democrat only begins when he is put in
possession of the instruments by which the
popular will may be translated into
authoritative action. In brief, we cannot
sensibly devote only one per cent of our time to
something which affects ninety-nine per cent of
our living.
How, then, are we to attract into the political
service of the nation more and more people of
unusual gifts? Not merely by the attraction of
the scientific aspect of politics, for science
must be in its nature objective. It concerns
itself with the absolute truth, not with the
best realizable compromise. The pure political
scientist would die of frustration after a year
or two spent in public affairs. The real
attraction must be that of the art of politics,
through which alone the political scientist will
get his chance, and by which alone the results
of his labors will, in greater or lesser degree,
be put into operation.
What is the art of politics? As one of its most
indifferent practitioners, I hesitate to answer
that question. In any event no answer can be
exhaustive. I shall therefore put my answer in
several ways.
First, briefly, the art of politics is, in
relation to public affairs, to provide
exposition, persuasion, and inspiration. As the
answer has a sort of echo in it of the more
tedious forms of after-dinner oratory I make my
second.
It is that the art of politics embraces all the
following elements:
By speech or writing or both to convey political
ideas to others. (You might, in fact, say ‘to
others and to yourself’, for many a speaker or
writer has for the first time clarified his own
mind in the course of endeavoring to convey his
ideas to others. This is a phenomenon well known
to many advocates and even to some judges!)
To secure the acceptance of those ideas by a
majority.
To create a firm and understanding public
opinion which will see that they are translated
into action.
To accustom people to thinking, not only of the
immediate present or of the next election, but
of the future of a long-range and comprehensive
way.
To temper the frequently absurd asperities of
political conflict by seeking to stir up only
noble and humane emotions, since ignoble
passions, so easily aroused, can in the nature
of things produce only ignoble policies and
unfair administration.
Above all – for it is the only element which can
make the magnificent conception of democracy
result in the birth of true and brotherly human
freedom – to encourage a wide realization that
every right connotes a duty; that my rights are
conditioned upon some other fellow’s performance
of his duty to me, and that his rights will
disappear unless I do my duty by him.
By way of third answer, let me now make a few
practical working comments upon some of these
elements.
We are no doubt fine fellows, but on the whole
we are neglecting the art of speech. There are
plenty of speakers and much willingness. But on
public occasions, great or small, there is a
growing disposition to read an essay and to read
it in a singularly dull way, with head bowed
over the typescript, without pause or emphasis,
or point or climax. If we are satisfied that our
speeches are going to be eagerly read by
posterity, this may be a good idea. But for most
of us the essence of a speech is that it should
reach the hearts and minds of our immediate
audience. It must therefore be made to them and
not merely in their presence.
The frequent and indiscriminating praise of that
rather misunderstood thing called ‘oratory’ has,
I sometimes think, tended adversely to affect
the quality of public speech. After all, the
essence of a good speech is that the speaker
should have something to say which he is
resolved to convey to his listeners in the
simplest, most intelligible, and most persuasive
language. He must command his own words and not
become their incoherent victim. The search for
elaboration rather than simplicity is a mark of
the second-rate. Lucidity has always seemed to
me to be one of the cardinal virtues. The
occasional passages of noble and moving English
which have flowered in the speeches of a Pitt, a
Lincoln, a Churchill, were the inevitable
produce of sincerity, originality of mind, and
deep emotion. They cannot be forced without
being destroyed. They certainly cannot be
consciously imitated.
Two modern devices are, in my opinion, acting
adversely to good public speech. One is
amplification by the microphone. Sometimes it is
necessary. But we are getting into the habit of
using it, even for indoor meetings of a few
hundred people. In the result, it is impairing
our faculties of speech by making the proper
pitching and modulation of our voices
irrelevant. It eliminates the curiously moving
quality of the human voice, directly heard. It
is destroying the faculty of listening because
people who are accustomed to the deafening blare
of an amplifier find the unassisted voice thin
and (so they think) inaudible. This destruction
of the old intimate contact between speaker and
audience is a dangerous enemy to that simple,
direct communication which is of the essence of
true, unexaggerated public advocacy.
The other dangerous modern device is one for
which the press must accept a share of
responsibility. So great is the natural anxiety
of newspapers to be ‘first with the latest’ that
important speeches are nowadays ‘reported’
before they are delivered. That is to say they
are prepared and distributed before they are
spoken.
This has made fashionable and perhaps inevitable
the reading of speeches. It is, to me, a
deplorable thing. The speech ceases to be the
obvious expression of the speaker’s personality
and ideas, since anybody may have written it.
The speaker himself misses the stimulus which
comes from addressing a living meeting, the
impact upon his own mind which a good audience
can procure. His speech loses flexibility. It
all too frequently ceases to persuade because
persuasion depends upon the creation in the mind
of the listener of a feeling that the speaker is
addressing him, man to man, and is dealing with
the point that is troubling his mind.
To many people the art of politics is the art of
propaganda. This is, in a sense, true. But
again, we must be careful and intelligent if we
are not to injure democracy. Extravagance of
propaganda defeats itself in the long run, for,
while it deludes some, it nauseates others. In
my experience personal attacks usually injure
the attacker. Yet the practice flourishes. I
think we discourage many people from entering
public life by our absurd habit, not peculiar to
any one country, of seeking emphasis by violence
and exaggeration rather than by the making of
the fair concession which renders the subsequent
criticism so much more effective. Plain people
are more likely to believe that your political
opponent is a decent fellow, like themselves,
but wrong on some great issue, than that he is a
consummate rogue whose public errors are
doubtless the product of a corrupt and murky
private life.
But perhaps the worst attack upon the true art
of politics is made by those who cater for those
who want their politics served up to them in the
form of personal gossip, of chance remarks in
corridors, of hints and speculations and rumors.
The greater the target, the more it attracts the
arrows of the mean and the malicious. The more
prevalent this debased view of the art of
politics, the fewer people of character and
sensibility shall we attract into its service.
Again, the business of political warfare is not
to destroy your opponent, but to defeat him. It
is one of the glories of our system that it
provides not only for government but for
opposition. As one who has been a Prime Minister
and a Leader of the Opposition, I can say quite
confidently that just as there can be no good or
stable government without a sound majority, so
there will be a dictatorial government unless
there is the constant criticism of an
intelligent, active, and critical opposition.
Finally, if the democratic politician is really
to understand the importance of his art and
practice it, he must be a leader. It is still as
true as it was when Edmund Burke said it, that a
Member of Parliament is not a delegate but a
representative, bound to bring not merely his
vote but his judgment to the service of his
people. Just as a democracy cannot be preserved
in war without a great and prevailing physical
courage, so it cannot be wisely governed and
preserved in peace without moral courage.
All of us who are in politics are disposed to be
nervous about current opinion in the electorate.
This nervousness is, so to speak, our
occupational disease. We therefore need to
remind ourselves frequently that we who are in
Congress or Parliament are expected to know more
about political issues than private citizens. We
have great opportunities of study, more
authoritative sources of information, a better
chance of hearing and considering both sides. We
owe our constituents guidance. We are not bound
to spend our days, like the gentleman in the old
bromide, ‘sitting on a fence with both ears to
the ground’.
I will say nothing about Philip Drunk or Philip
Sober, for such references are always
misinterpreted. But I will say that the art of
politics is not that of devising ways and means
of securing the overthrow of informed judgment
by hasty and misinformed opinion, of considered
policy by sudden mass emotion. The regiments of
politics cannot, with safety to the state, be
led from behind.
Many of us, with sincere respect for the
carefulness and accuracy of such poll takers as
Dr Gallup, are anxious about the effect which
this new technique will have upon the practice
of politics. If it serves to tell the politician
of widely entertained errors which he must
attack, well and good. But if it merely tells
him to beware, because opinion is against him,
many good ideas will, I fear, be abandoned and
Gilbert’s Duke of Plaza Toro may yet be a
President or Prime Minister.
This little essay, may I say before I close, is
not (though it may seem so) a guide lecture for
beginners by One who Knows. Its arguments are,
on the contrary, derived from a political
experience in which I have been guilty of
practically every indicated error, every fault.
But one may have a passion for art without being
a great artist.
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