Real Political Reform Doesn’t Bother With Elections
(I originally wrote this in the fall of 2008 for Ecclesia Collective – right about the time everyone was falling all over themselves about new hope in American politics. In light of the hangover that is the Scott Brown election, it seemed appropriate to re-post.)
I have a confession to make: the American Presidential race has become my favorite spectator sport lately. It really is amazing – the subtle innuendos and outright assaults. For pure brutal entertainment, the UFC has nothing on American politics.
Then there are the promises.
Depending on who you believe the next President will either repair the greatest collapse of capitalism in history, make the middle class richer, stop the hemorrhaging of American jobs overseas, unleash an army of patriotic civil volunteers, kick our dirty foreign oil addiction, develop clean energy sources, or win the war on terror.
All this gratuitous half-truthing has created a perception of politics that is rather grotesque. When was the last time you heard someone in casual conversation use the word politics or politician in a non-pejorative way? And yet, we buy it. It’s like we get all dressed up for the theater and pretend not to see all the stage hands dressed in black moving props around. Or, maybe we’re just collectively crossing our fingers and hoping for the best.
Here’s the thing: whoever is elected, whatever policies are implemented, whatever legislation is enacted, it won’t be enough. Real people will still fall through the cracks.
Take, for instance, Ivan Crawford and his family. This time last year the 4 year-old from Findlay, Ohio was celebrating a triumphant battle with cancer and enjoying the memories of a recent Make-a-Wish sponsored trip to Disney World.
But by the end of November, their financial burdens were taking a harsh toll. Unable to pay their electric bill, the Crawford’s service was shut off by the local utility. With temperatures outside dropping dangerously low, Ivan’s mother lit candles so her family could stay warm. While they slept, the candles caused a fire which killed Ivan, his mother Michelle, and sisters Yaniella (11) and Victoria (7). Friends and neighbors expressed shock and disbelief; nobody even knew the family was having trouble paying their bills. (Click here for the story.)
Like most of life, the Crawford’s story is complicated. There are no clear-cut villains. This tragedy occurred because of an array of hard circumstances, unwise decisions, bureaucratic apathy, and friendly assumptions. However, it’s a dramatic example of a sad reality. The fact is, it’s not difficult to imagine a typical American family in a typical American neighborhood living in desperately hard circumstances without their neighbors ever knowing about it.
And that cuts to the real meaning of politics and the current state of politics in America today.
At it’s heart, politics is not about government or leadership. When Socrates (through Plato) spoke of the polis, he referred to a community of people who “gathered together many associates and helpers” because nobody is “individually independent.” That is, we gather because we need each other to survive. In this way, relationally meeting the needs of others within the polis becomes a problem of justice – and Socrates defined justice in exactly those relational terms.
Hence, real politics is simply the collective practice of meeting each others needs. Stripped down to its spirit, it’s actually what Vaclev Havel calls “anti-political politics,” that is, living lives of, “practical morality, as service to the truth, as essentially human and humanly measured care for our fellow humans” (from his speech, “Politics and Conscience”). Real politics means taking care of one another.
Socrates thought (and today we seem to agree) the best way to care for one another was to create the right kind of government with the right kind of politicians. But Socrates wasn’t able to solve the problem of justice because real politics requires the cultivation of a genuinely virtuous people. In fact, this is the great dilemma of Plato’s Republic, and the great failing of all Modern governments; no matter how you organize government or legislate policy, virtue doesn’t reliably follow. Love cannot be legislated.
The early Christians had their own thoughts about cultivating this kind of community and it didn’t involve government as we know it. Instead, they practiced koinonia, which means joining intimately together with Christ’s death and resurrection (1 Cor 10:16). It means bypassing human systems and going straight to the source of divine love, and in a radical innovation, Paul (unlike Socrates) affirms entrance into koinonia for everyone regardless of race, gender, or class (Gal 3:28). Virtue, then, including mutual care and leadership comes not by class or coercion, but by the the Spirit of God.
If we’re going to see real political change, it must come from the ground up, not from the Oval Office. People at the neighborhood level must enter together into the koinonia of Christ and radically care deeply for others; bearing the others burdens, feeding each others families, and paying one anothers bills without precedent or permission from any governmental authority. It means becoming, in reality, a taste of the hope to which all of humanity has aspired.
That’s political reform I could endorse.
DAGJQNGUGWNE
