Any Questions? Yeah: Why the Fatal Conceit?

I was listening to Any Questions on Saturday on Radio 4, and became increasingly frustrated by the premise that someone’s intellectual capabilities should be measured by their wide grasp of current affairs. As is typical, the spectrum of topics was broad (global warming, youth & society, the middle east) and all panellists expressed their proposed solutions. As is almost always the case on the BBC their definition of balance was to have politicians from right and left to participate. Is that true balance? Aren’t we missing a third option?

It is very rare to hear panellists deliberately representing the liberal middle ground: those who argue for neither the political left nor the political right, but for the unpolitical. Someone to say “Do you know what? I’m not an expert on all three of these issues, and I don’t wish to pretend that I have a solution”. Of course the BBC will always find someone who is willing to play this charade, and we all from time to time have a go. But it obscures an important voice that is so often neglected.

The solution to the world’s ills is not to keep changing the people at the top. If you put your faith in politicians to make your world a better place you’ll be disappointed: just feel the crushed dreams of New Labour’s most enthusiastic supporters. They’ve woken up to discover that their radical Trojan horse is now ultra-Establishment. And it’s not a transformation due to power, either. On the contrary, the political class are always defined as being political above all else – whether red or blue they believe that they are the best means to order society and therefore have more similarities than differences. Labour love to paint the John Prescott witch hunt as being class-motivated, but his actions demonstrate that he’s not a working class hero coming undone by the temptations of power – he’s always been part of a political class who crave power and then abuse it.

So how long will it be until I see a panellist pass up the chance to flash their intellectual savvy and say “I don’t know the answer, and neither do you, nor you, nor you….” As the old saying goes, If you think you have the answer, you don’t have all the facts. Any Questions trivialises this point by rewarding the sound-bite and the rhetoric. It encourages words not action. It’s a talking shop, irrelevant, absent of wisdom or understanding.

One thing panellists seem to agree upon is that these are novel times: the world is becoming increasingly complex, and society is full of problems. How long will we continue the charade that we’re simply waiting for the right person to ride into town and posses the political qualities necessary to solve it all? It won’t happen, because it can’t happen. Complex systems can’t be solved by individual contemplation and centralised planning – no matter how modern or how Rational. They require decentralised decision making (to enable experimentation and learning); emergent networks (to facilitate feedback and learning); and institutions that generate incentives (i.e. property), innovation (profit and loss) and information (prices).

Notice that I’ve not criticised Question Time. Despite the same underlying problems at least that program deliberately focuses on the accountability of politicians. Despite their Any Question’s-type bravado as being an arena to create debate which solves problems, it also creates a stage for politicians to demonstrate how intellectually weak and how wilfully ignorant they truly are. And although the vast majority of panellists are members of the political class, they always have a token comedian who typically represents the voice of reason and just says what we all really think: you guys live in a bubble, and you’re failing to accomplish what you promise to achieve.

What will it take for the plea for humility to be heard?

Comments

[Quinn]

Good points, and I broadly agree with everything you say.

However, while a comedian can hold his hands up and say, “I don’t have all the answers”, a politician would be crucified for saying the same. Every so often an MP will rail against “Punch and Judy politics” and the Westminster village, but to admit that they aren’t an expert and don’t have solutions to every problem would probably be the end of their political career. They can’t even change their mind without being accused of flip-flopping.

So who’s at fault; the other politicians, the media or the electorate themselves, all who I suspect would hang out to dry any politician who admitted they weren’t omnipotent?

(P.S. I don’t mean to sound sympathetic to politicians; the type of person who wants to go into politics probably wouldn’t admit “fallibility” in the first place; but even if they did they wouldn't be allowed to get away with it).

[AJE]

So who’s at fault

Good question - I'd say that the median voter gets what they want, but for various reasons that choice has poor foundations (chiefly down to rational ignorance, see here).

I think some politicians have been able to demonstrate a willingness to learn and change their minds - Michael Portillo is perhaps an example of this. But the worst get on top - there's probably a glass ceiling that consigns honest, inquisitive, decent MPs to local issues.

[Quinn]

I agree with you on Portillo; however, it took him to lose an election before he started to talk a bit of sense, and it was only when he left politics and started cuddling up to Diane Abbott on a Thursday evening* that I really began to like him.

(*I mean metaphorically on This Week, obviously).

[AJE]

It shouldn't be seen as a surprise that his political career and his likeability are inversely related!

[TIS]

On a tangent, what do Filter readers make of this?

http://adamboulton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/07/bush_blair_unpl.html