On the Present and on Politics

Abstract

There has been much talk recently of the “oblivion of politics.”¹ A number of events have produced this oblivion, and here I mention those that have led to the privatization and destruction of public space:

• The decline of public space and the expansion of the private sphere in the context of the economic and political activities of so-called neoliberal governments, defined by the elimination of economic, social, and political rights guaranteed by public power, and benefiting the private interests of the ruling classes, that is, capital.

• The end of the sphere of public opinion. This has ceased to be a field for the expression of different opinions concerning economic, social, cultural, and political life. Public opinion was, from its inception, a space for the public manifestation of the ideas of different groups and classes concerned with defending their interests, which determined political decisions and actions linked to the collective. Public opinion has now become the public manifestation of individual tastes, preferences, and sentiments that previously belonged to the sphere of private life.

• The end of public discussions and debates of government programs and projects as well as laws. This is an outcome of the emergence of political marketing and an effect of postmodern ideology that submits politics to the methods of a consumer society and a society of the spectacle. Political marketing sells the image of the politician, reducing the citizen to the private figure of the consumer. In order to consolidate a form of identification between the consumer and the product, marketing produces an image of the politician as a private person: physical characteristics, sexual, dietary or literary preferences, favorite sports, habits, and pets, and family life. This privatization of politicians and citizens effectively privatizes public space.

• The ideology of competence. Society is divided between the competent, meaning those who possess scientific and technical knowledge and, therefore, have the right to rule and govern, and everyone else, who, lacking such knowledge, is seen as incompetent and obliged to obey. As a consequence of this ideology of competence, politics is regarded as a technical matter that must be dealt with by competent experts. Citizens have no choice but to acknowledge their own incompetence, to trust in the competence of the experts and limit their political participation to voting in elections.

• The role of the mass media. In the context of the ideology of competence, radio and television stations have increasingly become spaces for the discourse of experts who teach the public how to live and offer suggestions and advice on love, sex, diet, health, gynecology, cooking, physical exercise, cosmetics, fashion, medicines, gardening, carpentry, art, literature, and housekeeping. As Christopher Lasch points out in his book The Culture of Narcissism, the increasing power of the media has made the very ideas of fact and fiction inconsequential, replacing them with notions of credibility, plausibility, and reliability. For something to be accepted as real, it must only seem credible or plausible, or it must be put forward by someone reliable. Facts are replaced by statements offered by “authorized personalities” and “opinion makers” who provide not information but rather preferences that are immediately turned into propaganda. The basis for “credibility” and “reliability” lies in an appeal to intimacy, personality, and to private life as a mechanism that can support and guarantee public order.