People with a sense of humor call psychology a science on the behavior of people, including politicians, distinguishing between ordinary people and those in politics. Who are politicians? How are they different from the rest of us – meaning not so much their image as their inner social motivations. An image can be patched or brightened up, changed altogether if need be. In an adult individual inner motivations change little if at all over time. This is precisely where four typical political types emerge: zealots, pragmatists, adventurers, and cynics.
William Faulkner cared little for politics, but he was observant and in the end arrived at the conclusion that politics is a very personal matter. He wrote that a Republican can only break surface among those that have built their fortunes relying on their own resources. A Liberal is one who inherits them. A Democrat is nothing but a barefoot liberal in a cross-country race. Republicans are the only material from which Conservatives are made, but not before they learn to read and to write. Ironically, this categorizing serves to describe US realities more or less accurately, yet the principles prove valid anywhere else on the planet, boiling down to this adage: there are no unaffiliated politicians. Everyone is inherently competitive, meaning he actively uses his inborn faculties whereby an individual may become a topnotch scientist, businessman, artist, or athlete. Politics should be regarded in the same vein, meaning that one should not debase oneself to a boring “equality” but that the elevation of his inequality is the result of social development. The supremacy of money means capitalism, that of the will means totalitarianism. Elevating human intellect is where the human race is headed these days, even if it does not really know it. Social transformations are caused not only by the struggle of classes, but also by the struggle of personalities. In this sense ambition emerges as a significant component of political talent. The more ambition the better. Ambition, however, must be balanced by reason and a sense of humor. A vain, verbose idiot stands little chance. On the other hand, an extremely intellectual yet reticent individual is also unlikely to attract many supporters.
An overzealous politician is to be feared because he is unable to see the world for what it really is, visualizing it through the prism of his own ideas. His is a distorted vision of his own and public morals. This politician will readily accept the Jesuitical motto that the end justifies the means. Evidence is found in numerous crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Communist regime. Today’s Communist and Socialist apologists formally denounce all the Stalinist excesses, while swearing by Lenin and all democratic virtues to be truly serving their people. They ought to have studied their own ideological classics better. Let me quote from Vladimir Lenin (1894): “There is definitely no reason to allege the absence of a clear qualitative distinction between the Democratic and Socialist ideas in Russia. To the contrary: there is an abyss between these ideas and the Socialists ought to have long understood this and that there is a final and pressing necessity to disown Democratic ideas.” And so my question is addressed to Comrades Petro Symonenko and Oleksandr Moroz: “Are you for democracy or for Lenin?”
A pragmatic politician relies on his own understanding of what is actually happening in society. He is prone to pessimism and hates illusions. He sees his society the way a plowman does his field, asking what has to be done to bring in a good harvest and get rid of weeds. His political goal is uppermost in his mind along with its attendant strategy. He does not like tactical games and steering a middle course, but he will never reject them because of personal motivation. He will sign an agreement with Satan, provided the other party plays fair and honors every commitment. In his daily work a pragmatic politician does not pay much attention to overtones; he is prepared to correct ideological nuances, rallying experts learned in different fields. He can make an important decision after hearing someone way down the social ladder, even a habitually drunk janitor who doesn’t give a damn about parties or politics. More often than not he is averse to self-aggrandizement, but one should think twice before crossing his path. A pragmatic politician hates humanitarian phraseology and slogans, but holds the humanitarian idea sacred (it should be noted in this respect the Ukrainian People’s Republic, that early twentieth century harbinger of the late twentieth century independent Ukraine, lacked precisely such political pragmatism to survive; for example, all Mykola Hrushevsky’s academic erudition and social idealism were inadequate to rally the forces of society).
An adventuresome politician openly enjoys the ups and down of a given political campaign. He has no firm convictions of his own. He will risk whenever he figures the stakes are high enough (and he will bet not only his own career, but also the destinies of all those supporting him). This type of politician may have a dramatic bent. He will sell his eternal soul for a short-lived political triumph, because political laurels, being hero for a day, all this pomp are more precious to him than anything habitual referred to as the everlasting truth. He can feel utterly miserable at times, aware of his own true worth, which is nil, but he always remembers that the show must go on. He is usually surrounded by scum as supporters and sycophants, because their being so utterly valueless adds to his importance. A case study in this character is Benito Mussolini, along with his lesser Libyan counterpart, Muammar al-Qaddafi, and even lesser Yuri Meshkov, former Crimean President.
A cynical politician cuts a complex figure psychologically, incorporating pragmatic and adventuresome traits, in varying proportion. The only thing he lacks is zeal or fanaticism, because he has no political convictions whatsoever. Yet, without having an underlying idea, he does his utmost to be everyone’s chum, meaning those who can be bought with a suitable idea. He usually poses as a zealot and does it very true to life. His motto is to buy anything salable and sell anything in demand. That is his top cynical perception. Psychologists use the notion of moral idiocy, understanding it as one’s being unable to distinguish between good and evil. Every such moral idiot chooses his entourage in his own image. A decent individual has only one way of cooperating with such characters: make friends with them and use the first opportunity to kill or otherwise get rid of them. Now look at the Verkhovna Rada. Look for cynics and you will find plenty, including nationally acclaimed actors, academicians, and all those other diplomatic lackeys. A cynic does not so much constitute an amoral community as he embodies it.
Given proper circumstances, a cynical and a pragmatic politician will make similar decisions. The difference between them becomes obvious in a critical situation when the pragmatist abides by moral dictates which mean nothing to the cynic. Remarkably, cynics turn out to have a certain advantage in any given political partnership. Depending on the circumstances, a zealot will stamp his foot and say no, an adventurer will turn traitor as soon as he sees the opportunity, and an unprincipled politician will try to make a deal and stick to it for as long as it pays off. When communicating with “the masses,” the cynic often proves quite sociable, understandable, even witty: he has to, because this is all he has to his name. And he always offers soliloquies that politics is a dirty business to bury his own dirt in verbal sawdust.
Categorizing politicians according to these four psychological groups is simplistic. As a rule, different motivations in one’s conduct prove to cross one another, presenting an intertwined pattern when it is not easy to tell between political pragmatism and perfectly elastic conscience and foretell another Famine of 1933 resulting from fanatically serving the “people’s good.”
As for a politician’s mental orientation (“quality”), one must not overlook that politician’s “volume” as a personality (“quantity”). Politics not only allows for, but also demands top-level performance. Those who cannot measure up are not politicians but political dilettantes. Consider, for example, Comrade Aleksandr Lukashenko. He is not a zealot; he is very pragmatic; he is not a pragmatic politician, because he takes very big risks; he is not an adventurer, because he takes such risks when absolutely sure that he will get off scot-free; he is not a cynical politician, because he sincerely believes in collective farming and that the Belarus currency rate can be maintained by ukases. Simply, he is not a politician. It is hard not to notice that politicking thrives in Ukraine. The only asset most of us have is our vote. Caveat emptor applies in the realm of politics even more than in the street bazaar!
Photo by Life Magazine:
Changing or altering a politician’s image is considerably more
difficult than replacing billboards







