JOHN P. DIGGINS
Language, Politics, Leadership
When liberal political philosophy enunciated its founding principles, vari–
ous thinkers looked to language as the ally of progressive politics. The
idea of communication, public debate, and parliamentary discussion pro–
vided the basis for the rational reconciliation of issues. Some
Enlightenment
philosophes
assumed that language, as the form through
which knowledge speaks, could be juxtaposed to power in order to ex–
pose its arbitrary, irrational molestations. The power of words to oppose
power could be relied upon in a culture that believed language accurately
represented reality and that truth could be held, even inalienably pos–
sessed, as "self-evident."
Today language has lost its innocence as a transparent medium.
Politics itself is no longer guided by belief in objective truth, and gov–
ernment suffers from a lack of leadership, a subject absent in recent years
from American scholarship in favor of that of "strong democracy." In
American political theory citizen participation has become an end in itself,
and democracy rests on the vagaries of language rather than in the clarity
ofleadership.
Abraham Lincoln once spoke to the American people in the name of
the nature of things, and political authority drew its validity from that ref–
erence. No more. Today language and politics function without founda–
tions in philosophy or religion. Philosophers and literary theorists have
long been telling us that knowledge cannot possess its object, and that
behind self-constituted interpretations and rhetorical formations lie little
more than interest and power. In modern politics, too, the quest for truth
and justice is verbally promised in the name of "change" as candidates go
after power, office, and influence. The philosopher informs us that
knowledge is power; knowledge is not only the capacity to have effect
but also the condition of experiencing representation as exclusion and,
hence, domination. It is small wonder there lurks a crisis of representa–
tion, whether of inanimate objects that exist
to
be known or of
"marginalized" people demanding to be seen and heard. Indeterminacy
reigns everywhere. In politics, no less than in modern thought, it is diffi–
cult to determine the ideas behind the words, be they in a text or a
speech. With either author or politician, interpretation depends upon the
