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7 - Politics as theatre: an alternative view of the rationalities of power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2009

By
David E. Apter
Edited by
Jeffrey C. Alexander ,
Bernhard Giesen  and
Jason L. Mast
David E. Apter
Affiliation:
Henry J. Heinz Professor Emeritus of Comparative Political and Social Development and Senior Research Scientist, Yale University
Jeffrey C. Alexander
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Bernhard Giesen
Affiliation:
Universität Konstanz, Germany
Jason L. Mast
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
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Summary

And what is the aim of that stately and marvelous creature, tragic drama? Is it her endeavor and ambition, in your opinion, merely to gratify the spectators; or, if there be anything pleasant and charming, but evil, to struggle against uttering it, but to declaim and sing anything that is unwelcome but beneficial, whether they like it or not?

Plato, The Gorgias

Life is not determined by consciousness but consciousness by life.

Marx, The German Ideology

Locating the subject

Plato warned against the beguiling qualities of drama. If he was right then Marx was at least half wrong. Consciousness may be determined by life, but life is also determined by consciousness. This essay, a preliminary effort to analyze politics as theatre, emphasizes the second part of Marx's statement. The concern here is with the way theatrical aspects of politics shape consciousness. That is, how they become in effect lifelike, if not as pure representation then something else – display, mystique, mimetics, code, metaphor, symbolic condensation, manipulation – to suggest only a few of the attributes of all the world as a stage. This suggests a twofold purpose: to identify and examine significant aspects of the more general relationship between political discourse and political power, something not normally much dealt with within the framework of conventional political analysis. By the same token, we want to avoid some of the confusion associated with certain very commonly used concepts like political culture and ideology that, undeniably useful in the past, now have too many meanings (see, for example, Eagleton 1991).

Type
Chapter
Information
Social Performance
Symbolic Action, Cultural Pragmatics, and Ritual
 , pp. 218 - 256
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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