Last year, about this time, I wrote a column that introduced the idea of "the problem of dirty hands." The idea comes from an article by an academic named Michael Walzer. The article starts with the assumption that politics is a dirty game: politics is about power and it's about keeping power. Walzer asks us to contemplate the nature or character of the politicians in the political game and to ask ourselves, "Who do we want to play the game on our behalf?" The article's central assumption, that politics is dirty, is very interesting and we have come to assume that it is true. I have been thinking about this as the Senate scandal has ramped up.
As it stands, it is hard to imagine that politics is anything but a game in which men and women are led to create separate public and private selves. In other words, they appear to be public servants while at the same time really serving themselves. I do not usually get worked up about political intrigue. Mostly I just find it a distraction but I am currently co-teaching a course on politics and virtue and I have been thinking a lot about the classical conception of virtue particularly since they did not see the political game as inherently dirty. The ancient view had us consider "what we should do" and not just what we might "get away with." In Plato's Republic, Glaucon, one of the characters in the dialogue, tells the story of Gyges, a man who found a ring that could turn him invisible (Yes, I think of Golem too) and with the ring Gyges killed the king, took the King's wife and took the kingdom. ... Glaucon tells this story to prompt Socrates into defending his position that the just life is worth living. Socrates argues through the rest of the book that the just man would never use the ring. He says that the consequences to our soul would be too great. Socrates argues, throughout the book that our public and private selves cannot be separated. In other words, we must remain true to the truth. All of our choices should be grounded in the question "what should I do?" not "what can I get away with?" I think most of us believe this to be true. Yet we seem to have accepted that politics is dirty and every political scandal comes to the same point: we want our politicians to ask themselves: "What should I do? And not: "What can I get away with."
It is far too early to speculate about what exactly transpired in the Prime Minister's office. I expect it will take some time before we know which "truth" is really the truth: Senator Duffy's version or the Prime Minister's version. If Senator Duffy is right then the Prime Minister wasn't particularly concerned about the truth. Duffy said that the Prime Minister told him, 'It's not about what you did, it's about the perception of what you did that's been created in the media. The rules are inexplicable to our base' ..." Let's look carefully at the implications of these statements. First is the suggestion that what Mike Duffy did was ok because he was following the rules but let's face it, Mike Duffy does not live in P.E.I. Being appointed as a Senator who represents P.E.I. should give you a good clue about the residency requirement. Second, Duffy said that the Prime Minister suggested that the media is to blame for the scandal. If this is true then it implies that "getting caught" is the real concern and not the ethics itself. And, finally, one has to wonder about what the Prime Minister thinks of the "rest of the voters" if only the Conservative "base" matters.
I have tried in this column over and over again to make the point that politicians must rise above the game in order to regain the public trust. The reconstruction of our faith in public servants cannot be done by simply creating the faade that they have done the right thing. As Andrew Coyne said on the National on Thursday night, there has to be one ethical standard and it must stand at all times and in all circumstances.
