The possibility that politics may not survive the Twenty-first Century is a frightening prospect to be sure, and it is not one to be taken lightly. However, Kenneth Minogue's argument, though vivid and compelling, is nevertheless fatally flawed: he makes a critical assumption that leads him to question the ability of politics to survive the Twenty-first Century, an assumption which I believe is left unjustified. He assumes that true political moralism is in fact attainable if a despot imposes it on us, where I would argue that due to fundamental human nature it is not, especially when the said imposition is through force.
The failure of the Soviet Union to universally impose a relatively simple ideology on its population is evidence of the power of this fundamental element of human nature. Another example, the case of Singapore, shows us how the spread of dissenting opinions cannot be stopped after the introduction of the Internet. The inherent nature of these dissenting opinions within us is clearly exhibited through my relationship with my roommate. A more philosophical interpretation further illustrates the impossibility of political moralism's killing politics.
Finally, Minogue assumes this predicted change is possible within the short space of a hundred years, where I would argue that current existing political systems are so resilient as to remain in place longer than this, in some form or another, before being replaced by an unchallenged and universal system. Minogue's political moralism argument, thus, is simply not sufficient to justify the end of politics, because absolute political moralism is simply unattainable in the next hundred years.
Minogue's recognition of a rising trend in today's society, which he calls political moralism (Minogue, 1995, p.104), is of pivotal importance to his argument that politics may not survive the Twenty-first Century. From the German government's decision to force its citizens to believe in the Holocaust to the increased expectation of tolerance between whites and blacks, he rightly argues that there has been, in recent decades, a shift towards greater "political correctness" in the lives of today's citizens (Minogue, 1995, p.110).
Minogue predicts the rise of an ever-more-important political moralism, extrapolating this curve, so to speak, until “this will ultimately bring harmony.” (Minogue, 1995, p.111). This progression to “harmony” is not defined as natural; rather, it is brought about through “manipulation and [attitude] management” (Minogue, 1995, p.111). The crucial element of his argument, therefore, is not that political moralism exists, or even that it is on the rise, but that it will be universally imposed on all of us, in an all-encompassing and inescapable way. It is only at this point, when political moralism has completely taken over all walks of life, that Mtinogue argues politics can cease to exist.
This necessary part of Minogue's argument, the assumption that complete political moralism can actually be reached, is inherently flawed due to the nature of humanity itself. Minogue himself states that politics is “inextricably bound up with our humanity” (Minogue, 1995, p.109). Humanity, inextricably entwined with individuality, is therefore a crucial element to be considered. As in Monty Python's The Life of Brian, with the crowd chanting “We are all individuals” and one person shouting from the back, “I'm not”, there will always be division of opinion in any human body.
To cite a more appropriate example, we might look to Soviet Russia. After the October Revolution of 1917 and their military success in the Civil War, the Bolshevik Party was essentially in complete control of the state. Though armed with a clearly defined political doctrine, that of Marxist-Leninism, a succession of leaders was unable to eliminate dissension and create harmony. Even by the time of the Second World War, after numerous Great Purges in the preceding decade, disharmony was clearly rampant. Many Russians fought on to defend communism even when their defeat was inevitable (Beevor, 1998, p.189), and yet some Wehrmacht units were actually welcomed as liberators in other towns (Von Luck, 1989, p.75).
Though to an outside observer the USSR may have seemed homogeneous, the striking human differences that remained under the surface were again revealed with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the ensuing political turmoil. Even given the better part of a century to succeed, the imposition of communism on a large group of people was doomed to failure simply because of the nature we find inherent in humanity.
In addition, it can be argued that, though undoubtedly an extreme policy, Russian communism is nowhere near as all encompassing and universal as Minogue's proposed political moralism. In comparison, communism should have been relatively easy to impose - it was merely a political and economic theory, and not one, such as political moralism, that required a universal understanding, acceptance, and imposition of a set of moral values. The fact that the forced imposition of such a comparatively soft doctrine was doomed to failure does not inspire confidence in Minogue's assertion that political moralism is in danger of becoming all pervading.
