Sir William Temple, his resident at Brussels, received orders to go secretly to the Hague, and to concert with the States the means of saving the Netherlands. This man, whom philosophy had taught to despise the world, without rendering him unfit for it, was frank, open, sincere, superior to the little tricks of vulgar politicians: And meeting in de Wit with a man of the same generous and enlarged sentiments, he immediately opened his master’s intentions, and pressed a speedy conclusion.--David Hume, History of England.
It is often said about Hume that he rejects the instructive use of exemplars to be emulated common in the traditional conception of the writing of the history. But while there is a kernel of truth to this claim, he does point to exemplary figures sometimes. Temple, whose Essays are an important and overlooked source (and target) for Hume's political writings, is treated as nearly (but perhaps not quite enlarged) magnanimous even in the company of that seventeenth century (flawed) exemplar of a philosopher-king, De Wit (recall). We are told he is a diplomat-politician educated by his study of philosophy. (We are not told which philosophy.) At first blush, it would seem, that in Hume's hands, Temple participates in the contempt of politicians by intellectuals of the sort diagnosed by Latour (and echoed by Harman in the following passage):
Latour's great respect for politicians [is--ES] quite unusual among intellectuals. As he puts it "contempt for politicians is still today what creates the widest consensus in academic circles." (PF 245). But Latour could hardly disagree more with this consensus: "It takes something like courage to admit that we will never do better than a politician [...Others] simply have something to hide when they have made mistakes. They can go back and try again. Only the politician is limited to a single shot and has to shoot in public." (PF 210). We will never do better than a politician. Latour has no time for those beautiful souls who cling to the supposed purity of their principles while unable to bring victory to their cause. "What we despise as political 'mediocrity' is simply the collection of compromises that we force politicians to make on our behalf." (PF 210)....An old military maxim tells us that amateurs talk strategy but professionals talk logistics. While these words are already Latourian enough, we might make them even more Latourian by writing: "Amateurs talk ends professionals talk means."--Graham Harman Bruno Latour: Reassembling the Political, 14-15
It is, of course, a funny and subtle use of 'courage' to have to admit, qua intellectual, that one cannot do better than a politician. Even so, it is worth reminding ourselves that professionals have their ends set for them by the norms of their profession (e.g., health in medicine) or -- in a well-ordered military -- by (political/politicized) nodes higher up in the chain of command; and as Clausewitz teaches us that military ends need to be informed by strategy. That is to say, professionals with self-command are silent about ends and strategy because it is none of their business. But it does not follow it is nobody's business.
This is not to deny Harman and Latour's point that contempt of politicians is misguided (recall also here and here). They are right to recognize that politicians can -- within all kinds of (institutional, financial, historical, technological, etc.) constraints (including the opinions of others) -- be genuine agents that may facilitate the bringing about of ends. Their decisions are, as Harman and Latour emphasize, made under conditions of incomplete information and without full confidence that the aim they wish to bring about, even if guided by policy science, won't be diverted by unintended consequences (i.e., so-called Knightian uncertainty). One might think, then, that political, practical wisdom consists in a kind of un-theoretical know-how that is primarily constituted by a willingness, or courage, to make decisions that will determine one's fate.
But Hume helps us think an alternative thought; Temple has contempt for the "vulgar politician." And the implied contrast is with his attitude toward the refined politician. For according to Hume, the vulgar politicians "are apt... to have recourse to more hasty and more dangerous remedies." So, courageous decision-ism can be taken too far. In particular, (in context Hume is saying that) while one always must act under conditions on uncertainty, it does not follow that no (fallible) knowledge of the regular, albeit not exception-less, pattern of consequences that follow from a particular institutional design is possible. After all, Hume reports Temple as claiming (anticipating Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations): "to remove things from their center, or proper element, required force and labour; but that of themselves they easily returned to it." But this presupposes knowledge of social causes (i.e., knowledge of what is 'natural' or 'proper' in social life.)
The refined politician, who may know something about great tricks,* can also play for time (or promote institutional reform) or muddle through depending on the ends she aims at. That is, a refined politician, who deserves our respect on the Humean view, legislates ends and acts cautiously, but decisively on fallible causal social knowledge that she learns (with skeptical scrutiny) from the social scientist.
*That is, she may hide our actions even from the knowing eyes of a Latour...
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