This page is an archive from the previous version of The Row Boat, which is why it doesn't look and work the same as the current version. However, these archives are fully functional and integrated with the new system.

Why does this site permit advertising?
Click here to discuss.

The Row Boat

"Had we but world enough, and time..." *

Decapitating Politics

12/15/2006 16:24:55

An interesting conversation last night with an architect friend, particularly on the intersections of architecture and theology. She is doing work on spaces generated by lived ritual and it sounded like certain movements in ethnographic theology (mentioned in my essay Proving What We See with the Eyes of Love). In the midst of it, though, we talked about politics and things and a suggestion came in my head. Not utterly unheard of, but for the first time it seemed strangely unradical.

What if we eliminated the office of the presidency? Instead, the executive branch would be run by a cabinet junta, perhaps appointed by the congress or separately elected directly by the people. That way the presidency would be divided between the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, secretary of the interior, and so on. No one person would have all the say.

More importantly, the totemic power of the president would be eliminated. No longer would the nation's persona be encapsulated in a single person, and so also goodbye to the illusion that a nation (a pluralistic, federal one particularly) is a united front, an anthropomorphic being. The true modus operendi of modern government, the endless bureaucracy, would take its rightful place in political symbology. The result, optimistically, might be a meaningful reenforcement of the idea of government as public service rather than cult of personality.

Really it is absurd, with presidents always being elected by such narrow margins, that we permit any one person to be our total representative.

On the other extreme, if this proposal fails, I would suggest a similarly-functioning cabinet except with a Hollywood actor always as president, a public-relations extraordinaire would could at least give us a good cult of personality while leaving the actual governing to less flamboyant experts.

re: on power - 11/23/2007 12:37:40
Posted by nathan

These remarks are related to thinking I've been doing connected with Foucault on the possession of power - do the powerful possess power, or does it possess them?

Being in power does not necessarily mean that one has power, just as being out of power doesn't mean that one is powerless. The political narratives and hierarchies we take to tell the truth are not the whole truth. Other stories are possible.

The President thinks he is powerful, but there are few more powerless, encumbered men. We see this especially now with George W. Bush, the most powerful man in the world, who has meanwhile managed to make himself a failure. Doesn't true power exclude the possibility of failure?

Printer-friendly version

The Row Boat basks under a liberating Creative Commons license