Yesterday, I wrote about Barack Obama’s remarkable admission, during last Tuesday’s Democratic Party debate, that there is a “vanity aspect and ambition aspect to politics.” Again, no matter what one’s feelings are about Obama, the remark was refreshingly daring (name another candidate who has brought up this truth) and, philosophically speaking, deeply provocative. Political philosophers, from Plato and Aristotle through Machiavelli and the rest of the moderns, have continually struggled with how, exactly, vanity and ambition mold the character of political leaders, and whether or not they’re controllable, or at least able to be modified for the greater good. Today I’d like to add a few more words to my initial observations.
At the highest level, politics and acting—both of which are arts, rather than science—overlap one another. Politicians and actors alike possess an extreme longing for fame that is satisfied only by the approval of a large audience. They are never happy to stick to the quiet recognitions that come from family, friends and co-workers—the form of low-level fame that most of the rest of us enjoy. Achieving fame within, say, the business world, or the world of nuclear physics, or the painter’s world, is never enough for an actor or politician.
Suspicious as we may be of people who possess a radical longing for fame, it’s a shallow thing only when it stands alone, with nothing else accompanying it. When coupled with an ambition to excel, a lot of raw talent, and a steely constitution, a person can leap ahead of people who lack even one of these things.
Politicians and actors share a love of hearing the roar of approval from an audience—the louder the roar and the larger the audience the better. Thunderous applause feeds their vanity. Hordes of adoring movie star fans aren’t unlike the hordes that show up when a candidate gives a speech while on the campaign trail. Actors and politicians both feed off the frenzied love of their respective constituencies.
Paradoxically, actors and politicians, deeply dependent though they are on audiences, inevitably weary of them. Politicians in democratic societies share with actors the talent of pretending to be what they are not—a fortunate talent, given that they continually have to kiss babies and pretend to relish small-town diner food. On a more important level, pretending to be what they are not is an essential talent required whenever political leaders feel shaky in facing a crisis. We pay them the big bucks to stay calm and think clearly, no matter their emotions. While actors only rarely have Ronald Reagan’s talent for politics, political leaders always, without exception, possess something of his talent for acting.
Obama’s remarks remind us that the longing for fame (on the face of it, a form of vanity), coupled with deep ambition (a necessary ingredient for achieving anything significant), are not things we should avoid discussing. Rather, they’re the heart of the political matter.
