Dirty Hands

People frequently refer to politics as a "dirty business." It's a truism to say that virtually all politicians lie, make secret deals, and compromise their values. When I tell churchgoers that I study political science, they often ask "Do you want to become a politician?" with a slightly incredulous look on their faces. The sense that I get is that becoming a politician seems incompatible with a deep religious faith. Even if I somehow managed not to lie, I would have to compromise my fundamental beliefs too much to remain a truly devout believer. If I honestly cared about living a pure Christian life, I would avoid getting entangled in politics.

But this assumes that we can disentangle ourselves from the moral quagmire of politics. Is that actually possible? Can we avoid getting our hands too dirty?

I don't think so. First of all, politics has important moral consequences. It regulates our interactions with the rest of the world, so - for better or worse - our influence over others is mediated by our political system. It affects everything from individual economic transactions to our national laws to international military clashes. If we want to ensure that our influence on others is as positive as possible, then we need to make our political system as good as possible. In order to accomplish this, we need good politicians who will plunge into the nitty gritty of politics.

Secondly, we are responsible for the state of our political affairs. Because "we the people" are sovereign in modern democracies, politicians derive their power and right to govern from us. If our representatives are bad, we can use our political power to get better people into office. Also, if we think that some aspect of our political system makes otherwise good politicians do bad things, then we can work to change the system. Inaction is an unacceptable response to bad politics.

None of us have perfectly clean hands. We all share responsibility for our world's political organization, and we should not avoid this or take it lightly. Instead, we should work together, discuss and debate the important needs and issues of our time, and strive to make politics as good as it can be.

It's time to get our hands dirty.