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A professional politician friend of mine recently asked me what I was actually against professional politician? I would have liked to have answered him quite spontaneously that it was exactly this general “box thinking”.
However, this would not have done justice to our friendship or the topic, and so I began to ponder...
My understanding of “professional politics” is based on a lecture given one hundred years ago by Max Weber, which you too here can find. Weber would have answered him as follows:
“Only those who are sure that they won't break if the world, from their point of view, is too stupid or too mean for what they want to offer them, that they say: 'Nevertheless!' able to say, only he has the 'profession' for politics."
Max Weber (Politics as a Profession, 1919)
Max Webers lecture is still worth reading today and most of his statements are still valid. I like what is probably Weber's best-known statement best:
"Politics means a strong, slow drilling of hard boards with passion and a sense of proportion at the same time."
Max Weber (Politics as a Profession, 1919)
And it is precisely on this statement that I would like to express my concerns about many a professional politician, who increasingly prefer quick shots and media outpourings to a sense of proportion and the slow drilling of thick boards. He also lacks any passion and signals to the citizens that politics is "a profession like any other" and that he has to earn his money somehow.
There is also Weber's statement:
“… leaderless democracy, that means: the rule of 'professional politicians' without a job, without the inner, charismatic qualities that make a leader. And that then means what the respective party faction usually refers to as the rule of the 'clique'.”
Max Weber (Politics as a Profession, 1919)
Hans August Lucker, former member of the Bundestag and European Parliament said a few years ago to his colleagues here in Heilbronn:
"You are no longer politicians, just better administrators."
Hans August Lucker (2006)
I don't want to go that far again, but I've noticed that it's becoming increasingly difficult for charismatic politicians who stand out from the crowd because of their suitability, performance and ability to work their way up the party apparatus. After around seventy years we have probably all arrived in a mediocracy.
But this pleases most fellow citizens, since "their" politician is definitely "one of them" and many also think they can look down on him. Some even believe that they are a little “in power” over them.
But the problem arises when citizens suddenly expect “better administrators” to solve world-shattering problems overnight.
Here I would like to interject in their favour, they try it again and again, mostly also exaggerated by the media, and in the end always come to the same result, namely that mediocracy and solutions cannot be married overnight.
But that is not required of us either, because we have all decided over the last few decades that for us politics is slowly drilling through thick boards with a sense of proportion, and that we therefore also deal with existing and new problems and challenges objectively and little by little have to solve.
In other words, we move from one compromise to the next, hoping not to lose sight of the goal. This approach has proven its worth in both the Bonn and Berlin Republics and has meanwhile also become a special form of politics. Because even if all of today's professional politicians were of the same opinion, a compromise would result.
For us citizens, this also means that we cannot have “leaderless democracy” and “leader democracy” at the same time!
That is why we citizens must not suddenly want to run after supposed leaders. I deliberately say supposedly, because where are these light figures supposed to come from anyway? They certainly don't come from outside of politics either, because then they would have to fly in from the back of the moon.
And that's why, to answer the original question of my friend and professional politician, professional politicians must not try to fool the citizens into believing that they are these new figures of light who also have an answer for all the problems in this world, but they have to get back to the thick boards back, which they then drill as slowly as possible with a sense of proportion, hard and, above all, with passion.
In a nutshell: I have something against politicians who refuse to do their real work and haunt talk shows and other occasions instead. Because they won't save the world either! Only we citizens can save the world, and our politicians could help us in this, as could all civil servants.
"People with courage and character are always very scary to other people."
Hermann Hesse, Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth (1974 [1919]: 36)
