Myth, Politics and Political Science

University of Utah Western Political Science Association
Myth, Politics and Political Science Author(s): Lee C. McDonald Source: The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Mar., 1969), pp. 141-150 Published by: University of Utah on behalf of the Western Political Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/446153 . Accessed: 19/11/2013 04:33
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MYTH, POLITICS
AND POLITICAL
Pomona College
SCIENCE
LEE C. McDONALD
1. Is the language of politics ineficacious without mythicalelements? 2. Is the language of political science ineficacious with mythicalelements? 3. What is the relationshipbetween the answer to question one and the answer to question two? ANY LANGUAGE should prove invulnerable to mythological infiltration it would seem to be that language which is direct, literal, and used more to do something than to mean something. Such language was called by J. L. Austin "performative"language, that is, language which performs an action rather than states anything,as does our more common "constative" utterances. An example of a performativeis the "verdictive" judgment: "We the jury do herebyfind the defendant guilty." Another would be the "exercitive" action: "I vote 'no!' " Still another might be the "commissive" uttterance: "I pledge you my support."' Are mythicalelementsalien to such speech-acts? To answer this question we must ask another and try to answer it, however sketchily: what is myth? In frequentusage today "myth" is treated as a synonym for "illusion," usually to be contrasted with "reality." Consider these book titles: Scott Greer, The Emerging City: Myth and Reality; Raymond Vernon, The Myth and Reality of Our Urban Problems; Boyd Shafer, Nationalism: Myth and Reality; Delbert Snider, Economic Myths and Realities.2 Such usages are understandable, but they sadly shrinka once virileterm. The Greek "mythos" was "a tale uttered by the mouth," generally associated with religious ceremony. It had a narrative and dramatic quality and pointed toward the divine, that is, the unknown. It attempted to capture in terms conceivable to humans some of the indeterminatequalities of this divine unknown. The language of these stories was consequently figurative,metaphorical, and ambiguous. Myths are poetry,but a special kind of poetry- the poetrymen live by. As the bearer of other meanings, larger meanings, meanings beyond, myths have the concretenessof images found in private poetry,but also a certain universality. Hence, we have often been told that myth "does not tell truths,but does tell the truth"; a mythis somethingthat "never was, but always is."
This article is a revision of a paper delivered at the 1967 Annual Meeting of the Western Political Science Association, Tucson, Arizona, March 16-18, 1967. 'None of these utterancesis purely performative.Each has what Austin calls "illocutionary" as well as produce effects. as well as "perlocutionary"force. That is, theyintend effects Moreover, somethingis stated in each of the cases above, or the utterances may be so But to so them would be the to miss interpret point of what the jury, the interpreted. voter, or the politician is doing in each case. See J. L. Austin,How to Do Things with Urmson York: Oxford U. Press, 1965). (New Words,ed. J. O. " Free Press, 1962; Harvard U. Press, 1966; Harvest Books, 1955; Spectrum Books, 1965 respectively.
NOTE:
IF
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THE WESTERN POLITICAL QUARTERLY
reinterpretation.3 The transparencyof mythis of a piece with the transparencyof metaphor, by which, through juxtaposition, the ordinary is seen as extraordinary. The possibilities of metaphor are infiniteand omnipresent. Because of what metaphor can do, we can never be sure that the ordinarywill remain only ordinary. Indeed, the simplest descriptive terms may turn out to have something of this quality. They may be bearers of built-inconceptions we have taken forgranted,but which condition the very perceptionsthe termsare intended to describe. It is unlikely,as Ernst Cassirer constantlyreminds us, that we can ever get outside of, or get behind, our most basic language in order to perceive things purely and unconditionally. For example, the Greek men, or moon, means "the measuring one," suggestingthat periodic recurrence is what is important about the moon. The Latin luna means "the shining one," suggestingthat visual excitation is what is importantabout the moon. Myth, says Cassirer (he should have said metaphor at this point) is not just the shadow language throwson thought; it generatesits own light.4 To conclude our definitionalexcursion,we may lean on Philip Wheelwright, who says that metaphorical language, and by extension mythical language, is unique to the degree that it is tensive, diaphoric, and epiphoric. That is, to the degree that it is capable of holding tensions within it, can accomplish transferences from one thing to another, and is presentational rather than representational.5 It follows that those elements of realitythat are born in conflict,that are coalescent rather than dichotomous, that are presentational (that move into view and then out), can be expressed only very poorly in literal language and probably cannot be expressed at all in that most literal of languages, mathematics. (Lest we are tempted to tryto get along withoutlanguage at all, it is well to be reminded, as Michael Polyani does for us, that when humans are denied all use of verbal communication, their performance in getting out of mazes turns out to be less than that of rats.") intelligent to our direct, supposedly literal political performatives. Can we be back So, of "guilty" does not carry with it some lingeringovertonesof verdict sure that the betrayal of the gods and betrayal of the tribe? May not the jury that findsguilt
analogy with music comes fromC. Ker6nyi in the Prolegomenonto C. G. Jung and C. Ker6nyi, Essays on a Science of Mythology (New York: Harper, 1963). Some of the remarksabove were influencedby Joseph Campbell's essay in Henry A. Murray (ed.), Myth and Mythmaking (New York: Braziller, 1960). Campbell's monumental The Masks of God, 3 vols. (New York: Viking, 1959, 1962, 1964), is a landmark in the study of myth. See also Mircea Eliade, Myths,Dreams, and Mysteries (London: Harvill Press, 1960). 4Language and Myth, Susanne K. Langer trans. (New York: Harper, 1946). Cassirer's theoryof mythis developed more fullyin Vol. 2 of his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Ralph Manheim, trans. (New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1955). See esp. Part I. Metaphor and Reality (Bloomington: Indiana U. Press, 1962), chaps. 5 Phillip Wheelwright, 3, 4. ' Michael Polanyi, The Study of Man (Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1963), 13-14.
3 The
Live mythshave potencyeven, or especially,when we are unaware of them as - Zeus, Perseus, Hercules myths. The opaqueness of dead myths --make them museum pieces. But the transparencyof live myths make them very much like pieces of music; they have a character of their own, but are always subject to
MYTH, POLITICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
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feel without conscious articulation the etymologicallink between juris and "jury"? Is our negative voter perhaps in some small degree still the religiousvotarymaking his sacred vow? Is our politician's pledge of support, however platitudinous, still tinged with the thoughtof giving physical securityas his Germanic linguisticforebears would have done? The most routine bureaucratic definitionof "citizen" does not destroyaltogetherthe memoryof the citizen as member of a cityand the memoryof a cityas more than buildings. The most unimaginativeuse of the word "party" cannot quite obscure the conception of party as part of something. But the citation of political words with long etymologies would prove my point too easily. Myth runs deeper into political experience than its penetration into words. It runs also into sentences and even paragraphs. Even a prosaic President leading a pragmatic people findsit impossible to stick with literal language. Lyndon B. Johnsonbegan his thirdState of the Union message, I comebefore on theStateoftheUnionfor thethird time. youto report I come to thankyou,and to add mytribute once moreto the Nation'sgratitude. For thisCongress has alreadyreserved foritself an honored ofAmerica. in thehistory chapter We could easily translate these three sentencesinto more literal language: This is thethird timeI have been hereto talkto you aboutsomeof theproblems some of the people in the federalgovernment have been working on. I thankyou members of - or some of you- and quite a few otherpeople probably Congress do, too, because you and did some otherthings that I likedand thatsomeotherpeople passed somelegislation too. Maybesomepeopleliving in future times willlikethem also. liked, The more literal of the two statements (which still has about four metaphors in it) is more easily subject to verification;but the object of this type of political speech is not to transmit empirically verifiable propositions, but to renew the authority of the speaker and to invigorate the sense of community among the auditors. Each is a means to the other. By this standard the latter statement more words to achieve a lesser effectthan the formerstaterequires thirty-three and bears no one any honor. By contrast,"come ment. It is awkward, undignified, before" suggeststhe formality and dignityof a state occasion, and also a degree of a sense of eventfulness, obeisance. The phrase registers as in "I come bearing gifts." One seems to see a tired but elated warriordismountingfromhis steed amid cheers from the multitude, having ridden at breakneck speed from the neighboring kingdom. The dignity of Roman officestill hovers over the word "tribute," from the Latin tribus,or tribe, and later the tax paid by the tribes. The whole American nation is personifiedand given a single emotion in "the Nation's gratitude." And that the Eighty-ninthCongress should have a whole chapter in the historyof America suggests,among other things,that the historyof America is a book with chapters,with an author, who must surelybe God.
Because of its eventfulness,its malleability, and its transparency,myth is uniquely able to bridge old and new, to absorb new meanings, to give structure to the inchoate. For this reason, authorityas a structuring agency always employs myth. Historical myths,as opposed to nature myths,have had a special appeal to political authorities. Primordialitybecomes authenticity. Indeed, as the Greek
144
was a tale told bythemouth, the Roman auctoritas was one who declared mythos or told and by telling new intoexistence.Historical brought something places as well as historical in myth-like can become personscan absorbmeanings fashion, that a of consciousness itself. Political are authorities "happenings" bring people linksin a process thatbrings new collective consciousness out of old collective consciousness: Valley Forge: Washington; Lincoln; Dallas: Kennedy; Gettysburg: Berkeley:Reagan. But collective consciousness thelife-span of anypeople,back goesback beyond into the dark unrecorded where itself The was infinite born. thought past variety of mythological matched is the remarkable of applications only by uniformity themes. culture seems to have some variation the of underlying mythical Every who impregnates the earthmother, the divine-human hero who overskyfather comesthe night-dwelling and the of the and devil; paradise dead; holocaust place the from seizure of fire the God That father not is is heavens.7 inundation; primal to the assertion was thefather unrelated thatWashington of his country. That in to thenew Soviet- or,better, Christ we becomea newbeingis notunrelated new - man,bornagain in thetravailof revolution. in Chinese Three astronauts dying a vehiclenamedApolloare better remembered thanthree civilrights workers dying in a ditch, reminds us in a recent as a ClassicsProfessor issueof theNew Republic. The fallen Achillesnamed Kennedyis memorialized in poetryfull of mythical in automotive a riderless and an horse marches in thefuneral allusions, age, parade can save us from in hopesthathistorical an awful memory meaninglessness. Hence does the authority of a founderlike Solon pass down fromrulerto a creature of the earth and as a creature of themind- from both as Plato's ruler, Machiavelli's to Hobbes' to to Rousseau'sLegissovereign prince philosopher-king latorto every modemhero-ruler. the primary mediumof mythological Politicsis not necessarily conceptions. In our day the economicspheremay be a morelikely medium. On television we in the Salem cigaretparadise,juxtaposedwith can findAdam and Eve strolling and uncontrollable robots stomach acid. The royaltiger the hell of science-fiction hero is JamesBond, and the earth-mother is in yourtank,the indestructable is a and withoutauthority thereis no authority fold-out.But withoutmyths there elements the languageof politics is no politics.Without somemythical is inefficanumber one in theaffirmative. cious. We mustanswer question II the languageof politicalscienceis probably more conMy claim regarding thanmyclaimregarding tentious thelanguageofpolitics.Here,too,I assert, myth and authority dwellhandin hand; butin a moreconcealedfashion. but fortunately What is science? It is impossible needlessto develophere a roundedpositionon what scienceis. Amongotherthings, scientific sugactivity of criteria and methods of evidence ofvalidating gests: (a) theexistence empirical
'See Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1956); and Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion (Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1963).
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observations authorized by a communityof scholars; (b) systematicexplanation; (c) futureorientation. As to claim (a), little need be said at present except to note that although political authorityand scientificauthorityhave different objects, as authoritythe two are comparable. The relevance of this comment may become clearer in a moment. What I mean to assert by claim (b) is that the demand for explanation and even understandingor verstehenis a legitimatescientific demand. It is a call for more than data, however rewardingthe data-gatheringprocess may be. Sometimes impressive work in political science is less explanatory than it might be because it rests content with mere data. Any number of articles illustrate this tendency. One example is "Some Effects of Interest Group Strength in State some interesting Politics," by Lewis Froman.8 The article offers statistics, imaginatively arrived at, to show that states with strong pressure groups, compared with states with weak pressure groups, had more elected officials, more elected judges, with shorterterms,under constitutions easier to amend. The data are interesting; but still they are only data. Why these correlations occurred, what they show about the ways of interestgroups or state governments, or what their implication is forpresentexperience or futurechange are leftunexamined. Someone must, of course, gather data, and the scholar need not, indeed, canwork on all fronts at once. Afterall, one can say, all our attemptsto,formulate not, hypotheses,patterns,paradigms, and models are but attemptsto "make sense" of data. Moreover, although mere data are never "self-explanatory," the transformation of random impressionsinto data can have the effectof flattening out, making level, making observable from above, so to speak, the phenomena under study. This is the original meaning of "explain." My plea for explanation is, therefore, strictlyspeaking a plea for elucidation - which originally meant to shed light upon. Data-making can be a useful process of reduction and denominating; but data shed no light. If Cassirer is correct,mythdoes.' But whether we call it explanation, elucidation, insight,or understandingwhether flattening, lighting,looking,or standing under - the quest for knowledge requires not only data, but what Stephen Pepper calls "danda." 0 Data is evidence refinedthrough multiplicativecorroboration,by repetitivetests,or by observations of a similar kind made by a seriesof observers. Danda is evidence refinedthrough structuralcorroboration,by measuring conformity to a preexistingconstruct. The it is importantto note, is not that between observationand nonobservadistinction, of a chair will have a series of differtion. Observers seeking data on the strength ent observers perform the same strengthtest on it. Observers seeking danda on the strengthof the same chair will seek to find a concurrence between different
8 APSR, 60
'Bronislaw Malinowski argued that myths do not, technically, "explain," for they do not assign causes. But they do "make everythingclear." They are not Erklarung but begrunden. To use Aristotle's terms, myth is not concerned with aitia, but archai (Metaphysics, 1013a), with foundation. Myth in Primitive Psychology (New York, 1926). Quoted by Ker6nyi,loc. cit. 10 World Hypotheses (Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1961. Copyright,1942).
(December1966), 952-62.
146
aspects of the chair - quality of wood, character of the design, reputation of the maker, etc. Data-gathering is clearly a more "social" enterprise than danda-gathering since collaborators are absolutelyessential. Is it possible that data-gatheringstudies receive more professional attention than nonmultiplicativestudies, partly because data-gatherersmust be gregarious and danda-gatherers need not be so much so? Data can be discreditedmore easily than danda, which is at once its strengthand its weakness- strengthbecause data is without ambiguity,weakness because it is easily displaced and hence transient. Ghosts at one point in time were taken as data. When discredited as data, they could still live on as danda, entitiesexplainable by referenceto somethingelse. Since the whole world - or for that matter,any "world": the planet called world, the world of the Enlightenment,the world of the U.S. Senate, the world of Sammy Davis, Jr.- since none of these can be experienced as data, all world hypotheses require danda for validation; but world hypotheses also come into existence prior to any systemby which theymay be validated. They rest on what Pepper calls "root metaphors." Even views of realitythat are hostile to metaphor, themselvesreston root metaphors. (One is reminded of John Locke in Essay ConcerningHuman Understanding. In one very shortpassage [Bk. III, ch. 10, sec. 34] which argues that metaphor misleads judgment, Locke is forced to employ about ten metaphors.) Systematic inquiry into the world of politics has always been kinds of root metaphors. Aristotlewas biological. Hobbes was built on different was mechanistic. Karl Deutsch is neurological." David Bentham physicalistic. Easton is electronic. Easton's SystemsAnalysisof Political Life 12 has as its admitted cognitive parent the computer (even though "life" is a biological term). There is nothingwrong either with seeking political data that can be digested a by computer, or with conceiving political systemsas if they were computer systems- so long as one is clear about what one is doing, and is reasonably modest about it. Easton is usually clear, but he sometimesforgetsthe "as if," and treats as the literal. His macroscopic analyses of system the figurative inputs,outputs,and feedback loops are well known. Let us plug in at random to a discussion of "the systemicfeedback loop": of members chain of feedback loops,all of the participating Throughthe interlocking To withmanyothermembers in the system. any one loop may be coupled,if onlyloosely, selectedthe participants in the variousfeedback diads so pointthisup, I have deliberately the six different actorswho makeup the six line could be drawnthrough thatan unbroken chainloops. If we look at each loop as a linkin a continuous pairsin the six different and literally--wecan appreciatethat the interaction which theyindeed formpictorially if it is strong to pass its influence aroundany one feedback loop has the potential, enough, in thesystem." units downthechainto other But what does it mean to say that the chain is both pictorial and literal? It is surely not literal in referenceto what Mayor Daley actually does, or to what the Rev. James Bevel or Saul Alinskydo to Mayor Daley. Is it then literal in reference to what a figurative political computerwould do?
"2New York:
" See The Nerves Government (New York: The Free Press, 1963). of Wiley, 1965. ":Ibid., p. 376. Italics added.
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Easton declares that this systemis not yet ready for microscopic data (which means, presumably,data about specifichuman beings) : At thispreliminary statein a theory of politicalsystems, whenwe are stilltrying to get our a detailedanalysis of thiskindcannotand need not be undertaken. for generalbearings, of macroanalysis we do not need to push any moredeeply.... It is as though .... we purposes wereinitially to usinga telescope ourselves thana microscope rather becausewe reconciling are not yet sufficiently confident of the unitsand processes that we want to lay open to detailedanalysis."4 This is a very strange analogy. We do not yet know what to put under our microscopes; but we will know if we spend more time looking at stars throughour telescopes. Easton's telescope is a strangemetaphor. But it may suggesta truth,nevertheless,a possibilityeven for bad metaphors. It suggeststhat in cognition wholeness precedes particularity,danda precedes data. There must be some coherent entityby which to comprehend a set of particulars. Raw empiricismis not enough. As Polanyi notes,one does not come to understandthe purpose of a watch by taking it apart.15 The futureorientationof Easton's remarksare also worthyof note, but comment on that comes later. For now, my point is that Easton - whom I do not - is building his whole systemnot on data or literal deny is acting like a scientist of the experience, but on analogy, metaphor, and possiblymyth. The terminology a historyin which the computer computer pervades even his discussion of history, was unknown. Under the heading "Rules for the retrievalof stored experiences," he refersto "a social memorybank" as a "potential resourcefor the authorities." Members could notpossibly recallthewholeofhistory transmitted to each generation, evenif it weredesirable or necessary. Retrieval is alwaysselective.Whata person recallswillhinge on thoserulesgoverning the waysin whichhe scanshis memory, thecriteria of appropriateness used to make selections fromthe information and the rulesregulating the retrieved, and reorganizing the knowledge recalled for immediate way he goes about synthesizing constitute forhandling use.... The rulesthemselves partof theavailableresources necessary feedback response." President Johnson's metaphorical language was translated into literal language only by increasing the number of words. In this case one might attempt the same thing and actually shorten the number of words. We might read this passage to say: "Habit affectsmemoryand people rememberfromhistorywhat is useful for them to remember." In the case of both Johnson and Easton, the metaphorical base renews the authorityof the speaker in his own communal context. In one case it is historical grandeur appealing to the citizen and legislator; in the other case it is computer-talk appealing to the scientistof the computerage. My conclusion at this juncture is that satisfying explanation or elucidation requires more than data and once we are beyond data we findourselvesleaning on the metaphors and mythsthat stand between us and the unknown. We must use the known to get at the unknown and this is what myth primordiallydoes. Sisyphus may have startedout as a datum; but he became a mythby giving shape and meaning to all the elusive Sisyphianexperiencesman has had.
Ibid., pp. 376-77. 15 Op. cit., p. 49. "I Op. cit., p. 458.
14
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The thirdaspect of science worthy of note here is its futureorientation. Thomas Kuhn in hissplendid Structure little The Revolutions,17 ofScientific book, showsby historical how the motionis to the study important sense of forward scientific withinwhich community.Scientific paradigmsprovide the structure researchers can workand feeltheyare "makingprogress."When unusually creativemencome up withnew paradigms thatgivepromise of greater forward movewith remarkable ment, old paradigmscan lose theirgrip on the imagination rapidity. When Renaissancepainters wereconcerned withperfecting the techniques of linearperspective, of transforming three-dimensional visionontoa two-dimensional of themselves as scientists. When perspective ceased to be theythought surface, an interesting to scientists and problem them,theystoppedbeing began calling themselves artists.Copernicusdestroyed but did not replacethe earlierview of terrestrial and thesame could be said forNewtonon gravity, Lavoisieron motion, of metals, the property on space and time. This is whatKuhn calls and Einstein the incommensurability of scientific paradigms. It is interesting that bothDavid Truman in his 1965 presidential addressto theAmerican and GabrielAlmondin his 1966 presiPoliticalScienceAssociation, dentialaddressto the same body,mentioned Kuhn's book. They did so because he supports ofsystem is central theclaimthattheconcept to thescientific endeavor. TrumanusesKuhn withgreatcaution, butAlmond, in citing Kuhn,glidesoverthe of the of and futurism. principle incommensurability phenomenon Beingsuddenly - Herring, and overtly Almondsaysthatan oldergeneration Schattschmythical, saw new land on a the a and newergeneration neider,Odegard,Key horizon, - Truman, Easton, Dahl, Deutsch- "have been movingacross the Jordanto possessit."18s But what Kuhn seemsto me to be sayingis that scienceis not as it to be. Knowledge cumulative as we have thought produced bya scientific system cannotbe "possessed" thewayland can be possessed. One cannothelp but be struck intothefuture that by the senseof movement much sicence a sense that communicates animatesso itselfin political writing, oftenquite metaphorical 1966 issueof The American language. The September PoliticalScience Reviewmay be takenas a representative example. Eightof the eleven articles could be called future-oriented seven (of theseeight,incidentally, Of the threepresent-oriented are quantitative. two are nonquantitative). articles, is indicated What I mean by future-orientation likethese: byconclusions
into the complexities examination of judicial decision-making has ... the social scientific
formulation barely commenced. It is no shame that we are only now at the state of hypothesis toddles are always the shakiest." and technique development. The first Inter-nationsimulation and man-computersimulation in general may be considered way stations on the path to all-computersimulations.' the intention of the present investigation [is] to make an initial excursion into this ... uncharted area.'
18 "Political
17
Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1962. Theory and Political Science," APSR, 60 (December 1966), 869-79, at 875. "' Theodore Becker, "A Survey of Hawaiian Judges," 677-80, at 680. 0 William Coplin, "Inter-National Simulation and ContemporaryTheories of International Relations," 562-78, at 578. 21 Jack Dennis, "Support for the Party Systemby the Mass Public, 600-615, at 613.
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POLITICS
AND POLITICAL
SCIENCE
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This study can be interpretedas an introductory exploration of the processes by which more general political beliefsand behavior are affectedby the local community.' Future analyses of recruitmentneed not be confined to the simple categories used for illustrative purposes here.'
And so on. Am I suggesting thatthe conquestof thefuture is theunderlying of all myth scienceand therefore of politicalscience? Not quite. For one thing, themmyths selvesare past-oriented, not future-oriented. They are composedof imagesfrom the past thatillumine is the present thepast. By contrast, by revitalizing ideology future-oriented. It the future uniquely "explains" by logicalprojection.Ideology is abstract whereasmyth is concrete.Because it maybe used forpurposes of conand in a But human is like science. trol,measurement, prediction affairs, ideology it is a pseudo-science, forit cannotdeliver on itspromises and projections. Myth, on the otherhand, makesno promises.It just is. There is a singular"logic" to that "explains"more than it ideologieslike Marxism,racism,or JohnBirchism, is entitledto. There is no such singularlogic to myth. It illuminates precisely becauseofitstensive, also and epiphoric diaphoric, very qualities;butthese qualities mean thatthe same myth to can mean sharply different different things people.24 to and Faustianmyths are relevant Perhapswe can say that while Promethean the and of control thefuture is not themyth but theideology of science, conquest science. Is the languageof politicalscienceinefficacious so long as mythical elements remain? If sciencemeansonlythecollection of quantitative data theanswer is yes. If sciencemeansalso explanation and elucidation corroborations by the structural of danda, theanswer we seekin trying is no. The coherences to relateand explain the variouslinguistic of politics cannotbe expressed in an utterly phenomena precise and univocalmannerso long as mythical or metaphorical elements remain; but theseelements do notnecessarily negateand they mayenhancetheexplanatory function. III What is the relationship between the answerto questionone and the answer to question two? The "X" on a ballot is the result of a sublingual act, and it is exceptionally It comes into at a in timeand it identifiable moment objectifiable. being clearly in statistics are as admirable and it is not therestays place. Voting data, surprising forethatpoliticalsciencemostfulfills the requirements of quantitative sciencein
' Robert Putman, "Political Attitudesand the Local Community,"640-54, at 652. 23 Leo Snowiss, "Congressional Recruitmentand Representation,"627-39, at 639. ' Ernst Cassirer, in The Myth of the State (New York: Anchor Books, 1955), performeda disservice in confusingthe distinctionI have been tryingto make here. What Cassirer calls "mythmade according to plan," I would call ideology. Even in his earlier writings (see footnote 4 above), Cassirer's distinctionbetween mythical and scientificthinking was too dichotomous. In The Myth of the State, writtenoriginallyin 1945, Cassirer is overcome with antipathy to the darkly irrational volkgeistof Nazism. But at least half of what bothered him could betterbe called ideology. We mighteven say that this most distinguishedstudent of mythwas himselfcaptured by a myth that pictures a shining, plumed knight of scholarship perenniallydoing battle with dark, satanic myth. See p. 375.
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the area of voting studies. But the content of most political behavior is linguistic: bargaining, conciliating, threatening,exhorting, persuading, reporting. All this goes on somewhere between the two poles of violence, which is speechless, and contemplation,which is speechless. Michael Polanyi notes that for an observerto say "the stone is rolling" involves two logical levels, one for the observer and his statement,a second for the stone. When an observer says "the cat sees a rat" a thirdlevel is introduced,requiringof the observersome awareness of the experience of seeing that he shares with the cat.25 Polanyi's argument is that significant knowledge is always personal knowledge. The personalityof the knower is bound up with the object of his knowing and must be. If the scientificobserver is not looking at a looking cat, but speaking to a speaking citizen, and the citizen says, "Ronald Reagan says he believes in individualism" we are confrontedwith about fivelogical levels with which the political scientist must deal. and the of Politicking analysis politicking are, of course, sharply different enterprises. If unexamined myth is omnipresenton the stump it need not be in the professionaljournals. Politics is drama. Need the drama critic be dramatic?26 No necessityrequires him to be; but he will shed little light unless he is. Where would scientific political analysis be without concepts like election, vote, rule, law, power, authority,represent,community,govern, charisma, republic, democratic, - words whose contextual meanings are so steeped in liberty,equality, fraternity the historicexperiences of concrete communitiesthat a lack of awareness of those invested meanings leads to impoverishedunderstanding? The aim of methodological precision drives us away from the figurativetoward the literal in the hopes of finding a neutral language. But if political language is always contextual and contextual language is never neutral, the price we pay for neutral language may be loss of touch with politicsitself. I am not, of course, advocating surrenderto imprecision. We can use controlled metaphor to explain rampant metaphor. We can use conscious myth to explain unconscious myth. But if we try too hard to avoid dependence upon metaphors, we may succeed, becoming literal but lifeless. If we try too hard to live withoutmyth,we may only wind up enslaved to ideology,therebyclosing down what is, in fact,an open future.
The literatureon ideology, like the literatureon myth,is, of course, voluminous; but rarely is a clear distinction between the two sustained. One exception is Ben Halpern, "The Dynamic Elements of Culture," Ethics, 65 (1955), 235-49. See also Robert Tucker, Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx, Cambridge U. Press, 1961). The problem of scientificand political language is dealt with acutely by Margaret Macdonald in "The Language of Political Theory," in Anthony Flew (ed.), Logic and Language (Anchor Books, 1965), First Series, No. IX. Michael Oakeshott describes the classical view of politics as "poetic activity" in The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind (London: Bowes and Bowes, 1959). 25The Study of Man, 74-77. See also his Personal Knowledge (Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1958). ' See Richard M. Merelman, "Politics as a Dramatic Form," paper delivered at the 1966 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,New York City, September 6-10 (mimeo.). Robert E. Lane, in The Liberties of Wit (New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1961) chides literarycritics and students of literaturefor a lack of conceptual rigor. A good many of his blows strikehome; but rigor and literaryallusiveness need not be enemies; nor is rigorwithoutsensitivity a scientific virtue.

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University of Utah Western Political Science Association

THE WESTERN POLITICAL QUARTERLY