Stupidity in Politics: Its Unavoidability and Potential

209 Pages·2020·1.403 MB·English

by  Nobutaka Otobe

Stupidity in Politics
Stupidity permeates our perception and practice of politics. We frequently accuse
politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, voters, “elites,” and “the masses” for their
stupidities. In fact, it is not only “populist politicians,” “sensational journalism,”
and “uneducated voters” who are accused of stupidity. Similar accusations can
be, and in fact have been, made concerning those who criticize them as well. It
seems that stupidity is ubiquitous, unable to be contained within or attributed
to one specific political position, personal trait, or even ignorance and erroneous
reasoning.
Undertaking a theoretical investigation of stupidity, this book challenges the
assumption that stupidity can be avoided. Otobe argues that the very ubiquity of
stupidity implies its unavoidability—that we cannot contain it in such domains as
error, ignorance, or “post-truth.” What we witness is rather that one’s reasoning
can be sound, evidence-based, and stupid. In revealing this unavoidability, he
contends that stupidity is an ineluctable problem not only of politics, but also
of thinking. We become stupid because we think: It is impossible to distinguish
a priori stupid thought from upright, righteous thought. Moreover, the failure
to address the unavoidability of stupidity leads political theory to the failure to
acknowledge the productive moments that experiences of stupidity harbor within.
Such productive moments constitute the potential of stupidity—that radical new
ideas can emerge out of our seemingly banal and stupid thinking in our daily
political activity.
Nobutaka Otobe is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Law and
Politics at Osaka University, Japan.
Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought
148 Ethical Politics and Modern Society
T. H. Green’s Practical Philosophy and Modern China
James Jia-Hau Liu
149 Consciousness and the Neoliberal Subject
A Theory of Ideology via Marcuse, Jameson and Žižek
Jon Bailes
150 Hegel and Contemporary Practical Philosophy
Beyond Kantian-Constructivism
James Gledhill and Sebastian Stein
151 A Marxist Theory of Ideology
Praxis, Thought and the Social World
Andrea Sau
152 Stupidity in Politics
Its Unavoidability and Potential
Nobutaka Otobe
153 Political Correctness
A Sociocultural Black Hole
Thomas Tsakalakis
154 The Individual After Modernity
A Sociological Perspective
Mira Marody
155 The Politics of Well-Being
Towards a More Ethical World
Anthony M. Clohesy
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/series/RSSPT
Stupidity in Politics
Its Unavoidability and Potential
Nobutaka Otobe
First published 2021
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Otobe, Nobutaka, author.
Title: Stupidity in politics : its unavoidability and potential /
Nobutaka Otobe.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2021. |
Series: Routledge studies in social and political thought | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020018469 (print) | LCCN 2020018470
(ebook) | ISBN 9781138588431 (hardcover) | ISBN
9780429492297 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Political science—Philosophy. | Stupidity. |
Democracy.
Classification: LCC JA71 .O86 2021 (print) | LCC JA71 (ebook) |
DDC 320.01—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020018469
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020018470
ISBN: 978-1-138-58843-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-49229-7 (ebk)
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Contents
Acknowledgments vi
Note on Citations and Translations viii
Introduction: the unavoidability of stupidity 1
1 Problematizing: Deleuze on the image of thought,
and stupidity as an endogenous problem of thinking
and politics 21
2 Tracing: democracy and intensified problematic of
stupidity in Rousseau, J. S. Mill, Tocqueville, and
Flaubert 60
3 Facing/missing: the problematical thinking and Kant’s
critical project 102
4 Being: Kobayashi and his unrepentance of wartime
critique 135
Conclusion: potential of stupidity 169
References 183
Index 195
Acknowledgments
Politics can attract college students as a subject of study in many ways. Some
may be fascinated by the hope for social reform. Others may aspire for power
through studying politics. Yet what interested me were the aesthetic and existen-
tial dimensions of politics, namely its ugly banality and stupidity. I would like to
thank Noriaki Ono at Kyoto University, who taught me how the study of politi-
cal thought can help illuminate the aesthetic and existential qualities of politics.
While the problem of stupidity had been my longtime preoccupation, my study
started taking shape when I was writing my doctoral dissertation on stupidity at
Johns Hopkins. I would like to thank my teachers at Johns Hopkins: Bill Con-
nolly, Jane Bennett, Paola Marrati, the late Dick Flathman, Katrin Pahl, Naveeda
Khan, and Jennifer Culbert, who taught me how to tackle problems, engage with
texts, and think. I also thank Mary Otterbein and Lisa Williams for their help
throughout my graduate study there.
As my project evolved, I benefitted from institutional assistance provided by
Hosei University, Yale University, Ristumeikan University, Ibaraki University,
and Osaka University. I would like to thank my mentors and colleagues at these
institutions, namely Atsushi Sugita, Daniel Botsman, Takuya Inoue, Ryunoshin
Kamikawa, Motoaki Ozeki, Tsuyoshi Takiguchi, and Kunio Watanabe.
My work is also a product of stimulating conversations with and encouraging
advice from friends. I would like to thank Kellan Anfinson, Jeremy Arnold, Alex
Barder, Andrew Bush, Derek Denman, Tom Donahue, Stefanie Fishel, Ayako
Hiramatsu, Sara Konoe, Hung-Chiung Li, Woosung Kang, Kenichi Johshita, Dot
Kwek, Daniel Levine, Akitaka Matsuo, Ben Meiches, Kota Mori, Terukazu Mori-
kawa, Kuniyuki Nishimura, Paulina Ochoa, Ayumu Okubo, Masataka Oki, Luke
Plotica, Chad Shomura, Mina Suk, Shotaro Tahara, Lars Tønder, Tomoaki Ueda,
Drew Walker, Juan Wang, Filip Wojciechowski, Mabel Wong, Kei Yamamoto, and
Túlio Zille. Hitomi Koyama patiently read numerous versions of drafts and gave
insightful comments. I am thankful to my editors at Routledge, Simon Bates and
ShengBin Tan, who patiently supported this project.
Finally but most importantly, I owe an enormous debt to my family for their
longtime support and encouragement. Above all, I thank Yumiko and Yuriko.
Acknowledgments vii
This project was supported by research grants from the Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science (10J10209, 26780097, and 17K03526). An earlier version
of the first chapter was published in Japanese as “Stupidity as Key to Deleuze’s
Political Philosophy in Difference and Repetition,” Japanese Journal of Political
Thought, no. 16 (2016): 117–43.
Note on Citations and Translations
For writings originally written in languages other than English, I use the trans-
lations when available and refer to their pages. Quotations, however, do not
necessarily follow those translations. For some central texts other than Kob-
ayashi’s writings, pages in the original editions are referenced after those in the
translations:
(English translation; Original edition) e.g., (Deleuze 1994, 222; 1968, 286)
For the French original texts of Rousseau’s writings, I use the Pléiade’s five-
volume collections (Rousseau 1959–1995). Page numbers in the Pléiade editions
are shown in (Volume: Page).
For the original of correspondences of Flaubert, I consult the Conard’s
thirteen-volume collections (Flaubert 1926–1930). For the French originals
of other writings of Flaubert, I use the Pléiade’s two-volume Œuvre Complètes
(Flaubert 1982–1983).
For the works of Kant, page numbers refer to those in the German Academy
editions (Kant’s Gessammelte Schriften). References to the Critique of Pure Rea-
son show the pages in the first edition and the second edition under A and B
respectively (e.g., A341/B399). For the German editions of the Critique of Pure
Reason and the Critique of Judgment, I consult Felix Meiner’s editions (Kant
1998b; 2009).
For Kobayashi’s writings, I use the Sinchōsya edition of Complete Works (Kob-
ayashi 2001–2010). The references are shown in (Volume:Page). When available,
I consult Anderer’s translation (Kobayashi 1995), whose pages are shown after
the page of the Japanese edition (e.g. 1:142, 1995, 24).
Quotes from Plato’s works are taken from Complete Works, edited by John
Cooper (Plato, 1997).
Introduction
The unavoidability of stupidity
Stupidity permeates political life. We frequently accuse politicians, bureaucrats,
journalists, voters, “elites,” and “the masses” of stupidity. Der Spiegel described
the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change as “Donald
Trump’s Triumph of Stupidity.”1 Economist Paul Krugman summed up his
experience as Washington policy advisor as “against stupidity.”2 But the accusa-
tion of stupidity is not exclusive to politicians and bureaucrats in our society.
Ill-considered responses to natural disasters and pandemics reveal the stupidity
of specialists as well as their limitations. Also, lamentations of the stupid masses
are abundant in the mass media and internet. It seems that accusations of being
stupid spare no one. However, little has been written on stupidity. Shocked at
the lack of study, Ortega y Gasset once asked himself “why . . . there has never
been a study of this conflict—an Essay on Stupidity?” (1985, 58–59).3 Robert
Musil, also surprised at the lack of such a study, ironically stated in his lecture
“On Stupidity,” “Wise men apparently prefer to write about wisdom” (1990,
269). Maybe Musil is right. It is not without reason that political theory, which
is often described as “normative,” concentrates on the inquiry into the good,
the desirable, and the fair forms of politics. However, the scarcity of studies
on stupidity is still noteworthy when compared with a recognizable amount of
studies on those “bad” phenomena such as violence and evil, which are often
regarded as predicates of politics. If inquiry into bad is not out of the scope of
normative theory, then this makes the lack of scholarship on stupidity all the
more conspicuous.
Why is there a lack of scholarship on stupidity when it is a ubiquitous part
of our political life? What does this say about political theory, a discipline that
purports to make sense of our daily political experience? The lack, I will argue, is
due to a long-lasting assumption that divides thinking—which includes philoso-
phy and political theory—and politics. The dichotomy holds the former realm
of thinking as the realm of solitary, righteous thinking and the latter as that of
ordinary human affairs comprising stupid politicians, bureaucrats, and the masses.
In so doing, this dichotomy leads theorists to ignore stupidity: i.e., it is their
problem, not ours. By presuming a distinction between righteous thinking and