Ulysses and the Sirens, vase, c. 475 BC
The ancient Greek myth of Ulysses is deeply embedded in our culture and continues to stimulate writers. The myth has also been plundered by political scientists. For them the tale of Ulysses and the Sirens has been particularly influential.
We need to be careful about the allegorical meanings drawn by political scientists from this tale. The one we should pay attention to is about the flawed personalities of our leaders. In general, we should pay more attention to Penelope, the wife Ulysses left behind.
Three uses of the myth
In the tale of the Sirens, Ulysses, on his way home from the Trojan War, evades falling for the lures of the Sirens, and shipwreck, by having himself lashed to the mast of his boat and by blocking the ears of his crew to the Siren calls.
The tale is seen as relevant to the way we think about politics for three reasons. First, it suggests the importance of having rules in our political frameworks that act as constraints on our emotions. Secondly, it suggests the importance of pre-committing ourselves to our longer term political goals as a way to avoid being waylaid by short term obstacles and distractions. Thirdly, it offers an image of leadership.
Ulysses and constraints
As viewed by political scientists, the tale illustrates the likely failure of self-discipline when we are faced with temptation. Ulysses had already dallied (to put it mildly) on his way back from Troy to his home in Ithaca. He had spent a year with Circe and seven with Calypso. The constraints he imposes on himself and his crew are thus necessary to avoid his giving way (yet again) to the emotional pull of bewitching women.
There are two things wrong with drawing this kind of meaning for politics from the story.
The first, is that it depicts our reasoning power in direct conflict and confrontation with our emotions. This is wrong. In the context of our political life our emotions can also work together with our reasoning self. They can, for example, stimulate helpful desires for togetherness, for social harmony, for compromise, for wishing for successful cooperation. Adam Smith emphasized the importance of our feeling of sympathy for others as the motive force underlying his account of legal systems. In thinking about politics we need to think in much more careful ways about the relationship between emotions and reasoning.
The second, is that it takes the crew out of the picture as an independent actor. The crew is under orders and we jump straight from the personal failings of Ulysses to a generalised conclusion. Again, in the context of political association, this jump is wrong. In practice, our group affiliations are an important influence on our behaviour and these relationships take many varied forms. We usually do pay attention to the views of our associates, such as those we connect with on social media. Our social affiliations also can help us to relate to the outside world. However, to be able to order our affiliates what to do, and to be able to bind their behaviour, is among the most extreme and least probable of relationships.
In democratic politics we associate freely with others in order to get anywhere. Democratic association is not about relationships under command.
Ulysses and Pre-commitment
As viewed by political scientists the tale is also about the importance of pre-commitment to long term goals. We don’t have to, or indeed expect to achieve them quickly, or easily, or without setbacks. But, setting down long term goals helps us to progress by incremental small steps towards our ultimate destination.
The flaw in this account is that it can distract from the more important feature of democratic political association which is its character. Goals can change. New and unexpected political challenges can emerge. It is how the highly diverse societies of today set about overcoming their differences and doing things together that is important.
Setting goals may even come to the detriment of the character of political association and our ability to get things done. The difficulties now faced by the EU suggest the costs and limitations of undue reliance on an approach to integration that has relied, and continues to rely unduly on setting goals.
Ulysses and the personality of leaders
Ulysses is a deeply flawed personality. He is brave. He is forceful. He is intelligent and inventive. He is an inspirational leader. But at the same time, he succumbs to temptation. He achieves his successes in large part due to manipulation, guile, lies, cheating and deception.
This part of the tale we can carry over into our thinking about politics. We should not be starry-eyed about our leaders. We should beware of charisma.
We should also recognize in thinking about politics that people themselves are a bundle of qualities, good and bad, often inconsistent and sometimes contradictory. When we move from thinking about individual qualities to thinking about how we associate with others, and about how we associate also in politics, we should avoid a one-dimensional picture. As well as the self-interested pursuit of our goals, we should take full account of the multiple emotional attachments and contending norms in our behaviour.
A rather different take on the story of Ulysses is offered by the novelist Margaret Atwood. In the Penelopiad she looks at events from the perspective of his wife Penelope. When Ulysses sets off for Troy she is left holding the baby (Telemachus).
During the 20 year absence of Ulysses, Penelope is traditionally depicted as the faithful, trusting and patient wife. Atwood paints a different picture. It is a picture of a highly intelligent woman, reserved and distrustful, contending throughout her life with unequal power relationships - A father who tried to drown her, an arranged marriage, having to run Ithaca in a man’s world in the absence of Ulysses, defying suitors. In Atwood’s retelling, she stands for pre-patriarchal power.
When we think about the uses of allegory in political science it is meanings about unequal power relationships that are the most relevant. Fairness is an essential element for democracies. Among the different ways of defining ‘fairness’, it is fairness in relationships that is the most important.
Thus, as political scientists we should evade the calls of the Sirens. We should summon up a different emotion. We should empathize with all those standing in unequal positions and relationships with those seeking power over them.