The Politician's Historical Trajectory: From an Image Speaking to the Big Other to a Human Small other

What is the 'nature' of the politician? First, there is no unchanging 'nature' of the politician, he has changed with the times. So, how has the politician changed with the times, and what has caused this change, specifically in the relationship between the politicians and "the people" that listen to him, vote for him and trust him with important duties? We believe that the politician is someone who, in his most true manifestation, turns towards the people in all honesty. He is not just a friend of the people, he is the people's best friend, in that, he is a truth-speaking, earnest person when he faces the people (which is why, when the politician speaks, the people turn towards him with an attention that they don't even reserve for their own friends). In his biggest speeches, he comes alive and he at that time is what he truly is. His 'essence' is realized when he is facing the masses. Everything else about the politician, such as the typical manipulative games, are secondary to his ultimate aspiration: to face the people and speak the truth, to articulate the dreams of the people...but this earnestness and honesty of the politician is not an accident, for it is the people who have constructed the politician in this way. They agree to discipline, they adorn him with garlands, they clap when he rises, they weep at his loss...and these things shape the politician. In this sense, the politician is socially constructed.

And what are the characteristics of his? Precisely honesty, virtuosity, an ability to unite everyone via a discourse which is not divisive. The people are never the end point of the politician's campaign or career, they are the continuous reference points that the politician continuously engages with. He constantly turns to the people, to explain what is going on and also to dream again; to keep the dream alive. And the social construction of the politician takes a festive character during election times: the garlands become magnified, the applause louder...and he speaks from the top of a large podium about the desires and disappointments of the people...he speaks generally and he includes all in the crowd in his words. The audience is as general as possible: “Ladies and Gentlemen!” And during election times, the general public approaches the politician and attempts to compose and construct him. The election campaign is an event which is the time of applying "make up" to the politician, and it is a time when everyone, all citizens, are given politicians arbitrarily so that they may begin the process of construction. At this juncture of history, then, the politician is composed in order to serve the wishes of the people to construct him a certain way. The politician is not a powerful independent figure, but a representative of what the people can achieve when their attention is turned towards him. His function is not so well defined, but he has been created as some kind of earnest identity. 

It is crucial to understand that no citizen begins his/her construction of a politician with a blank slate, there is no politician who is not already endowed with something...rather, the politician comes as he is, comes as something, some positive thing, and then the citizen accepts what he is and acts upon him to construct him/her a certain way. There is therefore also gratitude from the politician towards the people...for the people who construct him but also for accepting him as he is. The politician comes to the people not as a performer (even if he seems performative and artificial, this has to do with his personality and not with his desire to hide something from the people) but as a representation of base humanity, as the representation of humanity as it would appear in all its honesty before a complete outsider (the politician's mother or a God); he appears before a big Other, before 'the Thing' which is inanimate and lifeless to the politician's words, but which still calls out, in its being, for a reckoning by the politician. The politician spoke for the people but never stood with the people. It is to the big Other insofar as it remains big Other that the politician is turned and addresses himself. 

And, in Lacanian vein, isn't the image the people create as 'the politician' desired precisely because it is able to represent, in all honesty and in reality, to the big Other? Isn't representing to the big Other (as alien, as complete outsider to the symbolic) a coveted wish of all people? It is with the image (the politician, who is the image created by and of the people) that the big Other has its relation, which is what inaugurates all forms of jealousy and hatred in the people. And so, slowly we are beginning to see that the image, the politician, ceases to be something that represents the people, and becomes more defined by its relation to the big Other, to the complete outsider, the alien. Therein begins the historical process of the hatred towards the politician, and the attempt to reverse the process by which he was constructed by the ideals of the people. It is because of the people's desire to be the desired object of the big Other that an anarchic overhaul of the entire political system, of destroying politics as a whole, become the goals of the people. The most successful political figures have two movements: one movement where they are constructed by the people and approach the big Other, and the second movement which is the attempt to not represent to the big Other, to keep the big Other at a distance (in this agency at pushing the big Other away is the politicians' true power, which is to say that the manifestation of power in politics is a secondary phenomena entirely, one that only arises when there is the need to push away the big Other and come closer to the people). Pushing the big Other away, the politician works in order to recognize the people, and speak to the people precisely to reduce their jealousy (of which they were not in control) and himself become the small other, an ordinary character, a everyday friend and not a special best friend...And as the politician's rejection of the proximity to the big Other is occurring, no longer are the people involved in the social construction of humans, for they have learned their lesson, but rather, they make social institutions, such as schools, factories etc. (As an aside, we can say that the first object of social construction was the human subject itself being constructed into a politician, but later social institutions and social groups became the objects of social construction.) 

With this turn towards rejecting the big Other and communicating with and becoming the small other, we come at another important historical juncture in the construction of the relationship between politician and the people. The big Other becomes ignored, the role of the politician as representing the people honestly becomes rejected. In one sense, it is in this that corruption arises, not as a mode for self-gain, but as a way for the politician to reconnect with the people, to become seen as 'sinful' (and thereby reject the big Other as God, for instance), to become like the people...and the politician himself desires now, he is no longer a desire-less image. And, to end, the applause which signified the applause and celebration at the whole of the people now becomes the applause specifically directed at the politician, not for his representation towards the big Other, but for his sacrificial rejection of such a representation.

What we have is the socially constructed politician getting out of hand before restoring order by himself. This is the trajectory taken by the politician in his relationship with his subjects (people). We come to a conclusion: that before God as the big Other was realized by the people, we had the politician constructed socially (in a sense, in Lacanian vein, before we had the mother as the big Other, we had the mirror stage, where the image was 'adorned' and constructed as a politicized being). The first politicians revealed God to people, but this turn of events was ultimately disappointing to the people, who, with the realization of God, also realized that they themselves wanted to be the representative, prized object in relation to God. In other words, the position of politician became coveted, and even today, we may expect to find a base level politicization in all people. Especially in Nepal, it seems a large majority of people have political sides, opinions, and are political leaders in their own rights; everybody here wants to represent humanity to the big Other; every Nepali person is earnestly ideological, except the actual and official politicians themselves. The politician, however, will once again step forward, but this time as a personality, a character, an individual (other) independent of social construction; he is no longer an image with privileged access to the big Other. It is only when the politician becomes a small other and restricts his role of representing the All before God that the entire political mechanism/apparatus becomes liked and accepted by the people.