They Could Do It, But Do They Have the Choice?: Ethics, Agency, and The Debt Talks
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- Category: Michelle Campbell
- Published on Monday, 18 July 2011 19:14
- Written by Michelle Campbell
The recent debt talks in the United States Congress are wearing most Americans thin. The Debt Talks over what to cut, what to raise, and who to screw over (the consensus seems to be everyone except big business), are simply the reflection of what has been occurring in the last five to seven years in almost every American household since the Great Recession reared its ugly head: Do we spend less, or try to make more money? Of course, the responsibly, well balanced individual would probably answer both. It would be dumb to keep on buying gold jewelry and sport cars if you needed to get a second job at McDonald’s. On the other hand, it would be equally as dumb to restrict yourself to a diet of ramen noodles and start squirreling money away under a mattress.
So, why don’t the hundreds of members of both congresses agree to do something sensible for once? Aha! That would be too easy, wouldn’t it? That is not how politics works, you say. Everything must be difficult–leaving the American people puttering on behind in a broken down struggle bus. Kind of makes you want to shake some sense into these people, doesn’t it?
Well, what if I told you that you couldn’t?
The American people at large seem to operate under a sense that our politicians have agency. Agency being the ability to be a free-player, to make their own choices no matter the circumstance, and to not be weighed down by the system. And, it is because we regard them as creatures possessing this agency that they can be deemed as good or evil, good or bad, or simply as some type of wishy-washy ethical creature. This is why the American people repeatedly call for politicians to “Do the Right Thing!” –because the American people are sure that politician have the capacity to do the right thing because politicians, in the eyes of the people, are autonomous, agencial individuals.
I argue this is not so.
Mark M. Freed, in his article titled “Cultural Studies, Ethics, and the Eclipse of Agency” in the Spring 2001 The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, argues that ethical discourse is a mute point without the possibility of agency. He writes:
"The general goal of cultural studies must be, therefore, the representation of just those differences that make possible an understanding of an agent’s relation to interpellative forces, to subject positions, to society at large. We might term this understanding ethical-agential consciousness because it leads to an agent having specific awareness of the ways in which its choices have been/can be negotiated against the background of interpellative forces. For without specific knowledge of how one’s choices have been negotiated there can be no certainty that they have been. Agents have to create the differences that produce agency, and they have to create those differences in consciousness as a discursive product." (11)
In terms of Democrats and Republicans, we the people believe they will make choices as a result of their agency–not just their subject position in their ideology. That is why we can point fingers and confer ethical judgements. But, we need to ask ourselves, do our politicians really have agency? Aren’t they simply stuck in their subject positions withing their liberal, conservative, or neo-liberal ideologies by the thing one in the same that is showing us this illustration of ethical theory: Money?
What I mean to point out here is that questions about the ethicality that I have raised here are because of the recent actions of both parties in the debt talks. But, I truly believe that we cannot regard politicians as creatures that can be ethical judged–for good or evil– because they do not have a specific awareness of the ways in which choices have been/can be negotiated against the background of interpellative forces. They are blinded by their constant need for campaign contributions that keep them pinned against their ideological wall.
Well. This sucks, doesn’t it? Yes, and no. By arguing that we cannot judge our politicians by ethics does not mean that they cannot be held accountable for their actions. Doing something good or bad, moral or immoral, are totally different things than doing something that the general public likes or doesn’t like. Not to be mistaken, these things often overlap because we do share some similar ethical and moral systems. For example, many may believe it ethical to allow homosexuals to marry, but that doesn’t mean that a majority of Americans like it. Just because your representative is not an ethical being doesn’t mean you aren’t.
Sure, we’re all stuck in some type of interpellative structure, but what really matters, according to Freed, in terms of ethicality and agency is the ability to articulate circumstances, choices, and the ways they have been negotiated. You’ve got an ethical-agential consciousness, so use it!
