and there are thieves like me to boot

Tracking the commentary on Kosovo’s declaration of independence, I am fascinated by how people imagine ‘power’ and ‘influence’ so, for example, people opposed to the declaration noticing with glee that the first country to recognize Kosovo was Afghanistan; and, suggesting that one puppet state was a recognizing a second. The puppeteer being inevitably the United States.It reminded me of the time in Macedonia where Albanians would demonstrate outside the US Embassy rather than a Macedonian ministry imagining that is where all the key decisions were taken. Macedonia was undoubtedly dependent on US support but if the Macedonian government did not want to take US advice, it was perfectly capable of thwarting it and did so, to my certain knowledge, on numerous occasions, much to the frustration of the US officials involved.Every country is a vortex of competing powers and interests – and nobody is at the wheel. There is no magic lever with an American at the end pulling it from which drops decisions; and, even if there were, these decisions would enter a world where ‘one damn thing happens after another’ to modify or transform their outcomes.

‘Nobody is at the wheel’ is a chapter title in David Ehrenfeld’s lucid and instructive book: ‘The Arrogance of Humanism’. Ehrenfeld is a conservation biologist by profession and a humane and cultured moralist by vocation. The chapter is about our fantasy of ‘controlling nature’ imagining we can steer its course to benign outcomes by diligent management when, in fact, we are faced by complex systems that have their own purposes of which we have imperfect knowledge. It is a chapter that should be read by all those who are (or wish to be) engaged in the practice of politics because it might instill in them a recognition that human systems are equally complex, such that we always act in ignorance, and that seeing this might encourage us to act with greater humility.

Ironically, when you get politicians to be candid in private, one subject that often emerges is their felt sense of limitations: they know by practice the limits of power and yet in public they feel the seductive impulse to act as if they did not possess this knowledge.

Is it possible that we do not allow them to? Imagine, say, Mr Obama giving a speech not on ‘the hope for change’ but on how limited the powers of even a President are, how we can expect the diligent and humble application of those powers, if we elected him, to seeking to resolve complex problems in which he would like us all to apply ourselves in diverse ways. I doubt whether he would be the front runner or even in contention.