Sunday, February 17, 2008

Assumption that politics is dirty is actually a subjective one since it is based on subjective experiences in the field, not politics as a cultural concept. Man itself is a political being, zoon politicon, who has character of cooperating and competing at the same time. Man realizes his weakness; therefore, he wants to cooperate with others to achieve shared goals faster. Man also has uniqueness; every man is himself, having mind, feeling, and will that different to those of others.

Therefore, while in cooperating some people are really sincerely cooperating for the shared goals, but some others are unique, having different agenda and wanting to achieve their own goals beyond the shared goals. People with different agenda are competing with each other, sometimes fairly but often unfairly. Political world is a field of cooperation that is full of competition, internally and externally. To gain victory in the competitions, every competitor uses his/her intelligence, since without intelligence people will lose in competitions.

According to a psychoanalysis theory, expression of a man is a synergy of three pillars of personality, id, ego, and super ego, the animal aspect, the mind aspect, and the moral aspect. A politician with an animal personality will compete like an animal: greedy, impatient, and sadistic. A politician putting stress on mind will involve himself in politics smartly; he is able to play beautifully and to do a political engineering, although he is not necessarily moralistic in his actions. Meanwhile, a moralistic politician will compete fairly by strongly adopting moral principles, referring to the political aims pursued and, enduring the misery when having to pass very difficult stages; he doesn’t want to practice cow trading.
As a result of a competition, a political victory is not always in accordance with characteristics or ability of the politician. Amien Rais who is a PhD in politics doesn’t always gain victory in political stage.

Instead, he had to inaugurate Megawati who wasn’t a bachelor replacing Gus Dur. Political idealism doesn’t necessarily guarantee actual victory. Idealism indeed often strengthens when facing a too-pragmatic political reality. Wisdom, intelligence, toughness, patience, and courage are required in facing political reality tending to be pragmatic.

Just imagine, political idealism proposed by founding fathers of this nation to develop a just and prosperous state based on the philosophy of Pancasila, until 62 years of independence still has been have to fight against political pragmatism full of corruptions and conspirations. Other intelligences other than intellectual intelligence are required here.

There kinds of intelligences
Previously people only proud of their intellectual intelligence, but not two other intelligences have been introduced, emotional and spiritual quotients (EQ and SQ)

1. Intellectual Quotient /Intelligence (IQ) can be seen from one’s ability in viewing a problem scientifically, explaining it logically and creating a theory-based problem-solving formulation. Sometimes, however, a person that is intellectually intelligent gets lost at logic irrelevant with the problem solving itself. He tends to be satisfied with his logical analysis and is proud of his loyalty to scientific rules. A research showed that people with a very high IQ are very rarely success in leading an institution; on the contrary, most of them are working at institutions led by people with a moderate IQ.

2. Emotional Quotient (EQ) is indicated from one’s ability to control himself in facing difficult situations. With a strong self-control, he can calmly view the problem and calculate impacts of a decision or action. An emotionally intelligent person’s focus of interest is not scientific and logic methods but how a problem solving can be implemented; hence, he doesn’t only think logically but also think wisely and sensibly. He doesn’t only know himself, but he also tries hard to know others relevant with the problem at hand. Victory is not his target, but success is. A lot of people win at the beginnings but lose in the end; instead, an emotionally intelligent person is willing to give in at the beginning for the real victory later.

3. Spiritual Quotient (SQ) is indicated from one’s ability to view problems using his inner sight, not his physical eyes. Physical eyes are limited by space and time, while people having spiritual intelligence aren’t only able to see things in connection with space, but also able to communicate with anyone in the past and in the future. If main characteristic of a person having emotional intelligence is able to interact in harmony with situation or problems today, then main characteristic of a person having emotional spiritual is having a vision on a far future, beyond his era.

An idealistic statesman usually has those three kinds of intelligence, so that decades and centuries after his death his political ideas will be relevant, while a pragmatic politician will have his political ideas buried after he is resigned
10 January