Being Political: A Quarrelsome View

ABSTRACT. In defining the political it is possible to identify a dominant trend preoccupied with the idea of politics as a positive means of conflict management. This has often overshadowed the alternatives which view politics as a conflictual system of thought and action. Such alternatives can be reinforced by taking seriously the understanding that ordinary people have of what is involved in being political. From this, it is possible to conceive of politics less as a means of creating order, by accommodating diversity and constraint or imposing a general standard or authority, and more as a passionate and quarrelsome activity concerned with promoting conflict and disrupting order. My next-door neighbour does not like politics. She prefers to continue gardening at the back of the house when a canvasser knocks on her front door. She scorns the loudspeaker vans as though they were no different from the persistent ice-cream salesman. She considers the enthusiast of, or the activist in, politics as somehow out of the ordinary or even pathological. She avoids talking about politics and religion whe