Idiots vs Citizens: The Irony of Our Political Competence
IDIOTS VERSUS CITIZENS: THE IRONY OF OUR POLITICAL COMPETENCE
The Bantargebang tragedy serves as evidence of systemic failure.
WHEN discussing political competence, we must return to Athens, to the heart of the Agora—a city square designed with open space to encourage public participation. This participation took the form of discussion, commercial activity, and encounters among diverse groups. The Agora also served as the place for electing leaders, judges, representatives, and public officials. Surrounding this open space stood buildings of political significance. From our conception of the Agora and its activities, we understand that politics is connected to activities of engaged citizens who realise their capacity to discuss, critique, and resolve public affairs.
The subject of politics is everyone collectively, yet political practice defines “everyone” in three roles: voters, constituents, and citizens. Hanna Pitkin, in The Concept of Representation (1967), distinguished between “those who represent” and “those represented,” identifying three forms of representation: substantive, descriptive, and formalistic. Substantive representation comprises representatives or agents who advocate for the preferences of those they represent, wherein all qualified citizens participate. Descriptive representation refers to individuals with shared backgrounds—whether ethnic, experiential, ideological, or otherwise—allowing constituents their place. Formalistic representation, meanwhile, concerns the procedures of selecting and removing representatives through elections, engaging certain citizens as voters.
The dynamics of participation and representation create two groups: idiotes and polites. Idiotes are individuals or groups focused on private affairs, apathetic toward politics, stigmatised as uncommitted, weak in public matters, and incapable of leadership. Polites, conversely, are individuals or groups concerned with public affairs, regarded as civilised, knowledgeable, and intelligent. They are politicians capable of maintaining social harmony and actively participating in various forms of decision-making through leadership competence. This dichotomy narrows to a reflective-critical question: who cares and who neglects politics? Or, who is competent and who is ignorant in politics?
CITIZENS AND POLITICAL COMPETENCE
Political competence involves morality and reason, as humans are “political animals.” Hannah Arendt explained this predikat through the concept of vita activa in The Human Condition (1958). The political human represents the highest level of all their activities. Politics is an expression of unique identity, creative freedom, and the capacity to share the world with others. These three virtues integrate humans within their existence, as politics becomes the realisation of collective action among diverse humans in the public realm. Such action creates a public space (in-between space) when the public gathers to speak and act. From this space, individual autonomy and freedom emerge through the optimisation of reason and moral consciousness. Arendt asserted that all humans living and existing in a “state” possess natural political competence that must be realised.
Often, the choice to become idiotes or polites arises from social exhaustion caused by political behaviour far removed from the predicate of political beings. Many citizens choose to become idiotes because they have been repeatedly betrayed by polites in the public realm. This betrayal manifests in an inability or refusal to listen to public demands regarding various facts of social and political inequality, experienced merely as a space for pursuing partial or temporary survival. Such perception causes the loss of collective wellbeing orientation, reliance on transactional logic, neglect of long-term morality, and normalisation of power abuse. Herein lies the seed of corrupt mentality.
In Politics as a Vocation (1919), Weber presented the distinction between those who live for politics and those who live from politics. Those who live for politics possess idealism, principles, and commitment to service. They are economically independent and thus do not seek profit from office. For them, politics is a realm of ideas, and power becomes a tool of service. Those who live from politics, by contrast, view politics as income source and career advancement, creating dependency. Consequently, a political bureaucracy emerges from actions dependent upon the state, where public affairs become merely a medium for distributing offices and exploiting state resources.
It is entirely possible that citizens choosing to become idiotes are mimicking idiotic polites—an ultimate critique of collective action by a handful of individuals who constantly “teach” that politics is private affairs. Ironically, this teaching is demonstrated daily. Must we then still require expertise in politics?
POLITICAL COMPETENCE: BETWEEN PRAGMATISM AND TECHNOCRATISM
Following the August 2025 wave of demonstrations, the public recognised that expertise in politics generates constant tension between technocratic and pragmatic approaches. Technocratic politics assumes individuals involved in the public realm and holding specific positions do so because of their expertise. Pragmatic politics, conversely, places politicians in positions based on proximity and other considerations. The pragmatic perspective causes governance to orient solely toward electoral periods. The technocratic perspective emphasises sustainability.
However, tension between technocraticism and pragmatism frequently produces anomalies. Technocratism tends to view the state as a rational entity requiring experts, yet often lacks empathy and ethical will. Conversely, pragmatism views the state as a flexible instrument.