IT IS A mistake to join the movement in search of love. Intimacy is neither a necessary nor a common feature of political life. The heightened emotions of collective action are peculiarly impersonal: they bring the individual into touch with too many other people to bring him into close touch with anyone in particular. Not love, but amour social, camaraderie, solidarity, are the unifying passions of the movement. And they are only sometimes intense and vivid passions. Most often, the size of the movement, the range of activities carried on by its members, the ever-present disagreements about strategy and tactics, the competition for leadership, the need to keep things together—all these tend to preclude the expression of strong feelings for particular people. (Strong feelings for abstract ideas are more commonly expressed.) Political association is the art of keeping one’s distance: too close is a danger and a distraction; too far is a loss of control and influence.
Personal ties do exist within the movement, and sometimes they produce a kind of subpolitics that stands in various degrees of tension with the general commitment of activists to their cause. I am thinking especially of the subpolitics of the coterie and the entourage. A coterie is a sect without an ideology, a band of friends more deeply involved with one another than with the movement itself, more trusting of one another than of anyone else. Its members can be a divisive force (without ever intending division) simply because they intensify and exacerbate everyone’s personal sensibilities. Ideally, I suppose, activists should leave at home their native alertness to slurs and snubs and heighten instead their sensitivity to the nuances of political disagreement. In practice, the two are mixed, held in some sort of rough balance. The danger of the coterie is that it tips the balance away from public disputes toward private intrigue. This is especially dangerous if the leadership itself is a band of friends, for many activists are sure to resent their exclusion who would not do so if they thought they were being excluded for political rather than personal reasons. Intelligent leaders will associate themselves with people who are not their friends, even with people they do not like.
An entourage is a band of people who wait upon a leader (and generally keep him from associating with anyone who is not an active admirer). Members of the entourage are loyal to the leader, not at all to one another. Now loyalty to a leader is one of the most profound and tenacious of political emotions, but it is relatively rare, perhaps refreshingly rare, in the world of citizen politics where leaders have all too little standing with their followers. Occasionally a man or woman who has been in trouble with the authorities, stood trial, or endured imprisonment will win a special kind of following. But that is not very dependable, particularly if a number of persons have stood trial and endured imprisonment.
The entourage appears most often when some individual who is powerful in the outside world joins the movement, bringing his admirers with him. This sort of thing can cause problems not only because it ruptures the easy familiarity and camaraderie of the movement, but also because it stands in the way of a cool assessment of the actual possibilities of power and personality in political life. These possibilities are generally greater than citizen activists are willing to admit, especially when confronted by a leader and his entourage. Once again, it is a question of keeping one’s distance. Great Men have a part to play, but it is not a good idea to have their favorites write the script.
If love is uncommon in political life, hatred is common enough, and it takes getting used to. One of the hardest things for new activists to learn is that politics involves them constantly in antagonistic relations with other people. A few of them turn out to enjoy such relations, but most do not. Yet the movement can offer only modest support to members experiencing for the first time the anger and hostility of political opponents. Its leaders and publicists can explain how it is that political disagreements are so deeply rooted, social and economic interests so fundamentally opposed. Other members can offer their understanding and solidarity. But too much should not be expected. Ultimately one draws on personal resources to cope with the hatred of another man or woman. Solidarity is a political tie, subject to political strains. It may not outlast the first serious argument over strategy and tactics. The movement itself is an arena of conflict and antagonism. Commitment and camaraderie most often mute the everyday disagreements. But sometimes they fail, and then the internal polemics and power struggles can be intense and bitter—especially so, perhaps, for those members who had dreamed of unity and devotion.