As a social critic, I am ambivalent about the power of imaginative action in politics. On the one hand, I think that the power of the definition of the situation is a key resource of power for the powerless, the cultural grounding of “the politics of small things.” On the other hand, I worry about myth-making that is independent of factual truth.

On the positive side, there is the definition of the situation: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.” This relatively simple assertion, the so called Thomas theorem, was first presented in a study of child psychology and behavioral problems by W.I. Thomas and his wife, Dorothy Swain Thomas. Yet, the theorem has very important political implications, going well beyond the area of the Thomases initial concern, moving in a very different direction than the one taken by the field of ethnomethodology, which can be understood as the systematic scholarly discipline of the definition of the situation.

While researching cultural and political alternatives in Poland and beyond in the 1980s and 90s I observed first hand how the theorem, in effect, became the foundational idea of the democratic opposition to the Communist system in Central Europe. The dissident activists acted as if they lived in a free society and created freedom as a result. A decision was made in Poland, in the 70s, by a group of independent intellectuals and activists to secede from the official order and create an alternative public life. People ignored the commands of the Communist Party and associated apart from Party State control, openly publicizing their association. They created alternative publications. They opened the underground by publicizing their names, addresses and phone numbers. They acted freely. They developed ties with workers and others beyond their immediate social circles. And when the regime for its own reasons didn’t arrest them, an alternative public life and an oppositional political force flourished, which ultimately prevailed over the regime.

The powerless can develop power that can and has overwhelmed the holders of conventional power resources. Daniel Dayan here considered how this worked in the case of the Gaza flotilla protest. This morning we could read about how a group of Saudi women are challenging the powers by publicly staging a drive-in. The controversy surrounding their action, the discussion of it on Facebook, is creating a new public life in Saudi Arabia. Facebook is facilitating the power of the powerless, in the Middle-East, North Africa and beyond, but it is the power of the definition of the situation that is creating this new public.

On the other hand, there is a seamy side of imagination and creativity in politics, revealed in two posts this week.

Rafael Narvaez illuminates a most basic and enduring problem. Race is a biological fiction that has become a most important social reality. Racial differences that do not exist, are said to exist, and, in the process, they come to exist, in their consequences. Racism is very much an ongoing social reality in the U.S. and beyond, even, and perhaps especially, in the face of the election of our first black President. Or is he bi-racial or is it post–racial? From institutionalized racism, where, for example, I observe that it is somehow especially difficult to keep open a decent food store in the black corner of my affluent suburb, to the persistent racial stereotyping on a major cable news network, i.e. Fox News, race is a fact, despite the fact that it is a fiction.

The relationship between fact and fiction is a more general problem, as Esther Kreider-Verhalle explored in her post this week. She was inspired to write about this issue when Fox News mistakenly used a still photo of Tina Fey, an entertaining impersonator of Sarah Palin, for Palin herself. Had the liberal cable news network, MSNBC, done this, some political motive might have been inferred, but that Fox did it, with a national political figure who also is a Fox employee, suggests the fundamental insights of the late social and cultural critic, Jean Baudrillard. Hyper-reality has overwhelmed reality. We can not tell the difference between the simulator of a political persona and the person herself, who is in fact a simulation. Politicians lie so much that their lies look like truths to them. In the process, they and their publics can not tell the difference. Truth melts away, as Anthony Weiner and a long line of public men behaving badly reveal. There is some resistance, suggested by periodic scandals, but these are but passing moments in our staged hyper-reality. I applaud Kreider-Verhalle’s cautionary conclusion: “Amidst all the gaming and faking, it would be good to realize that real decisions have an impact on real people.”

This is what our concern about fictoids is all about. Political actors imagine a reality. Palin makes up the notion of death panels for example, and the make-believe becomes real in its consequences, undermining the possibility of significant health care reform. The Republican leadership repeats often enough the formulation “the job killing stimulus package” and then what every sound economist knows – a recession is the time for government spending and not cuts – becomes politicized. Observations about global climate change become a matter of political debate, when fundamental scientific observations are questioned. Next, we will be politically debating fundamental the facts of Holocaust.

I once had dinner with Baudrillard. It followed his public dialogue with Sylvère Lotringer on “The Parallax of Evil: Domination and Hegemony.” I was surprised how quickly he accepted my criticism of his notion of a totalized hyper-reality. I asserted that the politics of the definition of the situation, “the politics of small things,” stands as an alternative to hyper-reality. I wondered why he was not interested in having a real debate. Perhaps it was a matter of his sense of table manners. Perhaps it had to do with his health. He died about a year later. But as I recall our discussion now, it is clear that we met each other representing the two sides of the definition of the situation and that the debate I wanted to have had no resolution. It is not a matter of debate but of judgment and action.

Living as if we are free requires confronting fictoids resolutely. Form matters.

Wouldn’t Baudrillard have loved it? For him, it would have indicated the presence of yet more proof that actual people do suffer from hyperrealitis! According to Jean Baudrillard, consumers had long ceased to need originals. Thus, in a world where the simulated version has conquered the real, how many people will have principled issues with the mix up of the person and the parody? Or taking it one step further, how many people have concerns about the authenticity of the real Palin in the first place?

This brings me to the genuineness of political performers. During a recent show, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow served up 12 male politicians whom she placed on a “post-Clinton modern American political sex scandal consequence-o-meter.” Depending on the creepiness of their behavior and the extent to which they might be prosecuted, Maddow measured the cases of Florida Representative Mark Foley, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, Nevada Senator John Ensign, VP candidate John Edwards, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and of course, New York Representative Anthony Weiner, and a couple of others. (For more on Weiner, read Gary Alan Fine’s post.) Did all these gentlemen think they could get away with extramarital affairs, prostitution, lewd conduct, and other such activities? While some of these activities may not be downright illegal, they all reveal little or no moral standards. In many cases, the behavior was not only hypocritical, but also naïve, as the compromising position in which these politicians pushed themselves would one day trip them up. To make matters even more complicated, the hypocrisy is a common element. Among the politicians who are the most vocal about the need for punishment and resignation of the sinners, are those who are guilty of some nasty sins themselves. How many others still think that their secret lives will not become public?

Even though these men have differences, they do share some similarities. Significantly, they all confuse the authentic and the fake. They all jazzed up their real lives with lies and may have found some moments of reality in their lives as cheaters. To find oneself in this muddle of real and unreal must be bewildering to any mere mortal, but unsettling on a whole other level to political representatives. While survival on the political stage demands a high degree of showmanship, a politician’s moral credibility and integrity are his or her lifeblood. Or, at least, it used to be.

Of course, deceit and pretense have long been a part of the political profession. But in a society where there already exists an overwhelming amount of posing and parades, the show element of politics seems to be only increasing. As the lines between reality and imitation have become blurry in society in general, political society has followed suit. Concern about the authentic and the fake has diminished during our travels from real life to reality shows. There is an insufficient concern about the mixing up of the authentic and fake in the movements from real-life politics to pure political spectacle. Amidst all the gaming and faking, it would be good to realize that real decisions have an impact on real people.