Douglas Giles
Philosophy of Orientation as a Way to understand politics
Politics is complex, befitting the complex issues faced by society and the myriad complex solutions people offer to address those issues. Politics should be serious discussions about issues that face all of society, but political dialogue is too often overshadowed by bitter arguments.
I am a social and political philosopher, and I want to develop further the philosophy of orientation in ways that can help us better understand politics and forge a different path for politics and society. Werner Stegmaier has, with the philosophy of orientation, given us valuable tools with which we can, as it were, lift the lid on the deep, wide, and complex social realities of politics.
What can we mean by politics anyway?
That in itself is a complex and interesting question. Any dictionary’s definition of the word “politics” will first and foremost direct attention to the workings of government, and then to the relations among people living in society as a whole. This basic, general definition is correct as far as it goes. The root meaning of the word “politics” comes from the Greek word “polis,” meaning the community of the city-state. In its broadest sense, politics and the political involves decisions and actions that affect the whole society, government being the social institution most influential toward society as a whole.
Beyond this nuts-and-bolts conception of the working of politics, we can sensibly talk about other dimensions of politics. We can say things like one is playing politics or that one is putting politics above people. We also use the word politics in ways beyond talking about government, such as when we talk about office politics or sexual politics.
Such language points to a meaning of politics as a way of thinking and acting. This dimension of the political becomes even more evident when we shift our thinking from the macrosocial level of government to the microsocial level thoughts and actions of individual people. Politicians, even at the highest levels of government, are still people, still individuals who are attempting to navigate situations in which they are immersed. When a politician makes decisions and takes actions, that politician could “play politics” or act to positively affect society, and these are just two possibilities.
Political philosophy and political science focus on macrosocial institutions and large-scale social changes. This approach illuminates only part of the picture of all that politics includes. One of the strengths of Werner Stegmaier’s philosophy of orientation is that it includes the fundamental understanding that individuals are continually seeking ways of dealing with situations that they face.
Why look at politics from the perspective of the philosophy of orientation? Regardless of whether an individual is playing politics or acting for the greater good of the society, politics always involves that individual’s attitudes of orientation toward situations. Political decisions are made by individuals and political actions are taken by individuals, even when decisions and actions are undertaken in groups settings. All aspects and dimensions of politics share the dynamic that individuals are attempting to find their ways in uncertain situations, seeking opportunities to successfully act in the situation.
Orientation is the achievement of finding one’s way. The dynamic of finding one’s way applies to situations as direct as deciding on the best path to travel to the store to deciding on the best path for a society’s peace and prosperity. This dynamic is present in all political actions. Whether a politician or a voter, one is faced with a political situation to which one responds from one’s particular standpoint. How one orients oneself to political situations is an individual choice, though that choice is influenced by one’s environment and experiences. Understanding individuals’ political orientations goes a long way to understanding politics.
We can better understand politics within the framework of orientation. What we can mean when we consider politics are the questions of how people orient themselves toward government and their relations with other people. Any study of politics will benefit from such an approach. Approaching politics with the philosophy of orientation illuminates all social levels of politics—from national governments to the office space. This approach works to illuminate political attitudes, political policies and decision-making, political ideologies, political actions, and political conflict.
The philosophy of orientation speaks of orientation worlds—interconnected specific routine patterns. What we could consider the political orientation world coincides with the societal orientation world, the question is to what extent politics is distinct from other social patterns and spheres. To think politically requires an orientation, and even if we? determine that politics isn’t its own orientation world, politics is definitely a kind or type of orientation one can take on to navigate situations. That much is fairly straightforward; everything else about politics is complicated. Fortunately, the philosophy of orientation is well suited to deal with complexities.
Developing a Philosophy of Political Orientation
How can we apply the philosophy of orientation to the study of politics? We can begin from the starting points given to us by two important ideas in Stegmaier’s philosophy of orientation.
Orientation is the achievement of finding your way in a new situation in order to find possibilities for actions through which you can master the situation. (Werner Stegmaier, What Is Orientation? (6)
Rules and identities allow for orders that you can more firmly rely on in your orientation as you try to find your way in new situations with varying degrees of success: you can reckon with them. (155)
I choose these two ideas as starting points because of the high relevance of mastering situations through rules and identities in political thinking and action. Politics is a set of responses to events and situations; thus, our analysis of politics should focus on political actions.
All human actions are informed by rules and identities, and in all aspects of life, politics included, people use a preceding orientation to understand situations and craft a response to them. Also, in all aspects of life, people rely on rules and identities to navigate situations, but they do so even more in politics.
The outsized influence of rules and identities within politics is due to several factors. One is that politics concerns issues and decisions that affect large numbers of people, therefore many political matters carry great significance. Another is that politics frequently supports or collides with a rules-based order, including legal norms and systems to maintain internal peace and security, and diplomacy and preparedness to defend from external threats. Then, ironically, there is the human temptation to “play politics” and act for personal advantage rather than uphold society’s laws and norms. In each of these, one needs to orient oneself to the political situations and the rules and norms that guide politics. This is true even for those trying to game the system—one needs to know the rules of politics to know how to evade or exploit them.
Playing Politics and Political Institutions
One way that we use the word “politics” shows that politics is a way of thinking and acting, but, of course, this is not the only way we use the term politics. On the one hand, we can think and act politically in any situation, but on the other hand, there remains a set of thoughts and actions that is the political sphere of social life encompassing government, elections, lobbying, legislating, and foreign policy. These are the political institutions that exist to govern a state and the lower administrative levels within a state.
The primary manifestation of politics is within government and its institutions. Government, at least in the liberal conception of it, exists to serve the interests of a state and the people in it. A government is supposed to provide a stable set of laws and practices. For example, the German government has as its foundation the Grundgesetz or “basic law.” That extensive document provides the basic rule of law for the nation, to which all government actions should conform. Politicians and civil servants are expected to follow the basic law while remaining responsive to changing situations and the needs of people affected by the government’s decisions and actions.
Being a member of government means having a position of at least some power and responsibility. The higher one’s position in government, the greater the power. In whatever governmental function an individual is situated, that individual can choose to use his or her power to follow the basic law or serve his or her own interests. Whether one is “playing politics” for their own advantage or dutifully fulfilling one’s political role, one is taking on an orientation to the law and to one’s situation and role. Within the governmental system, one decides as to what one’s goals are and how one will find one’s way to master situations. One decides one’s political orientation, and one can orient oneself toward self-serving goals or toward serving the people.
Political Orientations and Political Orientation Worlds
Orientation worlds are comprised of the connections among specific routine patterns. A government operates under a coherent set of laws and rules that specify its operations—its routine patterns. The German Grundgesetz and the United States’ Constitution are documents that establish political structures, their roles, powers, and limits. We can understand that these documents specify orientation processes and coherent orientation areas that are the orientation worlds of the political. Governmental institutions and individual roles within them will have prescribed rules that outline the routine patterns expected of the individual in that role.
This cursory review of the normative structure of governments does not imply an idealized view of politics as always calm and orderly. The existence of structures and routines increase order, calmness, and security but do not eliminate fluctuation and uncertainty. In politics, because political actions within government affects large numbers of people, the matters of who has political power and how they are using it are constant. One decides one’s political orientation, and the importance of power and power relations within politics incentivizes individuals to orient themselves toward self-serving goals, causing tensions and conflicts.
Is politics a type of orientation world of a different character than other orientation worlds? There are reasons to think so related to the nature and role of government in society and the relations between individuals and government.
Stegmaier identifies several types of orientations—most notably, economic, scientific, legal, and political orientations. Each of these orientations form an orientation world. Governments, like other social spheres, are orientation worlds with norms, structures, and processes within which an individual can know their way around and how to act with confidence.
Different from other social spheres, government and politics affects society as a whole but only a fraction of the total population is involved in politics on a regular basis. This reality creates two political orientation worlds with clear-cut differences. One is the orientation world of individuals within government. The routine patterns of governmental processes provide a coherent orientation for those individuals who work for the government. Then there is the orientation world of individuals outside of government oriented to politics. The number of people within governments and political parties is a tiny fraction of the total population. Many more people are affected by governmental decisions than are involved in making them. The separation between individuals inside government and outside of it creates different orientation worlds and contributes to the tension between individuals and groups in political orientation.
The nature of politics itself distinguishes it from other orientation worlds. The economic, scientific, legal, and political are each orientation worlds in their own right, but they are also worlds that interconnect with each other. However, it would seem that politics connects with all other orientation worlds in an overarching way. Political actions often result in decisions that affect large segments of society. Politics also affects more aspects of society than other social spheres do. Scientists can focus on science and businesspeople on economics, but politicians must contend with multiple interconnected spheres: foreign policy, domestic policy, security, fiscal policy, the legal system, economics, health care, education, and others. The breadth, depth, and complexities of political systems indicate that political orientation worlds differ in character from other orientation worlds.
How do political orientation worlds intersect with other orientation worlds?
If politics is a different type of orientation world, then how does the political world interact with the other social worlds? Also, because individuals switch from one to another orientation world and given the unique aspects of the political world, how do individuals switch their attention and actions into and out of the political world?
Economic orientations are delineated by the market. Legal orientations are constrained by the law. Political orientations are affected by economic and legal concerns but also by the highly variable factors of elections, political parties, legislative actions, changing demographics, actions by individuals and groups, and other events. A person can have an orientation toward politics, but how does that connect with the other orientations that that person has?
Individuals who are politicians or work for the government are within the political orientation world. For many of them, their political orientation can be switched off like how an employee switches off their work orientation when they leave the workplace. A politician can switch between political orientations within the political orientation world when the politician starts “playing politics” and orients toward self-interests and switches back to following the orientation processes prescribed by the basic laws of the country.
Individuals who are outside of government are not obligated to engage with politics, though in a liberal society, they have the option to do so. One can vote in elections and one can become involved in political parties or engage in other forms of political activism. There are, however, no requirements for citizens to be involved in political activity. An individual has the choice of being oriented toward political involvement or toward apathy about politics. One can say that one is unconcerned with politics and have an everyday orientation that disregards politics and government, but one cannot easily, if at all, be immune from the effects of politics. Being absolutely nonpolitical may be both impossible and undesirable, and if so, this leads to the question of how individuals shift into political orientations and when. At the same time, there are many ways an individual can be oriented politically, and this calls for a phenomenological study of the many ways that individuals take on political orientations and the many political orientations that are possible
How Can We Best Schematize Political Orientation Worlds?
There is no shortage of research into politics and political action by philosophers and social scientists. Despite many great minds considering the political world, there are still many unanswered questions and room for new approaches. Stegmaier’s philosophy of orientation has established a new philosophical approach that explores the complexities of everyday life as lived by individuals. The philosophy of orientation can also be the core of a new philosophy of politics and political life and action. Bringing the philosophy of orientation into an analysis of politics, enhanced with phenomenological conceptions of individual and social lifeworlds, can shed light on political actions within various levels of social behavior.
Some basic elements of a philosophy of political orientation
As it applies to all things political, the philosophy of orientation first and foremost focuses on how individuals navigate through the complexities of the world. It provides us with valuable conceptual insights such as the human habit of abbreviating the world and its complex and confusing constellation of signs. The philosophy of orientation understands that individuals desire calmness in the face of uncertainty and to reach a reassuring calmness, individuals seek clues and patterns in the world that give them footholds toward beliefs by which they can manage uncertainty. On the interpersonal level, the philosophy of orientation understands that human interaction and communication is an orientation about and to other individual’s orientations, and that one way in which people abbreviate their world is through attributing identifications to themselves and others.
Each of these insights are important for all areas of human life but especially so for a study of politics. There is in society but especially in the political world, tension between individuals and groups. The focus of the philosophy of orientation on the lives of individuals unlocks many puzzles that the theory-focused philosophers and social scientists are unable to unravel. Political actions and decisions, even when undertaken in group settings, look different when they are viewed in the context of the individuals involved. We can only begin to scratch the surface, but to begin building off of these insights from the philosophy of orientation, I will offer some questions to serve as leading clues for greater and deeper understandings of politics.
What orientation worlds do individuals need to navigate?
All individuals live in multiple orientation worlds—home, work, family, neighborhood, and so on. Politics involves multiple orientation worlds, perhaps more than the two previously discussed. An individual may try to avoid politics, but the political world still affects everyone and most everyone can get involved in politics in some way and at some level.
Society has multiple levels. Critical theorists often adopt the Hegelian conceptions of the legal sphere, economic sphere, and personal relationships sphere. Each sphere contributes to individual and social life. Similarly, Stegmaier identifies individual, communal, societal, and global orientation worlds. Whether we conceive of politics as a type of orientation within orientation worlds or an orientation world in itself, we can identify and distinguish between levels of society in which political actions transpire.
I suggest that we can identify multiple spheres of politics.
- Macrosocial orientations—governmental structures and electoral formats; political ideologies
- Mesosocial orientations—political parties and movements
- Microsocial orientations—personal opinions and activism
This basic schematization of political orientations can help us understand numerous aspects of politics, including how political orientations interact with other orientation worlds. There structures are different and deserve to be described more closely as ways and means of orientation.
Within orientations, how do individuals interact with political systems?
All political actions are taken by individuals. A view of politics is incomplete if it looks only at large social trends and movements. Individuals create political ideas and programs, propagate and install them, and use them to make decisions about political issues. We need to look at how individuals perceive their world, abbreviate complexities to craft useful footholds, communicate with other individuals, and decide on orientations and actions in response to their situations.
An individual adopts multiple orientations in response to different situations. One has individual freedoms within common limits, but politics and political institutions and systems set many of those common limits. An individual is thus an agent embedded in a social world that is largely dictated to individuals. Nevertheless, one retains leeway to act within one’s social world.
One of the strengths of the philosophy of orientation is its ability to include in its analysis individual perception and actions. This ability is especially valuable for an analysis of politics, a social sphere with considerable tension between the individual and social institutions. Stegmaier states that “anything beyond individual orientations is an abstraction springing from individual orientations” (xii) and that “orientations are individual orientations of individual human beings in individual situations.” (15) These truths about orientation are true even when individuals are adopting orientations from others. However, politics is inherently a group and institutional social sphere, especially in the case of political ideologies. When the individual is invited to participate in politics, it is almost always as a member of a social group such as a voter for a political party.
This situation leads to the question of how an individual’s political identity and orientations, which are always of the individual, as Stegmaier observes, interact with political ideologies, spheres, and systems, which are always group activities. This tension between the individual and the social is present in all areas of social life but is even greater within politics. I state this because political identities seem to have a distinct character—they hold great emotional weight, and they will dictate a person’s responses to situations. One identifies as a liberal or conservative, even without a deep understanding of the meanings of these orientations.
Furthermore, when one has an orientation to politics one can, and often does, have an orientation within that, such as liberal or conservative. We can consider these as orientations because identifying as a liberal or conservative can serve as a standpoint from which one surveys situations and sees and thinks about them. Although all orientation processes take place in individuals, the nature of politics is such that political identities and actions are especially group oriented. Thus, the political accentuates the tension between the individual and groups. The philosophy of orientation has the conceptual tools to address these issues in ways that previous approaches have not.
How can Stegmaier’s concept of world abbreviation by mass media help us understand politics?
In the 1930s, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno warned that the then new communication medium of radio would alter politics. From the printing press to radio to television to the Internet, new technologies of mass media have transformed political messaging and political processes. One could argue that each technological innovation of mass media has further degraded meaningful discourse. That this is the case has been shown in the various elections that were held in 2024. Deep analyses and discussions of complex issues have been replaced by memes and vibes. Perhaps this is a shift in orientations within politics.
Stegmaier’s concept of world abbreviation (75-76), which is backed by insights from multiple philosophers, is a useful tool for analyzing how mass media affects politics and, in particular, political discourse. The philosophy of orientation includes the understanding that orientation is communicated through signs and that signs are abbreviations. Mass media both thrives on abbreviations and propagates them. Understanding the role of abbreviation in communicating and establishing political orientations will reveal much about politics and society.
To what extent are political orientations a means to sidestep uncertainty?
One of the key insights of the philosophy of orientation is that orientation is the achievement of finding one’s way in an unsurveyable and uncertain situation. Critical theory considers normative judgments about whether political and social systems are healthy or pathological (unhealthy). The specific judgments of critical theorists are debatable, but the basic concept that certain political systems either help or harm people rings true. What the relations are between political systems and orientations is unclear, but it seems likely that political orientations are capable of harm and help, and thus can be thought of as healthy or unhealthy.
It seems to me that healthy orientations are responsive to situations and are amenable to change when situations warrant it. Healthy orientations acknowledge the complexity of the world and accept, if not embrace, uncertainty. Such orientations remain healthy as long as one holds them with prudence, respect, and foresight, remaining open to change of orientation as circumstances change. Unhealthy orientations try to simplify situations artificially and are held with resistance to change and denial of circumstances. Such orientations remain unhealthy as long as one clings to them inflexibly as a preconceived worldview that should not be altered regardless of circumstances. Because they are inflexible, unhealthy orientations hinder one’s ability to find one’s way—they could almost be said to be orientations against orientation.
It makes sense to speak of political orientation but also to ask to what extent political identities are ways to give individuals an illusion of certainty, often pretending to have sufficiently surveyed and understood unsurveyable and uncertain situations. Political ideologies and parties are group activities, and political leaders seek group allegiance if not obedience. Proper, healthy political orientations strive to make the most of current situations to improve the lives of people now and in the future. Distorted, unhealthy political orientations instead strive to make the most of situations to promote the entrenchment of collective identities and a political ideology that benefits only a few. How prevalent are unhealthy political orientations and political messaging that seek to present to people an alternative to the difficult task of continual reorientation in the face of uncertain situations? How often are these unhealthy political orientations adopted by people?
How does politics, especially political messaging, affect individuals’ self-stabilization of their orientation, including their senses of familiarity, routines, feelings, and plausibilities?
This is a question much more easily stated than answered. This question connects with the previously stated questions concerning abbreviations in mass media and how individuals interact with political systems. Orientations are individual orientations of individual human beings, as Stegmaier says, but political movements and ideologies are group oriented. Politicians and political parties seek to influence individuals to adopt group orientations. With good reason, we associate politics with propaganda, but even when political messaging does not rise to the level of propaganda, these communications are attempts to influence people to change their view of situations. The philosophy of orientation has the conceptual tools to address these issues.
What is the connection between double contingency and political discourse?
Stegmaier did not invent, but fully embraces, the concept of double contingency—”the fact that individuals always proceed from different standpoints that are never fully transparent to one another.” (130) People are often observed to be talking past each other when discussing political issues. Entrenched opinions certainly contribute to that lack of communication, but perhaps if there are political orientations or even orientation worlds, this exacerbates the problem. If people inhabit distinct political orientation worlds, then perhaps this increases the lack of transparency in political discourse. This issue circles back to the questions of whether and to what extent politics is a distinct orientation world. Is there something within political orientation that hinders interpersonal communication? Applying the insights of the philosophy of orientation can help us untangle the thorny issues of political discourse. There is good reason to believe that political orientation worlds by their nature induce entrenched opinions and a reluctance to find compromise. If so, then the real problem of double contingency is stronger in political discourse.
Conclusion For Now
This short essay offers more questions than answers, but these questions are the first steps in developing the philosophy of orientation in the political sphere. Exploring these questions empower us to further develop the philosophy of orientation and advance our understanding of politics and human society. I hope with the help of the Foundation for Philosophical Orientation to investigate these questions and advance both the philosophy of orientation and our understanding of politics.
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