Why should We Study Political Theory?

We may already have our own political opinions, but is there any real need to formally study political theory? Surely it is more useful to politicians who actually practise politics, to bureaucrats who make policy, to teachers who teach the subject, to lawyers and judges who interpret the Constitution and its laws, or to activists and journalists who expose exploitation and campaign for new rights. What, then, does a high-school student actually gain from knowing what freedom or equality really mean?

The first reason is that political theory is genuinely relevant to every one of those groups, and as school students we might well end up in one of these very professions later in life -- so, indirectly, it is relevant to us even now. This is really no different from why we study mathematics, even though most of us will never become mathematicians or engineers: we study it because basic arithmetic turns out to be broadly useful in life. Basic political reasoning is useful in exactly the same way.

The second reason is that we are all going to become citizens entitled to vote and to decide on public issues, and acting responsibly as a citizen requires at least a basic understanding of the political ideas and institutions that shape the world we live in. In today's information society, being reasonable and well-informed matters if we want to participate meaningfully -- whether in a local gram sabha or by offering views on websites and opinion polls. Simply expressing arbitrary preferences achieves very little; but citizens who are thoughtful and mature can use new media effectively to discuss and advance their shared interests. In this sense, citizens are a bit like the audience at a music concert: we are not the main performers interpreting the melody, but we set the agenda, judge the performance, and make new demands of it. Musicians tend to perform better when they know their audience is knowledgeable and appreciative -- and in the same way, an educated and vigilant citizenry pushes those who "play" politics to become more genuinely public-spirited.

The third reason is that freedom, equality and secularism are not abstract, faraway issues -- we run into discrimination of many kinds every day, in our families, schools, colleges and shopping malls, and we often carry our own prejudices against people who differ from us in caste, religion, gender or class. If we feel oppressed and see that redress keeps being delayed, we may start to feel that even a violent revolution is justified; if we happen to be privileged, we may instead deny that any oppression exists at all -- sometimes even convincing ourselves that people who work for us, such as domestic help, somehow deserve the treatment they get. What political theory does is train us to examine our own political ideas and feelings more carefully, and simply looking at them more closely tends to make our views more moderate and considered. …