By: Borut Korun
The term “idiot” in ancient Greek referred to a person who did not take part in the political life of their city, someone who did not care about the fate of their homeland. The classical Greeks saw such behaviour as a sign of spiritual inferiority, a lack of empathy, narcissism, and more. Someone who is concerned only with themselves is useless to the community. In that sense, we can agree. That is why the word idiot has carried a strongly negative connotation ever since.
Today, however, the term has taken on a different meaning: it describes someone who is less intelligent, barely useful, someone who does everything wrong. But how, and to whom, could an “idiot” be useful if they are supposedly useless?
A “useful idiot” is a political term, and in its political use it does not literally refer to someone who is unintelligent. But one can earn such a label. How and when can that happen? When a political group is not strong enough to reach power on its own, it needs a helper from the opposite or a neighbouring political camp, someone with whom it does not actually intend to share power. If someone agrees to this, for whatever reason, it appears foolish.
Those who look for such people must not reveal their intentions, so they speak of higher goals, of the need for cooperation, they invent an external threat, they talk about the nation being endangered. Now they speak of a government of national unity, appealing to people’s sense of responsibility.
This is how those act who do not take democracy seriously. Anyone who admires revolutionary or authoritarian methods cannot act democratically. Any honest – democratic – coalition also respects the views of its weaker partners, and those partners do not end up looking foolish. They can show their voters that they have fulfilled some of their own programme goals. But that is possible only in ideologically related political alliances. “Useful idiots” are needed in coalitions that are ideologically diverse. Only when you naively help your ideological opponent do you truly earn such a label.
In our past, we have had several examples of “useful idiots.” We can start with Tito, who after the war – so as to deceive the Western Allies – pretended that the people would decide what kind of Yugoslavia they wanted. We all know how democratic and fair the elections then were. Elections, in the eyes of some on the left, are an outdated (they would say bourgeois) arrangement, since they believe that power belongs to them by historical necessity. Therefore, the use of “useful idiots” is also seen as a kind of historical necessity, something they feel fully entitled to and for which they feel no guilt. Because of such a messianic conviction, they can sleep peacefully even in the face of electoral irregularities.
The emergence of the Liberation Front was also a clear example of using “useful idiots.” These were, of course, the Christian Socialists, who naively believed in some kind of left‑leaning, democratic Slovenia. They certainly entered the coalition with the communists with the best intentions, since the homeland was truly endangered. But once there was no way back, they had to sign a declaration renouncing their own organisation. And they disappeared as a political force.
Now Robert Golob is repeating the lesson on how to find and use a political “idiot.” Naturally, this goes hand in hand with excluding those who would never serve as useful tools. These must be discredited and pushed out of the game. And to prevent anyone on the left from joining a government led by Janez Janša – which certainly would not operate in an authoritarian way. – political leaders must constantly swear that “we will not join a Janša government.”
Anyone toying with the idea of entering Golob’s government must therefore know what awaits them. Because they will be only a “useful idiot,” they will have no power, no influence on political developments, and everything will remain as before. It is impossible for people who tolerated every deviation and every mistake to want or allow anything to change. It is impossible for the main actors to renounce their ideological convictions. Anyone who believes this will be a loser, and will fully deserve the label of a “useful idiot.”