Depends on one’s expectations of the political process. I, for one, have never expected a philosopher king at any time in my life.
Your words recall St. Thomas More’s Utopia to mind for me, namely Book I. Have you ever read it?
The reader is presented with two different approaches to the question of counselling kings and pursuing a public career while retaining a sense of principle: that of the character Raphael Hythloday, who believes that there is absolutely no point in becoming the counsellor of a monarch because the only result will be corruption of oneself and one’s pure ideas. He insists that the social order cannot be gradually reformed through practical compromise: one has to go straight for the “root” problem and abolish private property, along with the primacy of money, to achieve the “best state of the commonwealth” or ideal ‘utopia’ (Thomas More of course coined the term in this text) where there are no rich and poor. In this respect, Hythloday sides with Plato (the great ancient philosopher) who believed that ‘philosophers must become kings or kings philosophers’ for any real change to occur. In More’s words, Hythloday argues:
“…I’m quite convinced that you’ll never get a fair distribution of goods, or a satisfactory organization of human life, until you abolish private property altogether. So long as it exists, the vast majority of the human race, and the vastly superior part of it, will go on labouring under a burden of poverty, hardship, and worry…”
Against this view, you have that of a fictionalized version of St. Thomas More himself, called ‘Morus’ who advocates an idea more in keeping with the Roman statesman Cicero: he defends the active life of public service and the idea of compromising, without betraying, one’s ideas to gradually reform the system from within. Again in More’s words, ‘Morus’ contends:
“…‘That is just what I was saying’, Raphael replied. ‘There is no place for philosophy in the councils of kings.’
‘Yes it is true,’ I said, ‘that there is no place for this school philosophy which supposes every topic suitable for every occasion. But there is another philosophy, better suited for the role of citizen, that takes its cue, adapts itself to the drama at hand and acts its part neatly and appropriately. This is the philosophy for you to use. Otherwise, when a comedy by Plautus is being played, and the household slaves are cracking trivial jokes together, you come onstage in the garb of a philosopher and repeat Seneca’s speech to Nero from the Octavia. That’s how things go in the commonwealth, and in the councils of princes. If you cannot pluck up bad ideas by the root, or cure long-standing evils to your heart’s content, you must not therefore abandon the commonwealth. Don’t give up the ship in a storm because you cannot hold back the winds…. Instead, by an indirect approach, you must strive and struggle as best you can to handle everything tactfully – and thus what you cannot turn to good, you may at least make as little bad as possible. For it is impossible to make everything good unless all men are good, and that I don’t expect to see for quite a few years yet.’…”
Book II then amounts, basically, to a description of Hythloday’s imaginary “ideal” state called ‘Utopia’. The text is ambiguous because we are not told who is right and wrong: Hythloday or Morus. Most scholars see it as a veiled social critique of the inequities of Tudor English society, as well as a warning that while one should ‘imagine’ a better world you need to also beware of an abstract commitment to ideas, no matter how good they might seem in theory, devoid of pragmatic considerations. Hence the irony in the book and the humour. It undercuts the books message and makes it highly ambiguous.
The essence of Utopia can be understood through More’s analogy to the stage-play: Is it better to work within the “stage-play” that is the state, playing your part, and doing more good or is it better to reject the play (the present corrupt social order) entirely, root and branch? Hythloday argues in the text that ‘compromise’ and ‘playing’ your social role only leads to the corruption of the true philosopher: “while I try to cure others of madness, I’ll be raving along with them myself.” “There is no place for philosophy in the councils of kings” (More, 32-35). Morus rebuts with measured pragmatism, advocating for “another philosophy… that takes its cue, adapts itself to the drama at hand, and acts its part neatly and appropriately” (Baker-Smith, 126; More, 35-36). Despite the limitations of current institutions, Morus says we must aim to “make as little bad as possible” (More, 36)
Not good, I know.