And what is panarchy ? Oh wait. Panarchy is voluntariysm…and voluntaryism is panarchy.
This is not distinct enough. What do you mean by politics? This has been brought up in the past but I’ve never seen you answer this question.
Thinking-man/woman do politics. Politics are not void of thoughts.
I’m sure you are familiar with the two terms but…
The game of power. The game of public policy and the manipulation of public opinion to gain consent for any given policy.
Politics doesn’t seem to me to be totally devoid of thought but it’s mostly mass manipulation. Many people are stupid. Easy to fool. This is the piece of the puzzle that tells me why things happen the way they do. Mainly because there are a few smart people and the rest are sheep and they get led around by the nose by whomever can offer them the best whatever. Ultimately, even the smart people can be manipulated, they have desires like everyone else. And if they won’t take the carrot, they inevitably get the stick.
I don’t think you give humans in general enough credit. Of course not everyone is a super-genius, nor does everyone care about learning economics thoroughly. But if someone can be told why a given policy or system won’t work, they’re liable to remember that.
I also think understanding ‘culture’ is a good reminder too. Culture can become a subconscious ritual. Culture being the beliefs, values, and norms of a society can become habitual. Creativity, inventiveness, etc… these are what maintain cultures from dying out as they do become habitualized.
So for instance, how many people consciously recognize what property rights even mean? I know my mother has no idea, but when I was younger she would remind me to not go in the neighbors yard. The culture in general is one embedded with recognition of property rights and it’s not being role-modeled by the government but by most people partaking in the civil society and free market each day and night.
This is perhaps the biggest reason why the free market and civil society is very stable even under the conditions of a destructive and powerful government. People have habits, they have norms, they value and believe in certain things. They have been for a long time and their grandparents role-model to them, at times, more than people recognize. Parents raise their sons and daughters and teach old ways. People wake up in the morning and go to work reflexively for the most part. Civil society, the culture thereof, is very, very difficult to change.
Culture is important, no doubt about it. And I don’t disagree that some people can be convinced about the immorality or ineffectiveness of any given policy. But if enough people think they have something to gain (and in times of crisis, this becomes much easier to abuse) they’ll throw philosophical and economic explanations to the wind and take an entirely short term self interested approach in considering policies.
Just look at the healthcare takeover. Where is the philosophical and economic curiosity? I don’t see it. I just see a bunch of people struggling to get something for free. And they’re going to get it.
Politics is undeniably an important piece of the puzzle in explaining human behavior. Both at an individual level and also at a group level. What we’re seeing right now is a bunch of left wing ideologues pulling the country down the big state road with a big state carrot. At least that’s what I’m seeing.
This applies to more than just the citizens who want “free” healthcare. By the way, they aren’t going to get it, they’re going to get more expensive healthcare, but it won’t be at point of access, so they won’t care. But anyway, this also applies to many parties involved in the debate, including the insurance companies and pharm companies. Even NPR yesterday was feigning outrage over the number of Congressional aides who worked on this bill and have now applied to be lobbyists for pharm companies.
How can one “love politics?” Are you saying that you love political science? Or do you mean that you love politics in an idealistic sense, as a form found only in Plato’s heaven? Politics is not real–you’re confusing politics with rent-seeking behavior by various special interests.
Politics doesn’t cause anything. I need your definition of politics before I can understand what you’re saying.
propaganda is a key/piece of the puzzle of politics. The Big Lie is significant to understand. This is also why it is conceptualized that: ‘People wake up to what is happening’. Have you heard it put this way?
What are they waking up too? truth. What have they woken up from? the Big Lie.
A lot of this bombards the youth and has increasingly been for generations. It’s one thing that the general education level increases because of scientific endeavors, for example; but it’s another thing that the culture increasingly becomes stagnant and the cognitive dissonance between civil society/marketplace and what most people are taught whether in public schools, TV, radio, or whatever medium they use to generally educate themselves. That congitive dissonance is increasing. The divide is growing. So what usually happens is one day comes along and the young need to find a job. The job market/workplace is the long-standing culture that has been around for a long time. The transition to the workplace has increasingly become difficult. It’s nearly two worlds of a difference between what is taught in public schools and what is actually happening in society, meaning, what the youth learn is increasingly useless to what the culture demands. Also the youth are bombarded with animalistic stimuli. How many times have you turned on the TV or radio and said to yourself - this is stupid?
Man, all the time. I can’t even usually watch TV anymore without getting a headache.
I’m sure some people love TV though.
And yes, I think some people spend a lot of time looking for “the truth.” I feel like I do. But I know there are probably people who couldn’t care less and are willing to accept the “Big Lie” as long as it seems to be in their interest to.
When times are good again, people will be more open to the libertarian/conservative argument. Right now, they want someone to protect them from failure. It’s just a matter of time though before they have money in their pockets again and want to keep it. However, I think the more marginal the argument is, the more marginal the followers will be. So I try to keep my pitch as centrist as I can so I don’t sound like too much of a right wing extremist. Sadly, I think that at this point in time, I’m still pretty marginal.
By the way, I’m still trying to think of how I want to define politics.
you should contrast it with the economics means, thus you will gain insight into the political means
I can’t say the problem is TV in and of itself. The problem is the source of information. The problem is what kind of skills are being taught to the youth. Why is there this cognitive/skill dissonance? Before the advent of public schooling there was a more direct educational process between the youth and the marketplace. Master-apprenticeship or the father was a farmer or shop owner and now so is the child, etc… And it wasn’t unusal for a child to learn a different trade by somebody else in the community. There was a direct link but now there is increased gap.
Undoubtedly, but also there are a lot of people that feel that something is wrong. It’s that energy of ‘wrongness’ that is being tapped into by the political establishment. right? They portray themselves as having all the answers to life’s problems, correct?
The loudest bullhorn is government propaganda. It’s also libido propogranda. It’s the propaganda that only feeds into the ‘dumber aspects of humanity’ that is available for the most part. I mean I think the farmer teaching his son is way more intelligient of a process than what is being delivered upon the mediums of information now a days. I think it’s been dumbed that far, which is not to say farming is dumb in it’s fruits. I would actually love to be a farmer and am currently pursuing that route amongst other things. But think about this. Math was done in ones head was I was younger and now calculators are being used in elementary school. I mean at least the basics of math, I think, should be understood correctly in ones own thinking first and then calculators could be introduced as the math gets difficult. But for a child to not understand and be able to exercise the basics of math gives them no foundation on how to do math in the first place.
This isn’t a current but generational problem. Not you specifically nor me. But what I said above I think gets closer to a root of the problem.
Economics involves trade, politics is mainly done through mass manipulation and the implied use of force.
I don’t know enough about the transition from apprenticeship type learning to standardized public learning to be able to say how things changed and why but I understand that the source of the information is certainly important.
Probably. But they don’t all think the problem is too much government, not enough freedom like you do. A lot of people seem to think the problem is not enough government, too much freedom, not enough welfare.
True, but some people feed into it and others do not. The ultimate question is: will we ever outnumber the people who feed into the government propaganda?
Even if you educate people, they’re still going to get desperate when times are bad. It would take a hell of a lot of discipline to not get desperate. I don’t blame them, I’d probably want the same things if I didn’t have money. I just know they’re pushing for an unsustainable system.
I think the most important thing to realize is that no matter which way you draw it up, it is always individuals or some group that has to produce in order to keep people alive. No matter what, those who produce have the ultimate power over life and death.
Can you benifit from not producing anything to the market on your own and just live off the producers? Hell yes you can, it would be awsome. It seems natural to want to be an aristocrat or have some magical Jinn granting your wishes. But in the end, you are always at the mercy of those who produce. No matter what, there will always be some form of a “Capitalist” type class that is responsible for humans being able to survive.
So this is what you love? Coercion?
I find it fascinating, yes. Because it’s one of the ways humans get things done. I can’t ignore that part of human nature just because I might find it unsavory.
Politics is a form of warfare, it involves strategy, deception, planning. And I find those things fascinating. I trained Jiu Jitsu for years and I see parallels between how a submission gets executed and how a policy gets passed.
Atlas hasn’t shrugged yet.