If you haven’t already concluded it from my writings, I am predisposed to see things as being connected. Not too long ago I believe I identified one of those connecting threads in my own thoughts and writing.
I do not think that politics is a science or engineering. I am strongly opposed to technocracy which on its face is that belief. I think that politics, like sales with which politics has much in common, is an art of relationships. In my view that, indeed, is where our politics is weakest today. The relationships aren’t healthy and that makes the politics unhealthy.
I would broaden your statement out even further, by postulating that all of humanity is dependent on the health of it’s inter/intra relationships with each other.
I think you are only half correct here. Relationships matter, but only for those on your own team. It is no longer possible to have a relationship with players on the other side, and not get kicked off of your own team. If you want to succeed in politics now, you must (with a few exceptions) choose a side and go all in for whatever that team believes.
Steve
From my standpoint that’s the quintessential problem with our system. You’ve got to take an extreme position in order to raise the money necessary to run. That results in the “team” situation you’re talking about.
The media doesn’t help. Maverick Republican (somebody who occasionally stands against his fellow partisans, e.g. McCain) is lionized by the press, at least temporarily. Maverick Democrat (somebody who occasionally stands against his fellow partisans, e.g. Lieberman) is pilloried.
Sometimes when I’m writing a story I lose the thread and do what I call “voguing.” Characters strike poses and huff and puff a lot because the author is trying to figure out the plot. (Later I go back and fix that, an option not available in the real world.)
I think we’ve lost the plot. The American story isn’t going anywhere. We were a story about expanding frontiers – no longer. And we were a story about this unique outpost of liberty in an oppressed world — well, we are no longer uniquely free. We caught a break with WW2 and the Cold War because we squeezed a few extra chapters out of being the Savior of Humanity. But we are fresh out of Nazis and Commies and I’m sorry, but the Islamists just don’t measure up.
We still insist on our own special wonderfulness, but the evidence undercuts that narrative. And the only frontiers we have – scientific advance, space exploration – are limited to a very few extraordinary individuals. Bluntly, there’s nowhere for us to go. The quest is over. We are there.
People have to work together to accomplish something, to achieve some goal. The goals we have now are essentially accounting: deficits, tax rates, gaps between rich and poor. Percentages. You can’t make a story out of percentages. All you can get from percentages is squabbling, which is what we have.