Most people I've known anywhere in the world have had little time for politics. The basic reason given is that politicians feather their own nests. Fear and ingroup hatreds often lead to tribal or sectarian voting. Perhaps, underneath this, is that many just want to get on with their own lives - something most people see as harmless. Most people also feel their efforts would be useless a kind of impotence seems involved. I have never found it possible to vote for changes I really want, though I usually turn out at the ballot. Whips were originally slaves used to whip in recalcitrant citizens - a double shame of not carrying out civic duties and the mark of the slave's lash was involved. Before the Iraq war I protested on the streets, but could not find anyone to vote for who would definitely have kept us out of the war, though the Liberals, who I did vote for, remained against it in opposition. Our own MP should be deselected on the basis of his lack of help and nastiness over neighbour problems that were very severe, but in fact it's difficult to get heard anywhere. If we can believe global warming and related issues (to some extent we still cannot), the planet could only host 1.5 billion US-style consumers or 15 billion Rwandan ones. War is still everywhere (obviously subject to limits). Criminality, bent professions and dismal business practices all lead to a lack of personal security unless one conforms by exploiting one's intelligence or 'birth- rights'. The press remains largely self-interested and poodle. Education is increasingly about being successful gaining qualifications for business as usual. Even to protest can be simply to join another set of businesses doing little other than support lead protesters in that 'success' or to assuage conscience. My guess is that war escalation is not far away. Over the years, I've read most of the material on social change, pathologies in capitalism and the Sino-Soviet experiments, the great myths of democratic, liberal capitalism and a whole wad of quasi- philosophical organisation theories and social psychology - all of which seem doomed to failure as one reads them - they rest on an impossible dream of an educated, rational 'voting force' that can put its own interests aside under some form of a 'cloak of objectivity' (a term from Rawls). Many stress 'leadership', yet we know power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I have been filled with Bildung from literature, myth and science, yet feel this is merely a burden in a moral climate that (unlike the planet) has remained frozen - not least because the Bildung itself is a path to 'success' as an erudite critic. It's almost like market segmentation, a matter of finding that section of the market in which one's views are saleable. I want a situation in which politics and government are largely unnecessary, yet I also want responsible population control and lives that are more about being than having, protection from bandits and anti-social scum, genuine representation for my interests and those of others on an individual basis so that big power, wealth and so on are on an equal footing - clearly, if I'm honest, I'm still interested in control. The planet probably sits back knowing (Lovelock) it can survive humanity and I can probably 'survive to death' in reasonable comfort until it's all over (fatalism). What's on offer is hardly a hill of beans. My own take on this situation is that the control and impotence are set in evolution, much in the way a wolf pack organises. What we have is forced on us to maintain a libidinal economy in which a few exploit the excess. There is merely a nagging glimmer of what else might be. Our politicians are mostly just cunning idiots and our media much the same. There is little we can do, unless we can work out why thinking of doing makes us scared, perhaps so scared we avoid standing up.
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