Politik

You know, I've never been anything more than suspiciously and reservedly lukewarm toward any politician I favored, though I can't even count the number of political figures who have made my stomach turn. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way, and based on conversations with my fellow citizens, I can fairly confidently project this trend onto much of the nation at large.

Lately, I've been wondering why this is - why we so easily develop an active distaste for a public officer with whose opinions we disagree, but can't bring ourselves to 'like' those with whom we agree. Granted, being only twenty years old, I've been around for a relatively short amount of time in terms of the s0-called political scene...though if you're ready to take that aim, I'll have you recall that the U.S. is itself an infant in the world of global polity. Think about it for a second. Think back to most any political conversation or debate you've heard - be it between professionals or buddies - in as long a period as you can remember: were the talking heads discussing how great their favored individual was, or were they rather bashing the other guy? I'll bet you a dollar against a doughnut that it was the latter of the two. But let's assume someone was in fact speaking solely in favor of their pick. Now, I ask you: were they truly discussing the person in terms of positive qualities, agreements with particular views, and capacity to do good, or were they just doing the sort of 'shameless plugging' that you hear on FOX or CNN (depending on whether you prefer Republicans or Democrats, respectively), notoriously arguing not for the candidate, but for Person A relative to the supposedly inferior Person B?

You can take my perspective or leave it, but I still urge you to ask yourselves this: based on this last presidential election (since it's still pretty fresh in everyone's memories), when you voted for McCain or Obama, did you do this because you truly liked your candidate, or because he was "better than the other guy?"

And make no mistake - there is a very big difference between liking and trusting the candidate and liking a handful things he or she represents or stands for. By this, I refer to a number of voters who throw all favor toward a candidate because of, say, his or her views on abortion or stem cell research. These are big issues, undoubtedly, but not the only ones by any stretch of the imagination (and given the state of the economy, I can't fathom why these sorts of issues would trump something like a candidate's stand on fiscal policy). How many of you voted for McCain because of his and the Republican party's outspoken favor of Christianity? How many against him because of this? How many of you voted for Obama because you felt that the rights of homosexuals would be better supported? How many against him because of this? Put bluntly, how many of you voted the way you did because of one single, solitary factor? The trouble in voting for a single thing your guy stands for is that upholding that thing may not be much of a priority to that person at all. I'll bet for most among us, economic policy and foreign relations - things that can and do affect every single, last one of us - were afterthoughts. Why? Because we are self-centered. Particularly Americans. In the words of John Lennon, "I, me, mine."

It may not be too difficult to see where I'm going with this, but in case it's been altogether ambiguous for those with whom I'm acquainted, I'll lay it out. This two-party system of government is absolute, utter horse shit, and needs to be done away with. It's divisive, old, tried, broken, and corrupt. I and anyone else could spend days on end expounding the differences between modern Republicans and Democrats, but in the end, it all boils down to the same scenario: a complete misunderstanding of principles and the necessary perversion of them that ensues. You go ask anyone favoring either party to tell you why, get a clear, intelligible answer free of B.S. party jargon, and I'll show you a purple, 30-foot leprechaun. Both political entities have their heads so far up their own and each other's asses that they can no longer make intelligent decisions - they're bound by their own dogmas (which, sadly, has largely degenerated to the incredibly immature position of merely opposing what the other group says or does). We need a third party, and I'm hoping against hope that come 2012, we'll have ourselves one.

I suppose all this criticism may lead one to ask just where I stand on these issues. I adamantly refuse to associate myself with a 'party,' but I tend to side with the Democrats a large portion of the time. Why? For one, they aren't quite as arrogant and blatantly rude as Republicans, by and large. For another, I'm nonreligious, and entirely too many policies typical of Republicans revolves around the very specific Christian faith. Here comes the tricky part: ideally...ideally, in a world where right was right, fair was fair, and systems could exist free of big-wig swindlers, I would most certainly side with Republicans and favor a laissez-faire economy. The free market is an excellent tool for managing an economy. Until it crashes. Why does it crash? Any number of reasons, to be sure...but these days, we've got too many snakes in the grass. Too many political heavyweights with their claws in the market. To any who might claim that allowing for the government to 'officially' control the market would be a bad thing - I have a two-part response: 1) for the most part, I agree...BUT 2) wake up and smell the coffee - this has been the case for a good while now. The market isn't free, and it hasn't been for a very long time - it never will be again. For this reason, I support market regulation. Not straight "socialism," mind you (and my, how fond the more ignorant among us have become of throwing that word around), but something closer to a social democracy, a la modern European states. If we assign the government a clear and distinct role in our economy, it will be much, much easier to hold them accountable for it (as opposed to the current situation, where we all know it's going on and attempt to push it out of mind to simply makes us feel better about the whole thing). It's working out pretty well for Europe. And if you think our quality of living here trumps theirs outright, think again. The U.S. media machine would have us think modern Europeans live in envy of us - they don't. And at the end of the day, despite the higher tax rates, most working-class Europeans wind up with more cash-in-hand than most working-class Americans. All this on top of things such as free healthcare and extremely affordable higher education. Don't believe me? Look it up, though I'm sure, as previously mentioned, that this isn't altogether unfamiliar.

The U.S. is all about progression and hurdling toward the future, is it not? Well, guys, the world has been moving on without us for a number of years now. Industrialization was a necessary step for progressing into modernity, but things are different now, and there's little sense in clinging to old guns. Changing times and changing circumstances call for changed policies, and I think it's about time we moved on.

Signs of the Times...

I wonder fairly often what future anthropologists will have to say about our current time period. There area always certain aspects of an era which seem to solidify it and, in many ways, define it. Examples may vary (greatly) with one's own personal tastes - e.g. one with a musical bend may remember the 1960's in the U.S. for the British Invasion just as easily as one with political interests may think of the ongoing Civil Rights movement - but things generally tend to run together, or at the very least may swirl around the recognition of a similar general sentiment. The development of civilizations, overthrows of leaders, technological revolutions, the words of great thinkers, wars, and collapses of societies all bring to mind what a particular time period means to us, and what we can learn from it. What will they take away from us?

I suppose one might dismiss this curiosity, and perhaps rightfully so. My generation will likely be old and over with by the time any solid conclusions are drawn. My point, however, is that it may be difficult to point to any one thing, or even any group of things, that can be said to define this era. The "war" in the middle east will probably come to be widely recognized as the faux-witch-hunt exercise in futility that it really is. Politically, the U.S. is divided as if with a scalpel, though people are deviating from the extremes...perhaps we'll see the re-emergence of a formidable third party. The political systems of many states have had power shifts occurring faster than the citizens could learn the new leader's name. Pop culture has spiraled out of any sort of control, becoming one gigantic cluster-fuck of increasingly banal modes of entertainment (the same can largely be said for music, though it's seen something of an upswing in the past several years). In the words of Bruce Springsteen, "Fifty-seven channels and nothing on." Where's the cream filling? The goddamned substance? (And speaking of substance, there aren't too many of what one might be inclined to call "thinkers" expounding any particularly substantial ideas at the moment.) All in all, cultures around the world are losing their sense of identity and meaning. American culture seems to have this loss built into its very system, with its "melting pot" emphasis. Maybe this is a good thing, even to a great extent, but the expansion of the global economy and the supposed global community has made us as human beings, regardless of nationality, feel far more alone than adjoined. And I think it goes without saying that the internet isn't helping any of this.

Technology comes to mind, and will be the likely answer, though (to be a bit of a cynic) perhaps not in an entirely positive sense. With every technological advance comes the unspoken fear that we're coming only that much closer to being able to "play God." No one except iron-willed naturalists will put up much of a fight against, say, nanotechnology and advanced experimental procedures in curing and treating illnesses, but there are other areas of research which seem to incite the wrong kind of curiosity. As I understand it, the biggie here is genetic manipulation (e.g. cloning). There are certain moral dilemmas we find ourselves faced with: though I doubt many would picket a lab growing cloned tissue for a skin transplant, we've got serious ethical snags with replicating an entire human being. From the spiritual (does it have a soul?) to the secular (is it a person?), tough questions clutter the entire issue of cloning. Even cut-and-dry genetic manipulation causes a good deal of furrowed brows here and there - what sort of implications does it have that we might be in a position to select the genetic features of our children? I, for one, am largely indifferent as to what any mad scientist type breeds and cage-fights in his laboratory. He/she(/it?) can have at it, and even sell tickets if he/she(/it?) wants to. But even a more or less live-and-let-live sort such as myself can take issue with the last example: when and if we begin crafting super-humans, cherry-picking the wants and don't-wants toward ideal human beings, will not the very "humanity" vanish from us? What meaning will "human being" then take on? If our entire species becomes an enormous laboratory experiment, we flirt with violently upsetting the evolutionary forces that brought us here, kicking and screaming, from shape to shape, trait to trait, for millions of years. I'm not suggesting that we would not weigh these consequences (some certainly more carefully than others), but expressing my doubt that we would, in the heat of our excitement and self-importance, take them quite seriously enough. What do you think? Are we too far along, too smart, too highly-evolved to bury ourselves with such an obvious blunder?

Just look at how much of the planet we've managed to cover in our trash in a mere century.

The Obligatory Introduction

I have no doubt that the vast majority (if not the entirety) of those who happen across this site will be fairly good friends of mine answering an invitation to peruse my ideas and interject their own.  Whether this is done begrudgingly or enthusiastically is not my concern...that I leave entirely up to you, my guest.  The lack of interest this site will likely receive is something of a concern, though perhaps not quite what one might expect: I've come to note the convenience of keeping an online journal as opposed to a pen-and-paper scenario (resources and such, though my love of the written word is truly in no danger), but am peeved by the idea of advertising my most intimate of ideas onto other media such as Myspace or Facebook.  I hate to sound like a snob - let's face it, I sort of am - but the sort of attention I'd be getting there is not the sort I'd want; moreover, posting "private" entries is just kind of silly and fan-clubish.  In summation, what I write here is fair game.  If you happen to stumble across this corner of the internet, you are free to judge me and my words.

What will be posted onto this site is anyone's guess.  Though one may be inclined to suspect that it will all be dry and serious, I assure you that I have a sense of humor, and that it is regularly exercised.  I will likely post many things related to philosophies and philosophers because I find them interesting, though this will most definitely not comprise the whole of what I'm likely to throw out there.  I've also got quite the investment in the realms of music, so I'll probably throw that sort of thing out there often.  Hell, there aren't many things I don't get some degree of a kick out of.  I suppose this will assume more structure as it develops.

Cheers.