What so many people never seem to realize about politics is that nobody ever wins, the objective is to lose less than everybody else. The strategy of politics is to ensure that no-one is violently unhappy with government policy. The art of politics is to successfully re-define “happiness” every electoral cycle.
The basic point (with which I wholeheartedly agree) is that "incrementalism" isn't a failure to achieve one's objective, it's how one achieves said objective. The idea isn't to vote ourselves out of this this time, it's to keep voting ourselves just that little bit closer to what we regard as the most desirable political state of being. That's what "sustainability" really is; the process of sustaining something in a viable state or condition.
2 comments:
Dammit, why did I miss this? I need to get you on the blogroll so I see this blog every day.
I haven't made the point recently, but I'm a big fan of Sun Tzu's classical strategy. I try not to get all pedantic and quotie (totally a word) about it, but the way of thinking and placing events into a consistent conceptual context very much colors my own attempts at thought.
Politics is largely stylized conflict within a fairly clearly delineated context. My predictive skills are no better than anyone else's, but I do think I gain a more consistent understanding of the political process as a result of my strategy studies.
This also causes problems upon occasion as most people don't divide consideration of a given topic between the various contexts within which people routinely consider ideas or actions (like abortion, just for instance). Classical strategy doesn't pass value judgements so much as explain and examine; determining between the various aspects of a thing is the measure of the strategist more than it is the principles of strategy themselves.
Be grateful I don't do this as a podcast you could listen to while driving.
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