Normally, I am not drawn to the subject of politics. I used to be a 5th grade teacher and I could tell that the students in my class had political and social feelings. What to wear, who likes whom, who admires whom, who wants to stay away from whom - all subjects that mattered, actual waves of interest and force.
In grad school, I read about Robert Maynard Hutchins, once president of the University of Chicago at age of 29, quite young for such a position. He said that poliitcs is the architectonic science. The idea is similar to the expression Vox Populi, Vox Deus or 'the voice of the people is the voice of God'. The trouble for a persnickety person like me is that there is no voice of the people. Especially today, there are voices, opinions, forums for and against just about any notion or idea or thesis or directive.
I have friends who have spent their whole professional lives thinking about politics, society and history. I do not have a strong attraction to the subjects. They seem too general, too fluid and way too complex to offer valuable knowledge. We have watched "Victoria" about the English queen and "The Crown" about the current queen.
It seems to be a noble sacrifice to live as the symbol of a nation but I am very thankful it didn't fall to me to make such a sacrifice. I guess an accepted ruler, chosen by birth and descent, can give a county a long, uninterrupted regime and maybe years of coherent rule. But, I also guess that knowing you will be the ruler leads to arbitrary governance, dictatorial decision-making. I remember Lord Acton's statement that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely".
Whether it is a classroom, a college, a county or a country, it seems to me that the essence of people is contradiction. We want a new road and they don't. We want X and they hate the idea of X. But there is more: the new road costs and changes traffic patterns and has other results. Some people lose business and hate the new road, even though they supported its construction. Some people resisted, protested, organized and labored mightily against the expenditure, the raise in taxes but now benefit from the new road's existence.
My wife and I live in a small 2-person family and yet, our governing committee of just she and me often disagree. We disagree about what is safe, what is kind, what is fun and much more. It is not surprising that those living in a modern Midwestern state disagree often. Same for a nation of 340 million people. When we consider that a large group of people have different backgrounds, are differing ages, it is no wonder that the bears and pumas and moose are amazed that humans can accomplish so much together.
We are complicated and it takes us a while, maybe several decades, to see what needs to be done. Some of my extra-terrestrial friends are betting against the continued survival of my species but I am not convinced.
