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Many people love to discuss politics, debate politics, watch politics. If you are in this forum reading this and other "politically oriented" threads, then you like me are interested in these types of discussions. But what if someone were to ask you, "What is politics? What makes something political?"

How would you answer? Really think about it.

I want to hear YOUR answers, not a blogger, dictionary, or wikipedia (there is no wrong answer).

The art of trying to live with your fellow man.

No wonder it is ugly, for as Sarte observed, hell is other people.

Politics is selling out while denying its happening

Politics is interacting with other people in order to sway opinion.

Politics as I know it today is a group of the so called elite piloting the masses for there own ends.

When we discuss political matters I believe our opinion is as relevent to the politicans as a 4 year old making remarks to its school teacher. They pay us lip service when its election time, then return to there own devices, what we think bares no relevence to the Government.

As more and more power moves towards Washington more and more 'common people' take roles in State politics, ie: Mayor etc, however what these people can achieve is almost irrelevant.

With saying all that I still look with envious eyes at your system compared to ours.

I think that the idea of what politics is has changed with time. In 1789, politics was about trying to create structure to an experiment called America. Today is seems to be about trying to secure wealth and power. The idea of politics has become more of a profession rather than what I feel it was intended to be, a service to your fellow man and country. Today politics has become a rich man's arena and those without such means are simply left to scream in impotent rage.

Politics will be the down fall of America.

Onree wrote:I think that the idea of what politics is has changed with time. In 1789, politics was about trying to create structure to an experiment called America. Today is seems to be about trying to secure wealth and power. The idea of politics has become more of a profession rather than what I feel it was intended to be, a service to your fellow man and country. Today politics has become a rich man's arena and those without such means are simply left to scream in impotent rage.

Politics will be the down fall of America.

Not to many 'poor' folks were in your first congress , not many folks other than English either

You are spot on though with the change from service to personal gain. If the likes of John Adams could see what has become of the republic ..............

I think it is rather easier to mythologize times gone by. There has always been graft and abuse of power. The same generation that founded this country also enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts, less than a decade after 1789. So let's stick to real history.

nicolas wrote:Not to many 'poor' folks were in your first congress , not many folks other than English either

You are spot on though with the change from service to personal gain. If the likes of John Adams could see what has become of the republic ..............

Without living in the times, the founding of this county seems to me a place and time when the common man (read less than rich, much less fantastically rich) still held some power and could be influential when it came to politics.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for people being fantastically rich. Its those that are fantastically rich and are still lusting for more money and power that have dicked up this thing called politics.

You know when I've been asked the same question by different professors, it seemed that no matter what answer I or someone else would provide, we would be told that we were wrong. "You don't understand politics," one professor once told me in his office. I wanted to stand up and tell him he was an arrogant dick. Because in the few years I've been studying it, and the countless studies I've read, I have yet to come to a clear and concise answer as to what POLITICS really is or what it means to be political?

Perhaps the greatest explanation I have clung to thus far has been that "Politics is who gets what: how and when." But in all reality, that still doesn't do it for me and is so broad in itself.

My argument? One cannot define politics in summum bonum. For if you sought to do so, you would have to define what politics is not just for you, but what it is for me, and every other person out there. What politics is to one person, is something else entirely to another. And that is the mix. In my opinion, to know what politics truly is, is to listen to everyone tell you what it is. And when you have heard a thousand explanations from a thousand individuals, you will still not know what Politics is, for there are thousands of more expanations.

So to me, politics is more than just an idea or concept. It is a universe of ideologies, opinions, facts, fallacies, beliefs, disbeliefs, and other words that my mind is too ignorant to conceive and far too numerous to count. But reading all of these responses, helps me understand it just a little more.

IMO, I think the only way to define it is in the broadest terms possible.

And thus....politics is people trying to sway others view on a subject.....or gain some kind of consensus on a subject.

ie....if we amongst ourselves were deciding on a new rule or new leader of this forum, and we talked about it....we would be partaking in politics.

If we were an ancient band of hunter gatherers and the leaders of the tribe gathered together to make a decision as to where the tribe was going to make camp, we would be partaking in politics.

If we were a group of 10 people sitting around a conference table at work discussing a subject for our company, we would be partaking in politics.

ie....politics is not graphs and figures and who will be President, and who is winning in which poll....that is just our version of government politics....but politics at its core is just people coming together to make a decision or to sway others to come to their decision.

Am I making sense?

For the answer to "What is politics" read Plunkitt of Tammany Hall: A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics by William L. Riordan. free at http://www.hoosiernation.us/plunkitt/

Also available in paperback from Amazon.com

NonConformist wrote:Politics is selling out while denying its happening

I thought that was the definition of Mitt Romney and his supporters....

Politics is selling out for as much as you can get while claiming that you're standing firm, that everyone else is obstructing you because they are selling out, and that you are giving the voters all sorts of benefits that they will never have to pay for.

Since every politician I know of fits this model, even those whose rabid supporters claim they are pure of heart and soul (you know who you are) I suggest we stop assuming they are perfect, voting them in, and then ignoring what they do for the rest of their term. If you want results from ANY OF THEM you have to keep the pressure on.