Is this why I have trouble with politics?

In My Humble Opinion
1

From Czarcasm’s thread about who lives and who dies, it appears the majority (14 out of 16 as of the time of this post) of people pick the fewer number to live because they have a personal investment in the fewer number.

Is this the same logic that politicians use when they make some of their way-out policies? (Eg. Blue laws, Dumb Laws)

If I were to apply the question, “who does the politician know”, would more of what’s happening in the political area become understandable?

Would this help explain why holocausts and genocides happen? They aren’t my friends, they are just <insert type you aren’t here>. My friends will have more if <insert type you aren’t here> weren’t around.

2

I’ve known a few politicians – indeed, I count a few as personal friends. I don’t think that it’s particularly who the politicians know and identify with: I think it’s more what the voters want, because of who the voters identify with. This may have much the same effect, but it’s an important distinction.

For example, with “blue laws”, politicians can’t and won’t impose such just because of their personal preferences. It’s because a significant number of the electors demand them, and opposition is less strong or less organised. If it were just the politicians’ wishes, they wouldn’t last all that long, because people inconvenienced by the blue laws would organise against them.

Similarly, with wars and genocides, the politics is affected by the voters being more worried about their own welfare than the welfare of the “enemy”: it’s not just the politicians’ wishes here.

3

So in a way, democracy is trying to get the most benefit for the most people by causing an attempt to be relate with the most people. Sort of a Venn Diagram of society?

Wherever the most overlap is, that’s where the politicians want to be.

4

I think you’re jumping on this from the wrong direction. “Politicians” have lttle to do with this.

Humans are tribal animals. Everybody divides the world into Us & Them. Even you do it.

There’s been some good research (sorry, no cite) to the effect that one key difference between differeint individuals is how big their concept of Us is.

For a sociopath/psychopath, Us=him alone, Them = everybody else.

Folks who define themselves on the far conservative / Right side of politics have a strong tendency for Us to be a pretty small group. Like a couple dozen people.

Folks who define themselves on the far liberal / Left side of politics have a strong tendency for Us to be a bigger group. Like a couple thousand people.

The problem is now we all live in a world where 100,000 people is a small group and a couple billion is a big group. And we’re dense enough & interconnected enough that the classic Libertarian attitude (100% do your own thing so long as you don’t hurt the next guy) doesn’t work anymore. Almost anything you would do does hurt somebody since we’re so connected.

As long as people at large unconsciously emote their way into opinions and actions, rather than thinking them through rationally, this gross disconnect between human nature and our societal situation will cause problems.

“Politician” is the name of the job of reconciling differing opinions and goals into a single deliberate concrete action (or no-action) plan.

In an ideal world these are smart careful people aware of human frailties both individual and collective. And dedicated to doing the right thing as best they can honestly determine it.

In a bad world they’re interested mostly in telling the masses what they want to hear so they can be elected to positions of power. And once in such a position, they’ll use their own unexamined frailties and pre-judged emotional attitudes to enact whatever feels right to them. And since by definition they were elected by some manner of majority, many/most of the clueless masses in that jurisdiction will be happy to have things run according to their own similar clueless frailties and pre-judged emotional attitudes.

in public discourse, the vast majority of the seats *are *the cheap seats. So playing to those cheap seats is almost always a winning strategy.

5

Just a reply to let you know I’m thinking about what you’ve written, not ignoring it. A lot of things to think about in that post.

6

Yes – cynical, but unfortunately often true.

7

Well, it’s the semantics of the term “politics.” Politics itself just refers to the ways in which any group of people (that is, any collection of more than one person) decides to organize its own interactions. Is that what dismays you, or is it simply human nature?

8

I guess its because I was raised up believing that problems were caused by politicians and their greed.

Assimilating the fact that the politicians are just trying to solve problems that exist because of society’s tribal nature is a huge mental shift.

Another thing is, I honestly don’t know where my ‘US’ versus ‘THEM’ boundary is either. It must exist, because everything I’m finding on Coalitional Psychology is stating that this is normal.

I can easily say I would choose the benefits of humans over animals (I am not a huge supporter of animal rights).

I can say that I choose the benefits of those who obey societies’ laws over those who don’t (while in that society).

But I can’t say my society’s beliefs are “greater” than that society’s beliefs, so if I have to choose, I choose my society.

9

Leaving out the value judgment terms “politicians” and “greed,” you could say that problems are indeed caused by leaders. And of course, we (humanity) cause the leaders to be the way they are and make the choices they do.

10

That is a profoundly ignorant and cynical worldview. But it is very common in the US in the last 50-ish years. It sounds like your parents subscribed to it and you’re now reaching the age where you’re noticing that it hides and distorts at least as much as it explains.

Yes, there are politicians who’re in it just for themelves. Just as there are businessmen who’re in it just for themselves and treat laws as simply an obstacle to ignore/overcome on the way to greater personal power & profit. And there are people who view a job as something they show up to while working as litle as possible.
But the fact remains that different people will have different priorities. But somehow we all have to live together under one set of rules. Somebody has to decide who gets their way more and who gets their way less.

And many people will not understand or accept that their priorities are internally inconsistent. A particularly topical example today are the folks who want much lower total federal taxes with no cuts in defense and no cuts in social security or medicare. And less (or no) deficit spending. Those four things simply don’t add up, period, amen.

How does an honest responsible leader deal with a group which wants desperately to believe a fantasy? Especially with a group which actively resists attempts to inject real facts because their egos are threatened? Blaming the evil corruption of a few people in power is an easy way to displace the blame from themselves & their impossible desires, while preserving the fantasy that the problem *could * actually be solved.

There are certainly other examples of magical thinking on the part of the electorate on both Left & Right. The above is merely a pretty simple / obvious example for which a lot of recent evidence is readily available.