Q: (Initially posted on 11/18/02) FROM MENTEE ALEXIS K. IN VA
I wrote about Pfeisteria and politics and got really great answers. Now I
have a question about a part of an answer. Joan Lusk said "Politics has to
do with the division of responsibilities, rights, wealth and power." I have
not thought about what exactly politics means and I like the definition.
Are there other things beside responsibility, rights, wealth and power that
politics cover?

P.S. I had never seen negative political ads on TV until recently ( I lived
overseas). AWFUL STUFF

November 20, 2002
A: FROM MENTOR JOAN LUSK IN RI
I seem to have listed "responsibilities, rights, wealth and power" in
reverse order of real political importance! "Polis" was the Greek
word for a city-state like Athens or Sparta, and the word politics
derives from that. Aristotle defined man as a political animal. He
wrote a book entitled "Politics" - it and modern commentary are on
the web http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.1.one.html
Like so many definitions of what "man" is, this one fails to separate
us from the animals. Animals, at least social animals that live in
groups, establish hierarchies. There's always an alpha dog or lion,
one that gets first crack at the fresh kill and the most mates and
gets groomed by the others - the most power, wealth and rights if you
will. And responsibilities: to defend the group, for example.

Can most of what's important to us (or to dogs and lions) be covered
by those terms? Wealth and power (in males, anyway) lead to more
access to more mates, so from the strictly biological point of view
(that our deepest purpose is reproduction) politics is involved.
Money may not buy you love, but lack of it can make a person quite
unattractive. It's just in our nature to be political because power
and wealth determine whether we can get whatever we want out of life.
Science should be pure - pure logic, honest results - but we have to
be wary of our political, self-interested selves warping our logic
and blinding us to the data
.
One could argue that for women wealth and power aren't nearly so
effective in getting mates. Exceptions would be heiresses, wooed by
money-seeking suitors; but women who have earned their wealth and
power don't attract men the way rich and powerful men attract women.
If this is true, perhaps there's a good biological explanation for
the fact that comparatively few women go into national politics -
power doesn't help them pass along their genes. Or, of course, we
could be turned off by all those negative ads.

The people who pay for the negative ads sometimes do so simply
because they believe that a low turnout will favor their side. The
details or the truth of the negative content aren't important if the
ads can keep people away from the polls. It's a good idea to hold
your nose and vote anyway. In other words, whatever the content of
the ad, the real purpose may just be to keep you from expressing your
choice, and you should look beyond that. Given that all politicians
are human and all humans are flawed, there are no unflawed
politicians (a nice Aristotelian syllogism, that!) We will always
have to decide among the imperfect candidates because no others are
possible.

Hope you don't mind my running on like this!