Politics taken more seriously
# 4027
Politics is the discussion of how a society is governed. It implies the need to deal with all relevant factors. Our problem is we have governance discussions only about the parts that seem relevant to our own wealth and well-being, our competitive advantage.
How often do we hear that phrase: competitive advantage, with little awareness that competition implies winners and losers. Losers hurt and can turn destructive.
Can We develop a discussion of governance for climate change? As things fall apart we face a world of fragmenting social pieces and we are not thinking about what approach to governance might be necessary where billions are actively starving, factories, going, unheated or uncooled, hungry children roam the streets, banks are a thing of the past, and only fragments of the Internet function. There is no oil to run transportation nor to generate the electricity to run EVs. New government structures will emerge, but some forethought might be helpful to prevent the emergence of a mafia-like world. Take a graspable issue, aviation fuel is no longer available, but perhaps 10 million people have flown to other places in the world far from their homes for vacation, work, school, and family visits. What do we do with them?
People will draw from the past, add in present conditions, and try to act. Democracy, nation-state, AI, city councils, flea markets. The menu is extensive, but we seem to act as though the future will be like the present, except for a few things. Unlikely. There will be tension between trying to milk the fragments, and following approaches that try to make something wholesome of the whole system.
But almost all conversations and projects dealing with climate change discuss technology mostly, and finance to some extent. Politics is mostly an afterthought but perhaps should be the most important .
(Aristotle's Politics puts it simply. Families have interests, and combinations of families he calls polis have divergent interests. Hence strife.)
Doug, at the end of your post you share Aristotle's view of a polis that I can read as in a polis there is strife because families will disagree. When we have a conversation we have a way to share and examine our disagreements. Susan Sontag, in a letter to the New Yorker after 9/11, writes: "Politics, the politics of a democracy - which entails disagreement, which promotes candor ...."
Vassar, do you think the natural law of generations is in the same category as the laws of thermodynamics? I think these are different, however, I want to understand your points.
Vassar, I skimmed your long post on the natural law of generations, which provides a good thread for a conversation on what Doug asked: "Can we develop a discussion of governance for climate change?"
I have been reading more women and more younger women on issues of politics, history, and social studies. And, like you, I am heartened by the inquiries of the young folk. I am taking it as a small task to relay some of the questions I read to my elected representatives.
Doug, in his Gardenworld book, has a single line that highlights what was lost from our societies when science and rationality replaced religion, established traditiions, and magical narratives as authoritative sources of values and morals. This is a topic that Wendy Brown in a recent book, Nihilistic Times, examines in some depth. We humans are struggling to build and re-build humane societies and communities. In my opinion we need all the help we can provide each other.