Mythology

The other day I was reading a column about a corrupt politician who kept get reelected in spite of his obvious defects, like being a corrupt SOB. The writer surmised that this was because of the dream he was selling. He was telling a story to the people, and the people liked the story so much they voted for him, regardless of what he was doing. The writer was appalled that people would continue to vote for this guy. He went on in this vein for a while.

I read this and it was a like light clicked on in my head. It explains so much about politics! You could summarize George W. Bush's dream as "Truth, Justice and the American Way!", kind of like superman. Some people summarize Barrack O'Bama's dream as rainbows and unicorns for everybody! Doesn't really matter what the dream was, they sold it, and the American people bought it.

It seems like once the election is over, the dream selling gets pushed to the back burner, and the nit-picking begins. It doesn't really matter whether the nit is a $5 fruitcake or a trillion dollar national budget item, people will use anything to try and tear down their opponents.

Near as I can tell, the whole point of nit-picking is to incite moral outrage in people, who will then commence hollering for the victim's head.

All of this is just mass-market politics and has virtually nothing to do with whatever deals are actually being hammered out behind closed doors.

Most people try to be good people, they try and do the right thing. There is a small percentage who are only looking out for themselves. This ratio is pervasive, no matter what line of work you are in, be it ditch digger or Senator.

Let's skip the out-and-out bad apples. There are always a few in the mix. You might ferret them out, or they might trip you up, but that's life.

The bigger problems come when people try to agree on what is right. It can't be done. The closer you get to an agreement, the bigger the obstacles. Things that are of no importance when you are opposite sides of an argument become mountains when you get close to agreeing.  This is were mythology comes in.

When I was a kid, it didn't seem to matter what you believed. You could believe whatever you wanted and the world went on about it's business paying you no-never-mind. To a certain extent that is still true, though now you can almost always find someone to argue with about just about anything.

Figuring out what you really believe can be a bit difficult. I see pictures of children starving in Africa, and I want to do something to help, but I am pretty sure just giving money to some charity is not going to really change anything. I hear about a horrendous crime and I want the perpetrator ground between two stones, but I realize that the justice system is error prone, and capital punishment trials cost more than life in prison, so I try to dismiss it from my mind with the vague hope that whoever the actual criminal is will get their comeuppance.

When I was in high school, I had a teacher, Mr. Cree if I recall correctly, who told us we should read and study the current issues and base our votes on facts, and not just blindly vote for whoever our friends or families or the TV told us to vote for. At the time, that seemed like good advice, but over time I have come to be skeptical of this approach. Issues have gotten so complicated, and there is so much information available, that it can easily become a full time job trying to sort out just one little issue, never mind the dozens that we are faced with everyday.

So that's where belief and mythology come in. You listen to the stories, and whoever has a story that sits better with your inner belief system will get your vote. Not that it really matters, because the political machinery is so entrenched that nothing is really going to change.