Politics and the Irrational

 

Politics and the Irrational

Peter Schultz

 

                  Banning care for the transgendered illustrates how politics privileges the irrational.

 

                  Opposition to “transgendering” is one thing, while opposition to providing or allowing care the transgendered is something else altogether. The former is not irrational, however small-minded or fearful it might be. The latter is irrational because denying care to the transgendered is an attack not on the phenomenon but on particular human beings. It is like a war on drugs, which is actually a war that targets drug users, not drugs. Denying the transgendered care targets particular human beings, even though targeting such people will not and cannot eliminate transgendering. Although politically popular, It is futile, irrational action.

 

                  But such irrationality is what politics fosters. Why? Because politics is all about power and the desire to overpower, dominate others. The others are deemed “enemies” who must be defeated, crushed, or dominated. Thus, the transgendered, politically speaking, have become enemies, irrationally identified as threats to the rest of us and needing to be crushed, defeated, even eliminated. These attacks are legislated and disguised as “law enforcement” or “law and order.”

 

                  Even though so disguised, however, they are still attacks in a war on the transgendered, illustrating that however irrational, war is intrinsic to politics. War is intrinsic to politics, even when irrational. Thus, politics has transformed the transgendered into enemies of the state, reaching an apex of irrationality. So it goes in the political arena where irrationality reigns supreme.