Party Politics

  

Party Politics

Peter Schultz

 

                  Both American political parties compete by acting as if and even believing that their differences are significant, when they are not. Why this duplicity?

 

                  Because without it, the political would be revealed as delusional and our politicians, our elites would be revealed as delusional. As political animals, humans cannot, will not accept such a revelation. That is, they cannot accept that politics, all politics is delusional, is madness and that the political arena is a madhouse. To make sense of their actions, to make their actions seem sensible, duplicity is absolutely essential. In the United States this means that people must believe and act as if there are two political parties with significant political differences and that each party offers solutions to our problems.

 

                  But there are no political solutions to our problems because, at the most basic level, the problem is politics. Hence, embracing or affirming the political in any imaginable way, capitalistically, communistically, socialistically, democratically, or oligarchically, is intrinsically flawed. The best that can be done is to minimize the flaws. So, the best regime is simply the least bad or unhealthy regime, the order or arrangement with the least flaws. As an old saying has it, democracy is preferable to the alternatives only because it is less bad.

 

                  Political parties blind us to what is actually going, viz., the constant and continuing pursuit of power, by presenting themselves and their politicians as being concerned with justice or the common good. Without such duplicitous behavior, it would be impossible for people, both in and out of government, to affirm the political, to take politics seriously. So, political behavior is intrinsically duplicitous, which helps explain why the most duplicitous humans thrive in the political arena. Seriously.