Five Fingers

Reading about politics and point-of-view, made me think about a recent discussion in my communications class. We were discussing self-disclosure and the alternatives. One of these alternatives is lying. The following were the reasons presented to lie:
– To save face
– To avoid tension/conflict
– To guide social interaction
– To expand or reduce relationships
– To gain power

It occurred to me, seeing these written on the board, that this list could be at the core of a definition of the word politics–whether it be personal or governmental and no matter what the affliation. The ensuing classroom discussion provided some enlightenment as the bottom line of the class was “Yeah so? Tell us something we don’t know.” Perhaps it was just this instructor’s personal revelation of a new context (instructors learn in class too) that merely served to reinforce a pre-existing understanding.

But back to the idea of “point-of-view”….
Political discourse tends to generally fall into the use of emotive language that expresses the speakers level of approval or disapproval:
1. She’s frank and outspoken.
2. She’s a loud-mouthed know-it-all.

Our choice of words expresses our attitudes but, as the above examples illustrate, often does not offer argumentative content. The issue could be liberal vs. conservative, Red Sox vs. Yankees, or dogs vs. cats and still what will be presented is emotive language that will either focus on the methodologies of the speaker/writer or the speaker/writer themselves.

This is not debating the issues but subjective reactions driven by the emotions surrounding them. For example, in my art history class we were covering European art during the 1930s and several students said some interesting things about John Heartfield’s anti-Hitler propaganda. To paraphrase their statements about why they disliked his art-work: “he (Heartfield) hated his country” and then went on to explain how they didn’t abide by this negative attitude. This, as one may imagine, took me completely by surprise. It is an example of critiquing the message (and the messenger) with no allusions to the surrounding historical context. (I would have to assume that these particular individuals knew very little about either Hitler or the Nazis)

Politics is a curious mix of self-disclosure, lying (Picasso once remarked that “artists lie to expose the truth“), and emotive language. It becomes a “fog of truth” based upon each of our perceptions of “what is” versus “what we know.” The breadth of our knowledge is fine but how deep our knowledge goes (and by implication, our understanding of and our willingness to go) seems to me to be the objective of any true (ideal?) political discourse. To accept our politicians as liars and then to assess their attractiveness to us by their respective lying methodologies, I find extremely troubling.

Afterword:
Yes, I accept the irony of my rant about content vs. methodology.