Is politics relevant?

I believe that politics are relavent to our lives, in regards that the government sets up schools, so people don’t set is politics relevant and ask if politics are relevant.

If you live in a society, life is moulded, to a greater or lesser degree, by politics. Politics simply is, no escaping it.

Politics affects my life whether I like it or not, but that doesn’t mean that I have to be political about every single thing.

I think the moment that the masses decide that politics are irrelevant to their own lives, is the moment that politicians have way too much power.

I meant ask

yes

Three or more people is a political group, if one defines politics as social relations involving authority or power. Politics is very relevant, because of the ways people interact. At the upper levels of government, you can understand how these interactions affect one’s life if you read history. For most of us politics is relevant at the familial and community levels because the social relations are more direct in their effects. Some of us have experienced and made decisions made for reasons unrelated to the issues at hand: that’s politics – e.g. the contractor that gets the job to build a school because his father in law is the chairman of the tenders committee

If politics was not relevant in my life or the lives of my friends, I would not have had to move last year from a place where there was no employment and rampant foreclosures, my friends would not be wondering if they will make it through their daughter’s final year in college, my sister would not have been out of work 3,000 miles from where I live for more than a year. The stories are as endless as their are people.

“The personal is political” does not mean that politics affects your personal life. It’s exactly the opposite. It means that politics is personal lives multiplied by the millions of people who experience the same thing in their personal lives. Think of anything you do; multiply it by a million, and you’ll find a public policy that influences that activity.

Say you wake up in the morning. Hmmm. Did your alarm clock go off? The electricity is governed by standards for wires that are designed to make it safer by reducing the risk of fire. What about your pajamas? Standards for materials and chemicals used to make those pajamas are made by government to protect you.

You get out of bed, brush your teeth (FDA says what’s allowed in the toothpaste), cook yourself an egg (again, there are standards for keeping chickens and size of eggs and how old the egg can be in the store).

How about you go to work. Drive a car? You guessed it. Probably thousands of regulations about cars. They make them safer, and more fuel efficient, and tell you what side of the road to drive on, and how to drive safely. Public transit? Couldn’t happen without politicians to either own the transit, or to give it right of way.

Work—wow. More thousands of regulations.

Whatever you think of that you do—it is the domain of politics. Politics are how we decide to make our lives better when we depend on others to do the right thing. Roads, forests, crops, space, air—all affected by political decisions.

It is arguable that there is not a single thing humans do that is not in some way impacted by political decisions. Education. Child care. Relationships with children, yours or other people’s. On and on. There is no “out there” as far as politics is concerned. Unless you’re dead, I suppose.

And the idea that we have a “private life” is a myth. Doesn’t exist. Can’t exist. Wherever one person does something that has an impact on another person, politics is born. Anyone who thinks politics is not relevant really has no clue—no awareness of how our lives are so connected.

Our only privacy is in our heads, and even that is in danger. It is not unimaginable that some day there will exist technology that allows us to read a person’s thoughts. Already people claim they can use fMRI readings to tell is someone is lying. Then we’ll have thought police, and thought courts, that seek to enforce public policy that attempts to regulate our thoughts.

People who think politics are irrelevant are really saying they don’t care what other people do that impacts their lives. It’s either a kind of faith in humanity, or a head in the sand kind of approach. You can trust others to keep your interests in the forefront. Me, I prefer to try to have more of a say.

@bea2345 Politics at the familial level? Of course, you are completely right! so obvious that it was staring me in the face and I didn’t even notice

Absolutely relevant, and if given the chance I’d like to be more active.

Politics is about who gets to decide how the resources are used. That’s relevant to just about everything.

When politics becomes irrelevant to people democracy won’t last much longer.

@mattbrowne I would also add when people become complacent/indifferent toward politics democracy won’t last much longer

@Adagio – Totally agree. Democracy is a treasure and we can never take it for granted. People in the west who complain too much all the time should go live in Zimbabwe or Saudi-Arabia for a year.