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The Rhetoric of Politics

 Let's attempt to dissect some politics, shall we?

I am one of those people who pride themselves on 'not engaging in politics.'

Some say that to appear sophisticated, out of the ordinary, because 'politics is a game enjoyed by retards.' I am not one of those. I just don't see the appeal.

But. Hailing from a country like Kenya, politics is shoved down your throat, and you either swallow it in all its ugliness or puke it. Let's pretend to swallow it for a moment.

Plato, the man who summoned philosophy and beauty from Mt. Olympus and poetry from down below, used them to make a concoction that has been keeping us intellectually drunk for more than two millennia, had a lot to say about politics. And he did all that, to borrow from Will Durant's phrase, in lordly abandon. 

First off, he claims that in order to understand politics, we have to be acquainted with the nature of men, for it is the people who are the key pieces in the chess that is politics. 

If we are to have hygienic politics, then we should have hygienic people. We can't have 'better' leaders when our thought process is the same one that birthed the shitty leaders. Something has to change, as Joseph de Maistre said, 'Every country has the government it deserves.'

The great philosopher also said that all forms of government lead themselves to ruin by excess. 

Democracy leads itself to ruin by the excess of democracy - here is a form of government where anybody can run for any seat, but also anyone who has attained the legal age can vote. 

Think about it: if we have set the minimum requirements for people who want to run for government seats, shouldn't we at least have a crash course for the voters - at the very least, shouldn't they know what to look for in the ideal candidate?

Our voters are forced to make decisions that decide the fate of the republic on the grounds of tribalism or just pure rhetoric. 

Let's forget about Plato for now, that man with immortality not threatened by the passing of the flesh.

I guess the reason why politics is so addictive is because of its unique ability to bring people together through humor and nonsense clothed in camaraderie.

When they coined the phrase about love and war having no unfairness, they should have included politics as well. In the corridors of power, the lows and lower lows are rewritten daily, friendships redefined, enmities squashed, dirty deals cleaned and clothed in fancy linen and paraded for the public's applause.

It is the perfect embodiment of the end justifies the means. Oh, and the insults! Here is a sport where nothing is off limits, if it can gather a few laughs, please say it! If it can hurt a few segments of the population, jolting them to reality, what are you waiting for, sir?

There is no escape from the seemly lady that is politics. If you make it a point to avoid it, your wife will taunt you, and you'll never hear the end of it. Everyone has an opinion about politics, some can be swayed but some believe they know it all. That's the danger right there - if we can't have a clear distinction between the teacher and the student, the entire empire of academia will turn to ruin.

You see, politics is an art and a science. Politicians are perhaps the smartest people we have. Imagine convincing a whole stadium of people to vote for you with lies disguised in empty and beautiful prose, going on and on yet never attacking the issue at hand, just caressing it like breasts, and voila! Applause. 

There is no customization in individuality, only in groups. He imagines a people from a certain geographical location, then customizes a line of thought for them - which are usually lies. It's not an easy profession that one.

Can we ever get better at politics, as the people? Probably, but it is a journey that will take us decades. We have to abandon our deontological view of the choice of politicians we have and embrace consequentialism. Instead of deciding that we can't have a Luhya for a President with finality, we have to subject our dogmas and beliefs to scrutiny, and employ second-order thinking. 

If we do this, what next? That's the question. 

Subject people to civic education, and desist from surrendering all the keys to power to a person just because you loved a page of his 300-page manifesto.

As young people, we are the leaders of tomorrow, and what we see being implemented now sends an involuntary message to our psyche. If we see everything going unchecked, instead of making it our urgent task to change the status quo, we start scheming on how we can benefit from the same system flaw. 

And that is how you bring an entire civilization to its knees, begging for an easy death. 




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