What makes a politician a successful politician?
Plato believed in the Philosopher-King as an ideal ruler of a just society. The Philosopher-King is one who understands what to do and how to do it. The Philosopher-King would have the necessary power (being a king) to implement the chosen path.
And yet Plato was strongly against the rhetorician, the practitioner of rhetoric, the art of speech. Plato believed that the rhetorician knew only how to talk, and nothing of what he (it was always a "he" back then) was talking about - the truth of what he was talking about.
But we are left with the problem of mobilizing a people. A ruler is only as good and as effective as the belief in him or her by the society being led. Without belief in the ruler and in what the ruler is trying to achieve, the populace cannot follow and cannot implement.
For effective leadership, a leader must understand the ideals at least as much as Plato's Philosopher-King, yet the leader cannot be a king. Not in this hemisphere, anyway. We, as a people, are too educated and too free-thinking to follow a monarchy, even an enlightened one.
In this section of our planet, we require leaders that can communicate to us what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how we can be mobilized to actuate these ideals.
What is communication if not the act (and the art) of using language to make other people agree with you and do things that you want them to do.
A political candidate can succeed without this element. Passive democracy gives us a choice between the lesser of two (or more) evils. Active democracy gives us the option to take part in our decisions.
The successful politician is the politician who can mobilize a people into an active democracy. The successful politician is both a Philosopher and a Rhetorician; Communicating the ideals to the masses and creating a shared vision for the greatest possible number. A winning politician can illustrate, but only a successful politician can en-vision - enable a vision to be shared by all.
Watching Barack Obama tonight speak to a diverse and united mass audience in Denver, I thought to myself that this is what it must have been like with Kennedy - JK and Bobby.
Barack Obama has a vision, an understanding of the truth. Barack Obama can communicate that vision and make people understand it and share it.
Barack Obama is the epitome of the Philosopher-Rhetorician. A successful politician. A leader.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
God Willing
Is that just another way of saying, "I'm not actually willing, myself, so we'll see how it works out."?
Philosophical question, assuming a belief in God, or an equivalent: Does God will events, or does God give us the will to do what we can to make events happen?
I have my money on the latter. Ryan willing.
Philosophical question, assuming a belief in God, or an equivalent: Does God will events, or does God give us the will to do what we can to make events happen?
I have my money on the latter. Ryan willing.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
The Death of Memory
How much do we remember?
If we forget (or never learn) the lessons of our past, does that negate our memory of what happened as well?
In other words, it is one thing to remember the past and to honour the past, but it is another thing altogether to remember the lessons from the past and to live accordingly.
I am a Jew and my memory is the Jewish memory, my history is the history of the Jewish people. As a Jew whose direct descendants came from Europe in the 20th century, the Holocaust is central to my memory and my history. My Father's people were fortunate enough to be unfortunate enough to have to leave Europe (for the most part) by the First World War, giving them a head start at a Jewish, North American life, and a semi-ignorant bliss of the horrors of Nazism. My Mother's people, on the other hand, did not yearn West (or any other direction) until it was, for too many of them, too late. From the carnage, my grandparents escaped through Russia to Uzbekistan where they married, began the next generation of Jews and eventually wound their way to Israel, close to the start of a new Jewish existence.
Now we have moved on to the second and third generation of post-Holocaust Jewish life in Israel, America, and even Europe (not to mention the other continents). Even now, our books, our movies our teachers, parents and grandparents remind us to never forget what happened to us 63-70 years ago. Never forget the murder of six million Jews. Jews of all ages, sizes, sexes, professions. But for being Jewish, they were just like everyone else around them. But for being Jewish, they would have lived out their natural lives in relative peace. For being Jewish they were persecuted and the died. For their being Jewish, the memories of the next generations are still scarred.
And so we say to "Never Forget."
So what does it mean for the Jews to never forget the hatred and the events that led to murder on such a grand scale? Is it merely a plea for to remember those six million? To catalogue their names, dates of birth and dates of expiry? To turn crematoria into memorabilia?
What more could there be?
Ultimately, genocide is bigger word used less often for events of infinitely less magnitude. According to the Oxford Dictionary of current English, "Genocide" is, : "the deliberate killing of a very large number of people from a particular ethnic group or nation."
We can argue over the meaning of "a very large number of people", but I am happy to concede that any number with at least 4 zeroes should be considered as very large. Americans remembering September 11, 2001 might argue that 3 zeroes should suffice. In another example, the massacre of 700-3500 Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982 was called a genocide by none other than the United Nations General Assembly.
In as much as Jews are taught to never forget the Holocaust. Never to forget so as to never happen again.
Yet it happens. Over and over again, it happens. Taken from the Wikipedia entry for "Genocides in History", only since the Holocaust, have we seen acts of genocide against the Australian Aboriginal peoples (1900-1969), Guatemala (1968-1996), Bangladesh (1971), Burundi (1972 and 1993 - separate events), Equatorial Guinea (1968-1979), Cambodia (1975-1979), East Timor (1975-1999), the aforementioned Sabra-Shatila, Lebanon massacre (September 1982), Afghanistan (by the Soviets, 1979-1982), Ethiopia (1977-1978), the Kurds of Iraq (1986-1988), Tibet (1950-1959), the Tikuna's of Brazil (1988), West Papua/West New Guinea (1963), Zanzibar (1964).
Since the dawn of the new millennium (this is in the 21st century!), we have borne witness to the genocidal deaths of well over one million (that's 6 zeroes) people in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992-1995), Rwanda (1994) and Sudan (2003-right now).
Every time a human being suffers due to the simple belonging to an individual ethnic group or nation, our memory of the Holocaust is dimmed. The lessons are not being applied.
We have screamed "Never Again!" for over 60 years, even while it still happens. Even Israel, a nation founded in part on a commitment to the memory and the lessons of the Holocaust, has ironically refused asylum on a significant number of refugees from the Darfur genocide in the Sudan.
Is this the death blow to our memory?
I cannot forget.
If we forget (or never learn) the lessons of our past, does that negate our memory of what happened as well?
In other words, it is one thing to remember the past and to honour the past, but it is another thing altogether to remember the lessons from the past and to live accordingly.
I am a Jew and my memory is the Jewish memory, my history is the history of the Jewish people. As a Jew whose direct descendants came from Europe in the 20th century, the Holocaust is central to my memory and my history. My Father's people were fortunate enough to be unfortunate enough to have to leave Europe (for the most part) by the First World War, giving them a head start at a Jewish, North American life, and a semi-ignorant bliss of the horrors of Nazism. My Mother's people, on the other hand, did not yearn West (or any other direction) until it was, for too many of them, too late. From the carnage, my grandparents escaped through Russia to Uzbekistan where they married, began the next generation of Jews and eventually wound their way to Israel, close to the start of a new Jewish existence.
Now we have moved on to the second and third generation of post-Holocaust Jewish life in Israel, America, and even Europe (not to mention the other continents). Even now, our books, our movies our teachers, parents and grandparents remind us to never forget what happened to us 63-70 years ago. Never forget the murder of six million Jews. Jews of all ages, sizes, sexes, professions. But for being Jewish, they were just like everyone else around them. But for being Jewish, they would have lived out their natural lives in relative peace. For being Jewish they were persecuted and the died. For their being Jewish, the memories of the next generations are still scarred.
And so we say to "Never Forget."
So what does it mean for the Jews to never forget the hatred and the events that led to murder on such a grand scale? Is it merely a plea for to remember those six million? To catalogue their names, dates of birth and dates of expiry? To turn crematoria into memorabilia?
What more could there be?
Ultimately, genocide is bigger word used less often for events of infinitely less magnitude. According to the Oxford Dictionary of current English, "Genocide" is, : "the deliberate killing of a very large number of people from a particular ethnic group or nation."
We can argue over the meaning of "a very large number of people", but I am happy to concede that any number with at least 4 zeroes should be considered as very large. Americans remembering September 11, 2001 might argue that 3 zeroes should suffice. In another example, the massacre of 700-3500 Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982 was called a genocide by none other than the United Nations General Assembly.
In as much as Jews are taught to never forget the Holocaust. Never to forget so as to never happen again.
Yet it happens. Over and over again, it happens. Taken from the Wikipedia entry for "Genocides in History", only since the Holocaust, have we seen acts of genocide against the Australian Aboriginal peoples (1900-1969), Guatemala (1968-1996), Bangladesh (1971), Burundi (1972 and 1993 - separate events), Equatorial Guinea (1968-1979), Cambodia (1975-1979), East Timor (1975-1999), the aforementioned Sabra-Shatila, Lebanon massacre (September 1982), Afghanistan (by the Soviets, 1979-1982), Ethiopia (1977-1978), the Kurds of Iraq (1986-1988), Tibet (1950-1959), the Tikuna's of Brazil (1988), West Papua/West New Guinea (1963), Zanzibar (1964).
Since the dawn of the new millennium (this is in the 21st century!), we have borne witness to the genocidal deaths of well over one million (that's 6 zeroes) people in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992-1995), Rwanda (1994) and Sudan (2003-right now).
Every time a human being suffers due to the simple belonging to an individual ethnic group or nation, our memory of the Holocaust is dimmed. The lessons are not being applied.
We have screamed "Never Again!" for over 60 years, even while it still happens. Even Israel, a nation founded in part on a commitment to the memory and the lessons of the Holocaust, has ironically refused asylum on a significant number of refugees from the Darfur genocide in the Sudan.
Is this the death blow to our memory?
I cannot forget.
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