The Human Factor

I believe that some people care too much about politics. In these turbulent times, that may sound like a funny thing to say. Politics can have severe effects on people's lives. I don't mean to downplay the importance of politics. Many people need to become more politically involved. It's just that when people focus solely on politics, they are missing the larger piece of the puzzle. It's my belief (and admittedly not a well-researched one at that, but this is just a blog and you get what you pay for) that politics is driven by social and economic pressures.

If there is something about the world you wish to change, you need to gather the social and economic support of your fellow citizens before political change can be effective. American history provides many examples of this. The Civil War technically ended slavery in the United States. But it couldn't end the racism that enabled slavery in the first place, and slavery ended up being replaced by Jim Crow. And one hundred years later, when Jim Crow was also finally ended, we ended up with the Southern Strategy. And even among those who proclaim to believe in racial equality, there are still many who are ignorant of or refuse to believe how this history of racism in America continues to disadvantage minorities to this day.

Political change, without the corresponding social change, is doomed to be less effective than it would be if it had the broader support of the people. That's not to say that the United States should not have fought a war to end slavery because that position didn't have enough support in the South. Clearly it should have. My point is that the war ended too early - not the physical war, but the social one that needed to be waged so that the attitudes of the people matched the laws of the land. Too many people are satisfied with political victory and fail to follow through in promoting the social change necessary to make such gains long-lasting.

And since the effectiveness of a policy can be linked to how much the people support it, the success or failure of a policy in one time and place does not reveal how such a policy might fare in another time and place. Before people were aware of climate change, any policy to curb fossil fuel emissions would have harmed the economy and never have had the support of the people. Now a policy to curb emissions is both politically and economically feasible (except, of course, to those who ignore reality).

Most importantly, we must remember that progress is possible even in the face of political defeat. Politics results in highs and lows that we tend to exaggerate the importance of. Despite the results of elections or the laws that are passed, the important and lasting changes are those embedded in the social fabric around us. It's the small, incremental changes that we make in the people around us that really matters and determines the direction in which our society is headed.