The Depravity of Politics: Drinking Our Own Kool-Aid

When the media covers the latest political spectacle or event, notice that there are two kinds of reporting about it.

1) News/Reality. Attempts to describe and summarize the actual reality of some situation in the world. How it was. What happened. How it is now. How it might develop and what consequences it might cause. Why it is important.

2) Politics/Spectacle. Attempts to report (at best) and distort (at worst) the relative positions of popularity for various political leaders, parties, or political movements. Who is up and who is down in the political power game. Who is in and who is out. Predictions about how it will effect the next election, and the political power of those involved? Who scored points by tearing down their opponents public image, and what voting blocks did they score them with? What tactics did they use, and how does using them change the stakes in the game?

As you watch your next news program, notice that
- the Politics dominates media time and gets the most audience.
- the Political Spectacle is largely divorced from the reality of the effects.
- The Spin is valued as important, the reality as incidental (except as it affects the political response)

This focus on the Spectacle vs. Reality is depraved. It is morally corrupt.
It places the power of the players above the effects of their policies.
It places winning the political game above the impact on the citizenry.
It places public opinion and public relations above reality and measurement.
It fuels blind faith, dogmatism, and self-righteousness in its actors and audience.
It is depraved.

Further, it claims to represent morality and justice, when it most often represents dogmatic partisanship and ignorance masking as certainty. This debases our understanding of morality and justice. It corrupts it. It is depraved.

The antidote to depravity is to see through the Spectacle and focus on the Reality of human thriving/suffering that is caused by our actions. It is to put Politics in its place as a depraved game filled with depraved players that must be vigilantly monitored and restrained. Failure to do so is at our peril.