That is the main problem I see with modern politics. It basically becomes "stereotypes of the left versus stereotypes of the right". A friend of a friend told me that he didn't see Gay marriage being outlawed in many states as a civil rights issue. I said I did. At this point, he asked "so you're a democrat?" I said "not really, I don't think of myself as associated with either party" and his answer was, no joke, "well how can I understand why you believe what you do without knowing what party you're in?" as if every Democrats brain is connected to one thought center and the same with Republicans. The strawmen that come out of this are utterly insane. "well you think what Christie did with closing the bridge and putting lives in danger was bad? What about Benghazi?!?!" as if you had to be on team Benghazi is bad or team Christie closing the bridge was bad and there were no other options. It's incredibly depressing really.
I agree, and I think this decoupling of individual political decisions from party lines is one of the main benefits of direct democracy. You don't have to vote red or blue every four years and then live with the consequences.
In Switzerland, where this is the way the government and lawmaking works, many things are dealt with in parliament to keep the process economic, but they can fairly easily escalated to a plebiscite.
At the same time, the government as far less partisan and generally constituted by member of all mainstream parties.
as if every Democrats brain is connected to one thought center and the same with Republicans.
For most Americans, this may as well be the case (or is the case already... Fox News vs. MSNBC)
From my earliest awareness of politics, I always found it totally bizarre that a person's opinion on, say, gay marriage bore such a strong correlation to their opinions on foreign policy, the economy, social programs, etc. It's absolute insanity, and yet a very small number of people seem to see through it.
> That is the main problem I see with modern politics.
I'd have to disagree. The main problem I see with politics these days is that it fundamentally disagrees with the way that the world works best, and it puts this incorrect view into action. That's quite contrary to what it should do, and it's a source of frustration. Ideally, politics should change its stance on core issues to be more inline with what it should be, and legislate accordingly.
This is exactly the problem. We could be having deep, analytical discussions about the principles and philosophies that form the basis of our political convictions. Instead, our conversations are tainted by partisanship.
I'm sorry. We're busy training the next generation of knowledge workers. Things like "how to construct a cogent argument based upon a reasoned moral framework" or "how to distill essential points and deduce the original line of reasoning from a long-form essay" are artsy fartsy humanities unnecessary to getting a paycheck in the real world.
Haha if that's the case, then we're all going to end up like drones. We'll only be able to do what we're told and we won't be able to think for ourselves. We'll never be able to think deeply about issues, because hey -- that's useless! That won't get me a paycheck!
Innovation is inherently interdisciplinary. If we aren't exposed to different ways of thought, we won't be able to approach problems from the variety of different perspectives that are both necessary and key to creative problem solving.
Innovation can be interdisciplinary, but my suspicion is that specialization leads to more of it. That's not saying that all political innovation benefits society equally and we need more political scientists and politicians. At some point we need to start solving more problems outside the realm of politics.
