Politics: The Future Is History

To understand politics, one has to look backward to get a glimpse of the future. Really. Here's one brilliant writer's reasoning about our interest in politics: "It is a way of life. It is the life of a ... political and social creature who is born with a love for political life, with a desire for honor, with a feeling for his fellows..."
These are the words of Lucius Plutarch, a popular Greek essayist, moralist and a mayor - sort of - of his town in Roman times. He lived right after the time of Christ - about 45 to 122 A. D. - almost a millennium ago. He has been described as one of the most influential writers who ever lived. Plutarch's "Parallel Lives" is considered to be among the most important books written about politics. He saw politics and ethics as closely related. Plutarch's overriding interest was in man's morality and moral guidance in a time when men were losing their faith in "religion" and politics. Ancient Greeks were deeply religious and worshiped many gods. Plutarch was a priest at the temple of Apollo at Delphi. (Long before the Bible and Koran were written.)
Nothing has changed. We are still political animals. And as did the ancient Greeks, many Americans are becoming more secular - even anti-religious. Likewise, many of us are also losing our faith in politics, regardless of party affiliation.
In a way, Plutarch, because he was a prolific writer, exposed the western world to politics. He - unlike many of today's politicians - focused on virtue and statesmanship. His influence as a moralist and ethicist was still being felt centuries later in Europe and early America.
But what about today? The emphasis now is simply on winning elections. Whatever it takes. Politics is down and dirty. Still, I don't believe American politicians are any more dishonest today than years ago. In fact, they are probably more honest now. But I'm sure there were more dishonest politicians in the past than there were bank robbers. (Just recall all the big city bosses over the years.) To be fair, "honest politician" is not any more oxymoronic, than "crooked politician" is a redundancy. There are all kinds.
What is different now is that American politicians have been operating in a changed values environment since the onset of the counter-culture. A good example is the attack on "Western culture" which was exemplified by Stanford University when it gutted its "Western Thought" curriculum, a required study course for all freshman. (This was but a microcosm of the counter-culture.) They did this right after a loud protest on campus led by Jesse Jackson leading a chant: "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western culture's got to go." The school administration was heartily in agreement and abandoned its study of the great classics, such as Plutarch, which were the foundation of our Western culture; replacing this literature with books more acceptable to multiculturalists. The decision was obviously political and not educational, catering to ethnic minorities and gender. Educators decided to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Since the counterculture of the 1960s, many politicians have reacted to our nouveau culture with no bright line distinctions in ethics or morality - values held in high esteem by ancient Greek philosophers. More problematical, if you are a '60s guy, it's all about you - and that's the "gene pool" from which we are getting both our politicians and our average voter. So we have a political system focused on - to paraphrase John F. Kennedy - "what your country can do for you" and not the other way around. This is precisely why average voters - including even many Republicans - prefer a "Nanny State."
This mentality has risen to the highest levels of industry and finance. It started with the Chrysler bailout in 1979, then the 1989 savings and loan rescue, the interesting bailout of Mexico in 1995, the Bear Stearns bailout early this year and now the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac takeover. I've probably forgotten a few others. We choose not to blame most of these debacles on either corporate crooks, who wanted to make a buck, or on management mistakes. Our regulators and lawmakers seem to ignore accountability and focus on the "fix" instead.
On the lower end of the socio-economic scale, politics contributed to millions filing for the Earned Income Tax Credit. Regulators convinced many of the advantages of filing for this tax credit, rather than learning their way out of a low income lifestyle trap. The Earned Income Tax Credit phases out at $37,782 with a maximum credit of $4,716. The Treasury Department estimates billions of dollars are lost through fraud in this program every year. Yet every politician wants to get more votes by promising to increase the EITC for our "less fortunate."
Medicare fraud by the average person is also an outrageous cottage industry in the U.S., estimated at $60 billion lost in 2007. The list goes on. We've got crooks at all levels of society - from the bottom right up to the highest levels of corporations. It's simply a way of life for many of our more creative citizens.
The underlying cause of this moral decay in all first-world countries - certainly in the U.S. - is the level of expectations we have from our political system. For the early philosophers, politics was a critical part of man's existence, but it was more principled and focused on individual achievement in an era when there was little government and certainly no programs or safety nets for any business enterprise or individual. We have now elevated government bailouts and social programs to a lifestyle for the rich and famous, and for the not rich at all, but willing to try anything for a buck.
The answer is leadership, by politicians who will return to an old fashioned - it's either "right or wrong" - American value system. It probably would cost them their jobs. But maybe we should look at politicians "telling it like it is" as a substitute for term limits. (They insult the voter by telling the truth, so we throw them out of office.) If we don't do something, our politicians too will simply be just another part of the problem - which is us. We love to elect people to tell us what we want to hear, not the truth as they should see it. The mothers' milk of politics is for politicians to get re-elected, and for the electorate - corporate or otherwise - to demand government intervention for any challenge, which in turn creates the moral hazard which is bankrupting our country.
The ancient Greeks, who introduced us to this "love for political life," as Plutarch noted, had no idea what a monster it would become.