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Your analogy to physics is useful. "Everything is physics" might be true, but as you say, it isn't very useful because it is too broad a brush. That's why we

Your analogy to physics is useful. "Everything is physics" might be true, but as you say, it isn't very useful because it is too broad a brush. That's why we talk about atomic physics, astrophysics, dynamics, optics, nuclear physics, quantum physics, and for that matter, chemistry, and inorganic chemistry. Each of these is a discipline with its own nomenclature and epistemology that enable practitioners to home in on the elements they study in sufficient detail, with an efficiency of language. Similarly, politics. To answer the question, what is your hourly rate of pay and why is it so, we have to turn to politics. Physics won't help us, nor will chemistry. Politics is the appropriate discipline, because in politics humans are the atoms, and their interactions are described by the laws of politics. Your hourly rate of pay is a function only partially of the legislation enacted by your elected representatives. Your state legislature may set a minimum hourly rate of pay. Whether that rate applies to your job, and to you personally, depends on a number of other human interactions, both in the present and throughout history, which occurred independently to the legislature. And whether you have your job, which pays $X per hour, or another job, which pays $Y per hour, is a function of... that's right, politics. Or more precisely, labor relations, market forces, race relations, immigration, what school you went to, how much funding your school received, what companies your local layers of government attracted to your area. These factors are in turn influenced by taxation, investment law, transport infrastructure, natural resources, environmental regulations... everywhere you look for the answer to the question What is your hourly rate of pay, you encounter a different sub-discipline of... politics.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Sure! I don't mean to deny the importance of the insight; a lot of people do have seriously mistaken beliefs about how social and economic facts come to be, and learning a bit of political science is a critical part of correcting those mistakes. The problem is that electoral politics, at least as practiced recently in the US, rarely has much to do with this. I'm on a few donor lists, so I got a lot of political fundraising emails over the past year, and out of the candidates I can remember only one was focused on society and how we can make it better. The other candidates talked primarily, if not exclusively, about how terrible their Congressional opponents are and how useful my help would be to defeat their villainous ways. Whatever term you use to refer to this category of activity, I don't think someone with an earnest interest in improving the world would choose to regularly participate in it.
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  > out of the candidates I can remember only one was focused on society and how we can make it better. Sounds like you encountered one earnest type? I tried to think of contemporary examples but I couldn’t think of any that would be universally admired. That got me thinking about the meaning of “earnestness” and then I wondered whether I might have conflated it with “virtuous” too much in my own conception. I suppose it’s just as possible to be earnestly libertarian as it is to be earnestly egalitarian. There might be as many earnest members of the NRA as there are earnest members of the NAACP and the ACLU. Fact checking aside, who do you think is more earnest, 45 or 44? 43 or 42? Your football teams QB or your opponent’s?
- darkerside 6y ago
  Not making things worse is another expression of making things better. I also dislike where politics has gone in terms of how it's being exercised these days, but I would agree that the building blocks of politics are still, how do we make decisions as a group. Some people have managed to pretend the most important decision is that "person X most not enact their agenda", but it comes from the same root.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

Sure! I don't mean to deny the importance of the insight; a lot of people do have seriously mistaken beliefs about how social and economic facts come to be, and learning a bit of political science is a critical part of correcting those mistakes. The problem is that electoral politics, at least as practiced recently in the US, rarely has much to do with this. I'm on a few donor lists, so I got a lot of political fundraising emails over the past year, and out of the candidates I can remember only one was focused on society and how we can make it better. The other candidates talked primarily, if not exclusively, about how terrible their Congressional opponents are and how useful my help would be to defeat their villainous ways. Whatever term you use to refer to this category of activity, I don't think someone with an earnest interest in improving the world would choose to regularly participate in it.

wombatmobile 6y ago
> out of the candidates I can remember only one was focused on society and how we can make it better. Sounds like you encountered one earnest type? I tried to think of contemporary examples but I couldn’t think of any that would be universally admired. That got me thinking about the meaning of “earnestness” and then I wondered whether I might have conflated it with “virtuous” too much in my own conception. I suppose it’s just as possible to be earnestly libertarian as it is to be earnestly egalitarian. There might be as many earnest members of the NRA as there are earnest members of the NAACP and the ACLU. Fact checking aside, who do you think is more earnest, 45 or 44? 43 or 42? Your football teams QB or your opponent’s?
darkerside 6y ago
Not making things worse is another expression of making things better. I also dislike where politics has gone in terms of how it's being exercised these days, but I would agree that the building blocks of politics are still, how do we make decisions as a group. Some people have managed to pretend the most important decision is that "person X most not enact their agenda", but it comes from the same root.