Is politics and government mostly about the management of insecurity?

[HereSince1628]

Maybe as seen along the continum from "Personal" to "Societal,"

But really, is managing "things" and "others'" behaviors to reduce insecurity what this is all about?

This morning it just seems like the left and the right are made insecure by different things. Maybe this feeling will pass...

[orwell]

1. They are...

...tools of power. As such, fear (insecurity) is used as a marketing tactic.

The State, in its modern incarnation, exists to make war. From this it derives its ultimate power. In this sense it has become the ultimate protection racket.

[HereSince1628]

3. But for example, pollution and global warming make the left insecure

while regulation of business to limit pollution and global warming makes them feel insecure about their profits.

Today an awful lot of things seem to fall into such dichotomies around different but nontheless still forms of insecurity.

[leveymg]

2. Strauss says it's about the management of public illusions of security and

insecurity. The 1960s Situationists also have a lot to say about the politics of spectacle, and the Italian Syndicalists spoke earlier to propaganda of deeds and the political impact of state terrorism.

Then, one should read about Edward L. Bernays, son in law and disciple of Sigmund Freud, who was the Rockefeller brothers' PR and propaganda guru. Bernays and his descendants developed a whole science of industrial labor-management relations based in psychological insights, much of this work carries over into manipulation of emotions in politics.

[HereSince1628]

4. I am not sure in insecurity there is wisdom as Watts suggests but

it seems that managing insecurity, in particular managing particular insecurities has huge influence on politics.

[leveymg]

5. Predicting patterns and outcomes of "random" events -- is a full-blown

science in finance called Technical Analysis. Many of its techniques carry over to politics and governance, particularly the application of fractals and Chaos Theory to the study of major events.

There have been a lot of interesting efforts to develop quantitative models with application to perception management and politics. The Agency applies these in psyops operations to destabilize governments abroad, and the same techniques have found their way into domestic political campaigns. The style of governance practiced by this Administration seems to employ many of the same characteristics.

[welshTerrier2]

6. cynicism and idealism

it is very easy, especially with bush in the WH, to view both politics and government in a negative way ... to be sure, perhaps these institutions are nothing more than extensions of who we are as individuals, i.e., needy and greedy human beings ...

perhaps those who seek power do so for selfish reasons ... and perhaps the institutions that support their rise to power do so for selfish reasons as well ...

but every now and then, sprinkled in among the dark and cynical, there is an idealist ... i think we must do all we can to identify them and support them ... it would make their task all the more difficult if we, within ourselves, came to believe that all politics and all governments are corrupt by definition ...

government need not only concern itself with providing comforts against our insecurities ... warning us of the dangers we face, when they are legitimate dangers and not a sales pitch to relinquish our liberties and our own vigilance, is sometimes an appropriate function for government ... but good governance requires so much more ... good governance requires leadership; not just leadership out of harms way but leadership that calls us to a higher vision of who we are as a society ... there's been precious little of that ...

it's important for those of us who remain awake to guard our idealism and our optimism very carefully ... we should never allow the darkness we see embodied in "the bad ones" to alienate us from institutions that could be called upon to serve "what could be" ... to be cynical and skeptical against the men who control today's levers of power is prudent; to paint the stains they leave behind with too broad a brush across our democratic institutions would be folly ...

[bemildred]

7. A secure and courageous populace is not easily ruled.

Which is why if no crisis or emergency exists, one will be invented or induced.