I got bored and started reading The True Believer, this was certainly a part of the book that stood out to me:
"On the other hand, extravagant hope, even when not backed by actual power, is likely to generate a most reckless daring. For the hopeful can draw strength from the most ridiculous sources of power- a slogan, a word, a button. No faith is potent unless it is also faith in the future; unless it has a millenial component."
Page 9 of True Believer
My first instinct when looking at this section of the book was "did we fall for that?" I will be honest with you, everything in this chunk of the book certainly fits in well with the Obama Campaign that a good majority of us did vote for in either the caucus or election. In my opinion, I feel like we had a great amount of extravagant hope that something could be changed so quickly, when in all reality, the previous 8 years had made sure that that was not going to happen. I also greatly agree with the part of the paragraph that speaks about how the hopeful cling to sources of power. I believe that people were motivated by the thought of "change", a word thrown around so frequently during the election. I can certainly say that looking back on it now, I can definitely see how this makes sense.
The main reason I wanted to post this blog was to see if anyone else had a standpoint on what is being said here. I will be honest with you, political party aside it is something that concerns me when I look at the amazing parallels here, even with the book being from the 50's. I will admit, if this is truly the case (which I have a very good thought to believe it is), that is a very scary thought. It only further proves that people are not voting on the issues, they are voting on the motivation factor, and what they can hang on to.
Scary Stuff.
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One other important part of this section of the book. It goes on in the next paragraph to say that people who want to gain some sort of power know how to "preach hope". If that is not an indicator of the parallels I don't know what is.
ReplyDeleteI find this most intriguing...I have been thinking about the process democracies elect their leaders lately. Are politicians elected for 'change' or maintaining the system how it is? Do we pick our candidates we vote for? or perhaps it is someone else? Running for any office nowadays requires a good source of money, and Obama managed to woo the Mecca of money source, namely, Wall Street. So in 2008, were people who voted for "change" on the same page as the person they voted for? Instead of voting for change, did they actually vote for preservation of how it is? It certainly can seem like it when we think back to "the financial reform"...instead of regulating a incredibly flawed system, the reform actually gave the elite more power.
ReplyDeleteCan our trustworthy politicians actually compete today? I don't think so, well unless they win the lottery...