A Cornucopia of Agendas: The Devolution of Political Unity

international | politics / elections | opinion/analysis

Wednesday September 15, 2004 14:48

by Tom

olearys at oceanfree dot net

Designing a system to effectively govern over four million people isn’t easy, but serious reform of the system that we have accepted is required if our goal is to achieve a pure democracy in which the greatest majority of citizens is represented satisfactorily.

Not dissimilar to our evolution from the dogmatic doctrine of the church to self-prescribed spiritualism, our political follower-ship has splintered from a few major parties to a plethora of issues-based groups. In Ireland alone there are 14 major political parties with many other interest groups and movements. Worldwide, the number of political parties competing for power is staggering. Each of these believes that they have a firmer grasp on the truth, a better idea for the best way forward. See: http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/parties.htm

truth

n 1: a fact that has been verified; "at last he knew the truth"; "the truth is the he didn't want to do it" 2: conformity to reality or actuality; "they debated the truth of the proposition"; "the situation brought home to us the blunt truth of the military threat"; "he was famous for the truth of his portraits"; "he turned to religion in his search for eternal verities" 3: a true statement; "he told the truth"; "he thought of answering with the truth but he knew they wouldn't believe it" 4: the quality of nearness to the truth or the true value; "he was beginning to doubt the accuracy of his compass"; "the lawyer questioned the truth of my account" 5: United States abolitionist and feminist who was freed from slavery and became a leading advocate of the abolition of slavery and for the rights of women (1797-1883)

I have always had difficulty with any particular group suggesting that they alone hold the key to truth. Mostly because truth is based so much on perception, and because truths often alter, even in scientific study, as recently exemplified in Stephen Hawking’s interesting about-face on the black hole information paradox. See: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996151

How misguided, then, is it to proclaim with any veracity a political or sociological concept? Knowing that historically, our perceptions evolve and our attitudes change; it is very difficult to imagine that any existing political party, group or movement has any better understanding of where we should go or how we should get there than the other.

Am I an anarchist? I want order…I want peace…I want comfort for myself and my children…and I want to discover my own personal truth that has eluded me for so many years now.