Well folks, another election season has come and gone. In the end, all you can say about the winners for certain is that many millions of people did not vote for them.Politics is a funny thing. There are those whose lives revolve around the process, those who opine from an easy chair but never leave the chair to do anything about it, and the rest of us.
I generalize here, but by "the rest of us" I mean those that sit politics out like I sit out football season. That is, until January and February. Die-hard fans are joined then by people like me that are only interested in play-offs and championships.
Politics, like football or a Rock and Roll concert, is a Dionysian event. It's an orgiastic ritual, with everyone coming together for the same result, the same release. Everyone crowding, working together for that emotional, well, you get the idea.
It's mythical in content too. Heroes like Vince Lombardi, Buddy Holly, Bobby Kennedy are gods, the icons of the American Dream. They ruled the day and their weaknesses are ignored, for the most part, because their strengths and personalities are so huge.
Villains exist in this mythical world too. Remember Ohio coach Woody Hayes slapping players around and bullying. Remember Nixon? How about Colonel Tom Parker?
Then there's the religious element. Every good belief has a ritual, a coming together of the tribes if you will. Here you find the Superbowl, the Stones playing to a million people in Rio, Elections. The faithful make their statement of belief.
Once it's all over, there's nothing left but the commentary. Who played the best, was this the best show of the tour, how could the polls and pundits have been so wrong...
Do they change the way we are? Sometimes not as much as we wish they would. We search for meaning in sensational, emotional events, but do they really change us? Football is just a game. Rock and roll is only more howling at the moon. Politics is, well, I don't really know. Maybe a little bit of both.
Tomorrow we wake up and still have to eat and work and laugh and cry.
1 comment:
Well, yeah. Except now the Democrats are running Congress and Rumsfeld is out and Bush is no longer going to have his way right down the line. And there might even be hearings aimed at finding if really we really invaded Iraq through ignorance or were we lied to about Saddam's nuclear weapons from the get-go, and certain ex- Secretaries of Defense may even be tried (OK - in Germany) over if they ordered torture of prisoners.
So I guess I think the election ritual is not just about us. I think this election has actually made a difference. And I am getting an optimistic spirit about the future.
Post a Comment