I'm partial to comic books. I'll admit that up front before I start into any long winded thinking. I'm a comic book fan, one of those nerds who'd hang out in the comic shops with her nose jammed in the paper folds. That stated, I'd have to say I was pleasantly surprised by this story. When I first opened this book I wasn't certain I'd enjoy it. I looked at the art work and the skeptic in me thought, "Ummm... did a ten year old draw this?". Come to find out it was actually a good move on the authors part. The artwork didn't distract from the message the book was stating and the stories point of view was accented by the almost child like drawings. Still, its the overall message of the story thats the kicker. The story of a world not many of us would know much about.
Now on to the point. Politics and sentiment, do they mix? First let me say, they always end up that way. People create the politics, they uphold them, and humans as a whole are emotional beings. Keeping our emotions out of our political pool doesn't come naturally to us. Separating logic from emotion is something only the Vulcans can do (yes, I am aware of how much a nerd I am for just making a Star Trek reference). Anyways, what I'm trying to say is as long as people have individual minds, feelings, and opinions, we can never keep politics and sentiment from mixing together.
So since politics and sentiment are naturally destined to blend together, do they work? My opinion is no, they do not. Especially in the case of this story, where the political power was predominantly controlled by one man. A whole country under one man's rule, its bound to fail. In this case, you are asking an entire society to follow one man's ideals, which is certain to create animosity. As I stated, people are emotional beings and often single minded. They don't like to be forced. But in the story, the political powers did try to suppress the community into their way of thinking. This created sentiment, which created anger, which fueled a rebellion, which left the country vulnerable to more extremist views, which then lead to a sort unbalanced way of life, which lead to chaos. In all, this high level of sentiment destroyed a political system and a society.
Politics are not meant to be an emotional thing. It is supposed to be clear, logical, and unbiased, but because it is run by people who will never be entirely those things, politics will always be swayed by sentiment. In the end, too much emotion in politics can destroy a world. Emotion is best left on the human level, from person to person, between families and friends.
I very much agree with what you have to say. I also enjoyed the Star Trek reference. I don't think you can avoid not mixing politics and sentiments together.
ReplyDeleteYou do make an excellent point that politics should be devoid of any emotion and should be purely logical and unbiased. I think that is something to strive and try to attain but is it truly possible? Can we ever really separate our thoughts from our emotions? The Vulcans can do it, why can't we? Is that what makes us human? I have asked a lot of questions in order to ask one: is it possible? In a Utopian society of course it is but I do not believe that we are that Utopian society. We are getting to that future eventually but definitely not right now. In order to achieve that goal though, what will we have to do and what will we have to give up? Personally, I like my emotions and I like my opinions (possibly because they are mine entirely) and I have no problem with them mixing into politics. I think that a governing body devoid of human emotion and thought would be to brutal for me to endure. It would almost be like handing over the fate of the country to a computer and in my opinion that is wrong. I say this because I believe that everything is subjective and you cannot make blanket decisions about every situation. There needs to be a way to make a decision unique to every situation in order to have a functioning governing body in my opinion. For me, I would not want to live in a world where emotion and opinion must be taken out of a decision making role.
ReplyDeleteYou referenced how the entire country's government was controlled by one man. One imperfect person is bound to make mistakes and cause problems. One imperfect person cannot look at all things rationally and make the best decisions possible for a country. There needs to be checks and balances and a system of people who are not corrupt to help make the best decisions possible. The problem is that people, in and of themselves, are inherently sinful. People make bad decisions. One person with too much power in government is a recipe for disaster.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said about politics and sentiment mixing. Everyone has emotions and emotions in some way are going to sway the decisions that people make. We shouldn't be swung to and fro by the ebbs and flows of our emotions, but they do play a part. Those making laws should do their utmost to look at the facts and situations and do their best to make laws and enforce them accordingly. Marji and her family are affected by the laws the Iranian government has put into effect. The women in the family are not happy about the fact that they have to wear veils in public. I don’t think that women should have to wear veils. However, if those women did not wear their veils, they would have been punished. They had to respect the law to the extent that if they didn’t do what was asked of them, they would face chastisement. They weren’t happy about it, but they did it anyway. Sentiment is noted when Marji mentions ways of rebellion: buying things off the black market, letting some hair peek through the front of the veil, etc. Her actions expressed how she felt about all of it. If she had been perfectly ok with what the law mandated, she would not have rebelled.