There's so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones
From Dire Straits Brother in Arms 1985.
-----
This is not going to make sense to most people. But a government without truthiness is doomed to failure. Truthiness being the Stephen Colbert word.
Truthiness or put another way recognizing that you love different things than other people but you love things passionately and with the gut and that by recognizing and respecting other people via seeing another person's passion and intimacy that they authentically believe something and they are not trying to screw you and are trying to make government work for the betterment of all American Citizens (or whatever your country is or planet is) is necessary for government to work.
Without truthiness, without using a language of passion to form a dialogue of trust no government works. This is because details are boring and details matter, and we can't be intimate with things like policy papers. What matters is the final result. A form of shared representation and improved progress form a sense of security.
-----
Yet truthiness does not put bread on the table. In fact often governing via emotion can be so self destructive for what we think makes intuitive sense is not what really causes true progress or an efficient form of markets and regulation that is necessary for capitalism to work.
Truthiness does not form an efficient safety net for the people. Either the safety net has too many holes in it and people slip through or it is too big and too tight and the net is now a form of strangulation.
So in turn we get a situation which is sorta like yin yang. Too opposite forces that must push against each other yet at the same time come together.
In other words to truely goverern you must act like a romantic comedy. And find a way to be in love with a person that also at the same time drives you crazy.
In other words it is not about citizenship, but instead about active citizenship.
There was a good atlantic article about this a few months ago talking about the Aaron Sorkin Movie, The American President (see the link below). A good movie that at the same time is so pretentious you want to bang peoples heads against brick walls...It is the movie that set up Aaron Sorkin writing the west wing 4 years later effectively being the tv show's pilot in movie form.
So looking back at the most recent Aaron Sorkin work the Newsroom what a train wreck yet a fun train wreck and at the same time something that makes you want to smash your fingers with a hammer...
It is my opinion that the reason the newsroom sucked is not really the writing or the plot but instead the marketing. If it was honestly marketed as a 25 episode miniseries that is a romantic comedy that takes place in the newsroom instead of a serious tv show talking about politics and cable news and how they all continue to fail us then it would have seeded so much better.
The newsroom is a 3 act play in 25 episodes form. You are supposed to hate the main character even if he has some noble virtues. Think of the main character as someone like Tony Soprano, someone we can personally relate to but in real life we should want nothing to do with him. He is a villain protagonist who the person he was at the beginning of the show is an asshole, who he was at the end of act 1 is an asshole but in a different way (he is trying to be better but he makes things worse), who is still an asshole at the end of act 2, but via the end of the show he finally gets it and he is a person who is helping instead of hurting due to neglect (the start of the show) or is hurting due to not understanding the problem and he says he can solve it and instead rubs everyone the wrong way. It is a show that shows how everyone is convinced the are right but only by understanding they are probably wrong but at least they are trying and can you please talk and communicate with me that we can work together and do something better.
What does this have to do with Iowa caucuses? It has to do with the fact that I tire of watching the United States political process for it is watching a slow moving train wreck. The problem is not the people, no the whole entire system is the problem. Just like it is not senators who are the problem, no senators are mearly the opposition, the enemy is the whole entire system itself for it is a system that could work, but it does not work for people feel with their body and do not understand human nature and thus are blind to repeat history like a train can stop but unless it understands the problem it is watching a slow moving train wreck.
Whatever it is always darkest before the dawn.
