Politics: A gain or a game?

Abstract:

Politics may be studied from vary perspectives, which this article tends to be interpreted from the perspective of gain and game. It has relevancy with gain as the end result of the politics is to gain, either beneficial for public or personal gains, whereas it has relevancy with game as politics were established by those who have interest in a particular matter, and it uses the influencing system to influence others, which only the dominant influences may make an impact towards a person, therefore it is like a game of competition. Politics is of an indefinite subject, which every relevant ideas have interlink with each other, which make the scope of study to be wide.  

Politics: A gain or a game?

In a country, a government is established by political parties. In order to establish a political party, there are certain requirements to be fulfilled. It should be noted that having a political party is insufficient to involve in the governance of a country as they need the recognition of the public, which can be done through election. Some politician may be politic and some may not, therefore we distinguished them with our vote of confidence in an election. The politicians tend to get the vote of confidence in all possible ways, and one reasonable and most sensible way is through politics. In order to obtain the vote of confidence from the public, the political parties will be holding manifestos. A manifesto is one of the most polite and in a way of gentlemen’s method to express policies for their governance of a country. Manifesto can be defined as a declaration of one’s motive, thoughts, intention and so on. During the manifesto, they will propose all sort of policies that with them in hold with the dominance among the political parties, which will benefit the public. In an efficient manifesto, one should be expressing one’s motive or intention and avoid defaming others, as one of the most crucial factor that will affect the vote of confidence by the public is the image of the person manifesting the policies. This is because of defamation does not keep track with the main purpose of having manifesto instead it devalues others, which the public appearing in the manifesto tend to listen out the policies they will be having instead of personal opinion on particular person or other’s act. Therefore, one should keep track with their political agendas and try not to detach themselves from it.

Politics is one of the most complexing theory as it requires deep-rooted understandings in terms of law, language, psychologies and so on. Therefore, a few clarification in terminology needs to be made so that the understanding of politics may be easier. Firstly, ‘politic’ means a shrewd or prudent in practical matters; tactful; diplomatic. It is a description of a characteristic in a person. For example, a politic person is of wise in making decision as he has gave a deep thought about the decision which will gives advantage to him in the near future. Secondly, ‘politics’ can be describes as the action of governing or influencing others by the authority in possession, to decide a particular matter. ‘Politics’ originates from Greek – ‘politikos’ of, or pertaining to, the polis. The term ‘politics’ may be interpreted according to the audience as it may either targets the public or maybe even a particular group of people. Thirdly, ‘political’ is a description for having relationship with ‘politics’. The term ‘political’ is to describe an action or a system having political effects. Fourthly, ‘policy’ referred either to a rule that one sticks to in producing a particular result or a plan of action that agreed by a particular group. These four terms have interlink with each others, which a standalone of one of these terms may inferred some other meaning rather than what was intended to, therefore cross-reference should be made to each term in order to deduce a proper understanding of the context.  

Politics may influence human thoughts, it is therefore an immediate threat to existing human nature. It is a threat for the neutral point of view from a particular perspective, it leads to inclining from a thought to another or known as to be biased towards a view. Political methods may derive from any manner, from internal to external, from a thought to an action. A mere motion may even contribute to political influences, it triggers the consciousness of the existence of a matter by creating an image of thought which guides to a particular direction. Having these political influences, an impact may be made. The impact drives one from a notion to another, which in other term, a person is injected with other’s thought making one to take into account of another while making a decision, which arise the probability of decision made favorable to the influencer. Therefore, politics is a powerful tool in manipulating others, it has direct impact with psychology of a person by having one to take in a thought even if it is a mere expression while making a decision. Having this powerful tool in possession, one will have the possibilities to control others through their thoughts, when making an action. It should be emphasize that such method is not a definite method as some people will not be affected for their impassive manner, however there are some exceptions. It may be concluded that it is like a bet, the influences should be significant instead of being minor and of concerned with the quality instead of the quantity in order to raise the probability of influencing others.

One will be concerning with a matter even in a minor manner, is in the situation of a matter that one has interest with. Interests in relation with politics is of concerned with the policies and authorities because it is a two-way interests in terms of power-gaining and public affairs. As mentioned, through an election the public will elect their favored party to govern the public affairs, and upon recipient of the positions, the government will be executing the policies proposed. The public gives their right to the government so that the government may govern their affairs in a suitable manner, which is of consensus by both the parties as the public have given their consents. It should be noted that the government were being separated into three branches, namely the executives, the judiciaries and the legislators. The parties that were selected by the people through the election is under the branch of the legislator. The legislator or known as the Parliament contains of the political parties because the politicians were the representatives chosen by the people to establish the policies manifested. The parliament upon the majority votes among the members will give an enactment of the policies, a policy will be established through the executive. It can be concluded that the public were voting for the seating of the members of Parliament, which gives direct impact to their affairs. In such transparent election, there appears politics.

In an election, it is alike to a competition for the politicians as whoever gets more votes will be able to get more stands in the Parliament. The politics here will be the method used to obtain votes from the public. All sorts of method will be used, as the main objective is to get the votes of the public, from misguiding to revealing the twisted truths. The politicians may defame others, which lead to decrease of confidence by the public towards a particular politicians. However, it does not necessarily gives a huge impact to the public as it is not necessarily to affect them in the near future. The public in relation with the election in nature is to assure that their affairs are being well-taken care of, instead of favoring any parties. As mentioned, the well-being of the affairs are the main concern, one might even go against the moral of a reasonable man for their own personal gains. The gain is to be interpreted in either a collective manner or individual manner, which will be the well-being of the public affairs and the personal gains respectively. It raises the probability that one will be bribing others while others accepting the bribe as it brings benefits. From an analytical position in measuring the interests of the affairs, it is practical for the bribing activities to occur as it is beneficial for both the parties while not affecting the one accepting the bribe from a negative perspective in the particular transaction. Bribery can be defined as an agreement done between the parties privately without any concern of fair justice or the legality of the agreement. This is one of the political method in achieving one’s desire, it is being described as bribery instead of contract even though there is promises in existence, yet it is not a contract, as a contract must be a lawful agreement between the parties. In the bribery, the parties involved are the briberor and the briberee or known as the one bribing and the one accepting the bribe respectively. The briberee has an intention to achieve his desire through the briberor, and the briberor only show his fondness towards the rewards from the result of the bribery. Once again, the main concern of well-being of the affairs is to gain benefits, which it is not necessarily to be lawful.

Other than being a personal gain, politics is also a gain for a community. By taking account of the main concern of the well-being of the public affairs, the people have the rights of choosing their government in executing the policies. The public will vote for the political party with better policies manifested, so the parties will try to meet up with the people’s demand. This is a balance point between the benefits of the government and the well-being of the people, as the people give their rights to the government for good policies to live under and the government in order to obtain the vote of confidence tolerates with the people’s demands. The people therefore plays an important role in a country, because they will be deciding the fate who to be their government, by being active in political situation. In other words, the people are also the politician as well, as they decide the fate of others. Having both the political parties and the public as the politicians, they are both accountable to each other as they tend to gain benefits and in order to do that, they both have to be tolerance to each other until their political desires are achieved. When these entities tolerate to each others, the requirement of check and balance is met as the political aim of check and balance is to ensure that the parties being accountable to one another for the fair justice in the administration.

Existence of more than one political parties mean more than one force intended to achieve political desires. Those of which is said to be having the political desires may not necessarily to have political desires, but desires instead. A desire is an intention, an urge, a want to achieve a particular end, which need not be in physical form but being able to fill up the needs that derives from the intention. Politics originally tends to achieve a particular end, to resolve a dispute, to align other’s thought to be with the influencer and so on. However, it is sometimes being abused as one of the core of human nature is filled with intentions, it may be in good faith so as to desires. A good faith is to cause others with the end result of benefits either in physical or non-physical form, whereas a desire is with the end result of causing among the adversely affected party to lead to benefits or harms to themselves or to others. An adversely affected party need not to be others, but may be the one with the desire himself because he may want to affect himself through the end result of the desire. It should be noted that both has no time frame, which means the intention need not necessarily to give impact in present or instantaneously but may be in the future as well. Therefore, we can conclude that intention has close linkage with desires and politics is one of the method to achieve the desires.

As mentioned, people are filled with intentions. Desires and good faith may come in consecutively or in the manner of intersection and so on, as human nature are a philosophy for the reason they being not definite. Any factors may contribute an intention to be desire or good faith, each of them may give rise to one another due to the human’s nature. For example, in an occasion of achieving something with good faith, may metamorphosed into desire because there are different demands in presence from time to time. The needs in human may vary from time to time because different prioritizations may emerge from time to time. Human being has different prioritizations from each other as each of them have their own unique mentality which result in different approaches to come into a decision making. Even if human being unique in their mentality, they may come into the same needs as each other, in other words they may strive for a common interests. In relation to the factors that affect the needs of the human beings with the human nature, people will try to make the surroundings to align with their intention so that they may achieve what they have intended to. One of the most effective ways is to influence others so that those being influenced will come into result to what they have intended. In order to influence people, politics may be referred, as politics primarily targets human beings as their audience. In politics, people tends to benefit themselves and they have exchanged terms and promises with consents to achieve the political desires. However, not all the occasions that terms and promises being exchanged, yet political desires are being achieved. The element in such circumstances is that the influenced party being induced to cause what have intended by the influencer either in falsely or with consent given. Therefore, politics can be used in a flexible manner when it comes to influencing others, as people may either come in agreement or acknowledgement with what has not intended but has consented to.

In order to establish an effective politics, one must be able to influence the others. In practical, there are more than one influences being exerted to one, as there are always more than one ideas being exerted to a person. It may be presumed that only the idea that made the most significant impact to one’s decision making process will be able to successfully influence the others. The influencing system is like a competition, a game, which influences being more dominant than the other will be able to successfully inject the idea towards the victims. However, politics is not like a regular game, as it has no rules. It is like a situation where the pirates may overrule the navies so long as they have the capabilities to do so. Due to the nature of the politics, it is widely being recognized as ‘Dirty Politics’, as people may use any sort of methods to achieve their political desires or maybe even personal desires. In a game there are restrictions imposed by the rules of the game, whereas in politics the restrictions are imposed through the legal system of a country. For example, a politician may infringe either an offence imposed by the law in the country or law that has relevancy with the subject, e.g. international law. Other than personal conduct, voting system may affect the election result as well, namely the gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is a voting system that used to favor specific political party and have the possibility to steal an election even in a disadvantaged position. Gerrymandering is a game of puzzle as it makes the result of the election indefinite by introducing more dimensional views to redistrict the representatives of the House to either have more or lesser seats. It should be noted that politics differ from legislation, although both may regulate people in some senses. There are loopholes presence in the regulation of the politics due to the nature of the legal system in the modern worlds, as the legal system in the modern worlds are mostly man-made laws by the legislators, which they are always either being amended or enacted in order to suit the circumstances. In relation with the laws and the politics, one may committed an offence, but may not necessarily infringed the laws due to the nature of man-made laws. Such nature has made the plain and surfaced meaning of politics to a wider field to be studied and interpreted.

In a game, there must be either a player or players involved. It can be deduced that the players have the right or interest with the outcome of the game. Those who may affect the outcome of the game are the players, they may be influenced by external circumstances but it does not have much of an impact as they are the ones who decide and make such moves. In politics, those who have interests will be the players. These players get to decide the welfare of themselves or the others. Therefore, they are those who have the authorities. However, it is not an easy task to determine those who have the authorities as they may either be the public or the politicians themselves. This is because the check and balance system provided in the politics, which the outcome is the main concern and in order to achieve favorable outcome through politics, recognition and acceptance by others should be taken into account as the audience of the politics will be the one determining it. In determining the one who has the authorities, we have to determine their intentions in prior, as politics is to achieve a political purposes and one of them is to benefits either oneself or others. The one providing the benefits should be determined as those who desired to benefit themselves through fulfilling the terms and conditions given by the one providing the benefits, are those who have the biggest influence with the decision making process of the influencers. The influencers tend to influence the others so that the benefits may be obtained from the promisee, which the benefits may be from the public as well. The public in receiving the public welfare and the government in receiving the authorities, which both will be able to benefit themselves through the politics. The issue in determining those who can provides the benefits should be pointed at the audience in receiving the benefits. Those providing the benefits understand what their audiences need and they are able to fulfill the audience needs, which it has created a chemistry of fulfillment in terms of needs. In this modern era, capitalism is the trend that most countries run with and trading is one of the way in exchanging terms, which it usually involves money. Pablo Picasso has quoted that, 'I'd like to live as a poor man with lots of money.' Those with a big wealth may be assumed to have better influences as they are able to fulfill people’s needs through sufficient money.

Politics is only a method to achieve a particular end, which it may not be the best one, but an effective one instead. One may presumed politics in any way as it is a theory, but the applications will be of the main concerns as it has the direct impact with the result of a conduct. The core of politics is to gain benefits as well as to better governance, which the parties may include the influencers, the influenced and the one providing the benefits, because they each tends to achieve a particular end and in order to achieve that, politics is used. Finally, anyone may be a politician as well because the nature of a politician is to be in active in politics, which the parties involved are borne with interests with their affairs and when interests shown and actions taken, they have direct influence with the outcome. Therefore, politics may be interpreted in a flexible manner, which the passage focus more on politics to be either a gain or a game.

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