Re-Imagining the Political

The political imagination is all but dead. Mistaking what passes for politics today as "the political" in Arendt's utopian sense is to play into the hands of the status quo. So-called "progressive" politics--which I pragmatically support--is merely the attempt to shield ourselves from the worst among us by means of the mediocre. Sure, I'll take Obama over HRC and I would even take HRC over any Bush, McCain, Giuliani, Neo-Fascist Wannabe. By the same token, I would prefer being hit with a stick over being stabbed with a knife, and being stabbed with a knife over a shot-gun blast to the head. In each case, I am merely estimating my chances of survival. Democrat or Republican, like Coke or Pepsi, is a Hobson's choice. The fact that the vast majority of Americans are resigned to this state of affairs suggests to me that we have entered a phase of what Arendt called "totalitarianism."

A transgressive moral praxis is an effort to extricate oneself from this trap--and, in the process, to find oneself: morally, politically, religiously.

Actually, I take that part about HRC back. HRC is no Bill Clinton. She is Richard Nixon in a skirt. She's a Lieberman Republican--a wolf in sheep's clothing. She is not a choice.

But enough of politics. Onward and upward to the political!