Adonis Diaries

We all agree that doing politics is a serious profession.  Not anyone is capable of assuming his mandate to serving the community: a voted in political candidate is to be at the beck of his community 24 hours a day and fielding all kinds of requests; he has no reliable methods to controling his daily activities and set aside relaxation periods. 

And yet, candidates to “serving the public” are not taught and trained in schools like all the other professions. Actually, most of the students graduating from high schools and universities have acquired a terrible bad connotation for the term “politics” or “doing politics”. 

You have candidates who think that because they have an academic position, an administrative job with a private company, or just an earning job that they have the right to run for political positions, regardless of the specific job qualifications of being people-oriented and frequently communicating with voters, and listening intently and seriously to voters requests and demands. 

If candidates fail to prove that they are people-oriented before election, how do you expect him to follow up on the daily and countless people’s problems?

People enroll in the field of “political science” thinking that this field will train them for the political arena; wrong!  The field of political science does not train people in the social and psychological behavior of people, which are the right tools for doing politics. 

Acquiring sketchy understanding of the macro politics by lumping whole nations as a single entity or whole regions as potential enemies is not the correct way for training politicians to thinking rationally and for the good of the people in the long term.

There are so many candidates running for political seats (municipality, parliament…) who actually pray not to succeed in their campaigns.  They know, not just theoretically, of their limitations but also in their gut feeling, that they are not ready for serving the community 24 hours a day, day in day out.  Those candidates have learned to establishing a life-style that is mostly peaceful, secluded, reclusive, and not immersed in frequent communication with people; they are terribly bored with discussions, or reading reports, or listening to constant recriminations and requests.  They want volunteer assistants to aids them to communicating with people because their “lazy” life-style is not compatible with actual political frenetic demands. 

Yes, they pray to fail but they cannot help it accepting nominations to run: It is so nice to playing the “pasha” for a short period; playing the game of the short-lived leader; smiling in profusion, but having nothing to say or any detailed program to follow up with zeal.

Those faked “politicians”, actually ruin campaigns by their lethargy for not activily running seriously.  As voters, we like to claim that this candidate has a good program but we always fail to investigate if he is up to the demands of the task serving the community by following up on requests for the long haul.  It is character and inclination for “doing politics” that count most: Programs can be altered and improved but how can you change individual character and behaviors?

For example, if you know a candidate who is constantly pessimistic and skeptical about making a dent in any kind of reforms; that all is already lost for any change, would you vote for such a candidate? 

If this candidate is never sober anytime of the day, would you vote for this candidate?  And yet, as election comes, hop, he is a candidate and on top of the list.  He always fails and his list of candidates too!

Problems with our politicians stem from three factors; first, most of the politicians inherit their jobs, one way or another; they realize soon that they are not up to the requirements and don’t want the hassle; and thus, they delegate their responsibilities to people who were not elected in the first place. 

Second, politicians don’t work for the long term success because they don’t find the time to read, reflect, and grow their inner power.  

Third, they are not people-oriented.  Among the very few politicians who satisfy the two criteria of proven records of capable providers and verbal intelligence, only those who realize the need to strengthen their inner power through reading and reflection and actually taking short “sabbaticals”, away from the media have the potentials to become leaders of people.

In “Hiroshima my love”, Marguerite Dora says: “Human political intelligence is a hundred folds lower than scientific intelligence.”   On the face of it, many would be nodding their heads in consent.  We have got to analyze political intelligence from a different perspective to appreciate that the previous statement is not correct. 

When we deal with human behaviors that are first, in the hundreds of varieties and ever changing with time and conditions and second, the inability of human cognitive powers to assimilate the different interactions of even four factors, or variables at the same time and third, juggling these interactions in real time and under pressure, we can grasp the far complex intelligence requirements of doing and thinking politics. 

Maybe Marguerite Dora meant that the social state of affairs of mankind is not improving due to lack of intelligent political actions and appropriate decision making in institutions.  I say, encourage political institutions to get people engaged and freely expressing their opinions on reforms and you may judge on the superior mankind political intelligence.

Democracy, without prior selection of politicians based on cognitive and emotional testing for mental capabilities, is tantamount to more of the same repeated errors and mistakes for the public good.  Political intelligence would then be vastly appreciated to its own merit when candidates satisfy cognitive and emotional criteria before submitting their applications to public political posts.

The vote of the people would make much more sense when people are initiated and exposed to the complexities of serving the people and extending a higher value for the term “doing politics”. 

The necessary condition, though not sufficient, for a politician is to have demonstrated  that he loves to communicate with people, and to field requests around the day as the main job of public server:  He learns to be pragmatic because he is listening to the demands of the people.