The Clash of Alternate Realities

Political Work Never Stops

Political players have to get people to see things their way, so they need to take every single opportunity to present and promote their views as the «actual reality».

Participation is a natural assumption at G1 because we exist as social beings. By contrast, participation is an optional expectation at G2 and only some, the political players among us, will properly respond.

To be a political player, members of powerful groups need:

  • to use the specific instruments of political pressure in a socially accepted way,

    &

  • to be concerned about what the public know and think on matters important to the group

Participation for political players is about the power to influence choices and events in society. However, sometimes to their surprise, they discover…Closed that they do not control much that happens in society, no matter how high they fly. As the framework unfolds, it should become clearer why that is.

Getting the Message Across

Communicating is central to exerting pressure-G2 and the political process. Politicians in each group are engaged in defining reality in a way that accords with their value systems and, unsurprisingly, is self-serving. So anyone entering the political arena needs to be exquisitely sensitive to:

  • What is being said
  • Who is saying it
  • How it is being said
  • The context in which it is said
  • The purposes and values being served.

Otherwise it is impossible to know what is meant by whatever is said.

Role of the Media

Society’s media—press, radio, television, Internet—play a central role in ensuring the dynamics and emotions of politics are heard, explained, checked and balanced by critiques, exchanges and counterpoising of evidence and arguments.

All individuals who are political players need to use the media to assess and respond to the flow of social events currently or potentially relevant to their group. A combination of these channels, instruments and the media create the socio-political realities with which everybody in society must deal.

Read more about the media’s contribution to each G2-instrument.

Society requires anyone who wants to be a political player, to be capable of communicating in such a way as to bring pressure to bear in the service of some group and their values.

Responding to situations or events is the initiation side of communicating, while making sense of what is going on in society represents the receiving end of communication. Those in politics must operate both aspects effectively, but this is never easy.

The strong form of political work involves engaging with others and wider society directly, developing a capacity for unambiguous affirmation of wider values and aspirations, and a persuasive form of explanation and reasonable prediction.

The weak form of political work involves expressions which are all things to all men, which remain anonymous and deviously negative, which are all rhetoric and emotion, or which consist of spin and slogan without substance.

Eleanor Roosevelt: Closed "Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little."

Personal Capability to do Political Work

Participating in a society’s political-communicative give-and-take is difficult work. Its effective performance depends on an ability to make sense of complex situations and to talk about them meaningfully.

Political work is therefore a special «kind» of work that must operate at a certain «level» to be effective.

Closed«Kind» of political work refers to use of the 6 CG2-Instruments: 

Originally posted: August-2009; Last updated: 15-Nov-2010