The Varied Roles of Ideas in Politics: From "Where" to "How"

Quote: "To reduce politics solely to material interests and strategic calculations is not only to be willfully ignorant of how the world actually works, but it is also to deny a significant part of what it means for individuals to be human and for societies to be democratic."


Mehta mentions how they view an idea as what shapes people's actions. Our actions are not always what's best of us. We don't think about how our ideas will impact the future (strategic calculations). Politics isn't just about material interests, for example, Bernie's idea of removing all of the student loans. Many college students believe it is the best thing we can do when in reality, it is just the influence of the fact that most people struggle with student loans and current students do not want to go thru it. With eliminating student loans can come higher taxes or less income tax returns or cuts in other budgets. This type of idea is what makes Bernie a human and what makes the United States democratic. Republicans and Democrats argue what is best for the people but also makes people go against their own interests.

The quote was chosen because we are in the midst of primaries. We, as voters, need to be paying attention to what ideas these candidates bring and what that entails. We should be thinking about what interests these candidates think about when bringing ideas up.