Prelude to Politics (1) -- The Definition of Politics -- From the German Collection

 

Image credit.

In preparing the second chapter - Politics - of Attempts at Liberty, I have reached an intermediary stage between collecting the ample material that I have written up on the subject over the years and the final drafting of a coherent flow of arguments.

In the present post and in a sequel, covering my German and my English collection of material, I hope to work my way towards a Gliederung - a grouping of the main themes and the sequence in which they are to be dealt with.

Below, I am struggling hard to come up with an exhaustive and plausible definition of politics in the form of a reasonable mixture between the inevitable abstractness of the definition and graphic examples to make it easier to grasp.

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If, playing by the going rules, a football player scores a goal, and no one contests the result - we are merely playing football, and no politics is involved in the scene. However, the moment someone challenges the validity of the goal, we are beginning to play a second game: politics. What is the difference between merely playing football and doing politics, between political and non-political action? I think the distinction is captured in the following definition [, which I have honed a bit based on this first attempt]:

Politisches Handeln ist das Bemühen, bestimmten Überzeugungen und Interessen zu Geltung in einem Gemeinwesen zu verhelfen.

Source.

By politics I mean a kind of human behaviour that is typified by the specific nature of its objective. 

The intention of political action is 

• to exert influence on 

• any forces and mechanisms capable of 

• prohibiting or authorising forms of socially monitored conduct. 

Put differently:

politics is the exertion of influence with the purpose of

• establishing in a human community the validity of 

• certain  rules and options for action, notably 

• ensuring the admissibility, toleration or enforcement of 

• certain customs, habits, convictions and interests, including going and new rights.

 

Continued here.