Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Nodrog
This unrelenting pragmatism is reflected in the electorate ... based on the unprincipled short-term pragmatism which is pretty much the defining aspect of modern middle-class 'liberalism', which centres around the belief that "as long as something doesnt adversely affect me in the short-term, who cares?". The short-sightedness of the middle classes towards anything which doesnt directly impinge on their day-to-day lives, and the associated refusal to think in principles or consider bigger pictures, is imo responsible for a huge amount of shitty political practices over the last 100 years and was nicely summed up by Ultimate Newbie earlier in the thread:
|
Its true, i pretty dont much care about what counts as "political news" for virtually all of the media cycle these days. So much is made of absolutely nothing at all, that its not unreasonable to be apathetic towards most of the comments that politicians make or do virtually all the time. However, having re-read that part of my post, i think i might have come across as too disinterested. Personally, i dont have much interest in most things, particularly social programmes that arent really or wont be felt by widespread areas of the communities (and thus, is easy for me to dismiss as irrelevent or unimportant to me and what i perceive to be the direction of Australia). Things like saying "Sorry" to the stolen generation, Aboriginal Land Rights issues, and so on, i dont think are overly important - though i recognise that many others think they might be. What i do really care about is the economy, and government programmes and etc that impact on the economy, including things such as health, education, IP and industrial relations law, macroecomic mangement, microeconomic reform and telecommunications. These issues are extremely important for a modern mixed economy like australia, and where mindless stupidity and political meddling to get elected really concern me. So its not that i dont care, its that i'm more selective to what I care about, and even then most of those issues arent (directly) selfish.
I took your post to be critical of what i said earlier.
I agreed with much/most of what you said prior though.