A lot of really smart people have forgotten what politics means amidst today's political dysfunction. They see it as something unpleasant to engage in only out of necessity. Hence the appeal of Arthur Brooks' call last summer for all of us to do a politics cleanse. Brooks, the dynamic president of the American Enterprise Institute, recommends that we try giving up politics for two weeks. During that time, we should forgo speaking, reading, or even thinking about the p-word. We need a cleanse, in Brooks' view, because politics breeds “animus and contempt” in our minds and makes it impossible for us to “disagree about ideas without bitterness.”
There is surely much to dislike in politics at present. And a cleanse offers the opportunity for many to take a much-desired break from it. But to define politics narrowly in this way is to hold it in contempt. Properly understood, politics is not a “bad soap opera” that requires of us no prior experience or knowledge to follow along. It isn't merely something you do (or watch).
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