What would you say to a young man looking to get into politics
Well, the first thing I would say is
It's a mistake to be fatally cynical about politics because
For all the reasons there are to be fatally cynical about politics
There's much more reason to be fatally cynical about
the conflict that will inevitably arise or the tyranny that will inevitably
Manifest itself if we can't handle the dirty business of politics
properly. So I would say don't become prematurely
Cynical about it. The next thing I would say is
What do you know? And
That's a very important question. It's like
What does it mean to get into politics?
Exactly. Does that mean to seek political power? Does that mean to seek power?
Well, first of all, you shouldn't be seeking power. You should be seeking competence and
In order to seek competence, you better know something and so I would say well if you want to get into politics
You want to educate yourself, you know and all the things you need to be educated in life
I mean you can you can start to play the political game to familiarize yourself with it
But you know, it's not such a bad idea - to
well it's not such a bad idea to have a job for a while and
Maybe a career and maybe it's not such a bad idea to have a successful career, upon,
In which people are dependent on you so that you start to understand what that sort of
Responsibility means. And then maybe it's not such a bad idea to have a family because like human beings
mature adult human beings tend to have families and and they transform when they have families because when you have children then someone
becomes more important to you than you are and you're not mature until that happens. And so that's necessary
And so I would say well make sure that if you're looking to get into politics that you're even more looking
To get into competence and that you learned
everything you can possibly learn that would make you a reasonably wise person by the time you
Attain whatever level of power you might, authority, let's say, you might be seeking. I mean I've seen lots of people
Get into politics
You know this happens with ideologues and the way they ratchet themselves up the power hierarchy is by being more effective
Avatars... puppets of their particular ideological stance and there's nothing about that, that's useful
There's nothing in it that will solve any real-world problems and there's plenty that will make it much worse
And so if that's what getting into politics means I would say stay the hell away from it
but if it's a matter of developing your character and then at some point
adopting your social
responsibility then go for it and more power to you because we need people who are competent and careful and truthful and courageous and
forthright to enter the political sphere so that things don't
degenerate and hopefully have some chance of at least maintaining themselves or improving so
There's...you need... What do you need to know?
You need to be really good at at least one thing you have to specialize. You have to be a great networker
You have to know a lot of people. You have to be honest. You have to be articulate.
you have to... You have to have a vision. You have to have a strategy. You have to know something about history and
Economics and politics. It'd be good to know something about science
You know
you have to be a polymath of sorts before you should dare to enter that realm with any degree of
confidence because otherwise
All you are is a loose cannon and you'll come up with global proposals to improve improve the world
You know by waving your wand that will do nothing but make everything worse