The political gallery

As the country comes closer and closer to the general election, the race to the White House is unfolding like a Charles Dickens plot; each character is playing an extremely important role and adding flavor to the story.\nWe have drop-outs, fired managers and candidates staying in the race despite any hopes of election. In short, this primary season has given my “Elections 2008” topics course in the political science department quite a bit to talk about.\nEach day, a great deal of time is spent discussing the ins and outs of the elections, who of the former runners might be up for vice president, what will come of the final primaries or where we will be by the time convention rolls around. There is a great deal of subjectivity in the process, as each person in the class holds a strong opinion about the upcoming event and specific candidates. The process of prediction, speculation and interpretation of the characters in this political story forces me to ask the question, is political science more of an art form than a science? \nGranted, there is a common thread between art and science that has politics walking a fine line in between. \nLike science, art seeks to reach truth through observation, hypothesis and testing. In political science, there is a great deal of this taking place. \nThere is extreme calculation of past political events affecting the present and future. There is the plotting out of the world and how each area performs its politics. However, politics ultimately does not reach one singular, universal truth; it provides a plurality of meaning, an artistic truth. \nComparative politics is perhaps the clearest example of politics seeking to observe the diversity of political structure throughout the world and examining its meaning artistically. Politics as a whole ultimately seeks to design society in a way that would best serve the world population. In a way, politics is trying to build a utopia, one resolution at a time. It might seem like a great deal of deliberation and all that boring C-SPAN stuff, but behind each honest political process is the desire to make the world better, or rather, the desire to create a vision of a representative world. \nUnfortunately, like most forms of art, this is easily exploited. There is strict formalism in politics that threatens the creative rights of individual politicians with strong potential to change the world. It is our job as art critics to observe this, reject it and focus our energy on higher artistic purpose through politics. It is OK to be right-wing or left-wing, as long as there is a plural truth behind your vision.