Thursday 18 March 2010

Politics: Can't Someone Else Do It?

Politics is concerned with the legitimate exercise of power. Both the competition for power ('who governs?') and the exercise of power (governance) depend on the key concept of legitimacy, since in politics power is acquired by authority not force, by persuading people that you have the right to be in charge, not hitting each of them over the head until they give in.

Tuesday 2 March 2010

Big Bad Sport

A formal definition of sport would be the voluntary pursuit of meaningless objectives by inefficient means involving some level of physical exertion. What's the point of it? Nothing, and that's why, in the normal sense, participating can be fun. It's vaguely healthy; sociable; the exercise produces some physiological pleasure; and one can derive some mental satisfaction from minor achievements within its self-imposed discipline. Plus everyone gets to enjoy those benefits since it doesn't matter much who wins or loses (the goals are deliberately silly).