Politics has been going in a related direction for some time. Infested with those who dropped in by parachute after university and some political bag-carrying rather than building up experience by working outside politics first.
The issue of what education and career is the best formative experience for politicians is an old one, addressed even by Plato.
The upper class British situation of 100 - 200 years ago seemed to work well. Very detached parents and/or boarding school, to create detachment and cold-heartedness; then the military, to get a sense of how the other classes behave, how to organise things, and learning to deal with real crises; possibly a spell running the family estate or business.
To us, these men would have been monsters. But it worked. I guess that today, we need people with more empathy and broader knowledge. But how much, and where to find it?
Sam - and the upper classes were also likely to have a physical stake in the country in the form of land.
J.D. Vance recently made a speech about the US being the voters' home and how important it is to value this aspect of national politics. At one time there was no need to make the point here in the UK, but many middle class people today seem to forget that this country is their home, not some political abstraction, not the EU, UN or even 'planet Earth'.
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The issue of what education and career is the best formative experience for politicians is an old one, addressed even by Plato.
The upper class British situation of 100 - 200 years ago seemed to work well. Very detached parents and/or boarding school, to create detachment and cold-heartedness; then the military, to get a sense of how the other classes behave, how to organise things, and learning to deal with real crises; possibly a spell running the family estate or business.
To us, these men would have been monsters. But it worked. I guess that today, we need people with more empathy and broader knowledge. But how much, and where to find it?
Sam - and the upper classes were also likely to have a physical stake in the country in the form of land.
J.D. Vance recently made a speech about the US being the voters' home and how important it is to value this aspect of national politics. At one time there was no need to make the point here in the UK, but many middle class people today seem to forget that this country is their home, not some political abstraction, not the EU, UN or even 'planet Earth'.
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