The statement that 'everything is political' has some very strong arguments on either side. Politics does in some way affect everything that happens to us in everyday life, things such as tax, laws and employment opportunity are some examples of what the government has some control over. It is argued that if the concept of politics is stretched too far it loses its meaning, for everything to be political our society would cease to be a democratic nation. We would be under total control of the government, this would more likely be a despotic society rather than democratic.The statement 'everything political' implies that we as a society have ...view middle of the document...
This doesn't prove that everything is political, just that everything appears to be caused by government policies.Minogue stated that private life consisting of family, choice, beliefs and interests is separate to the public world. Private life should be considered as non-political, as this is what makes us individuals. For any government to try to control its citizens private lives would indicate that we are living in despotism. If everything controversial is called 'political', and if (as a popular slogan has it) the personal is political, then nothing is left outside the scope of control by government. (Minogue, K. 1999, pp. 7) If 'the personal is political' individual freedom of choice and beliefs become obsolete. We would be living under a dictatorship instead of a democracy.In conclusion, although if we investigate most things in life we can trace the origins back to politics it does not mean that politics everywhere. Politics ultimately refers to the government, in a democratic society we are in control of how we think and feel so although we can't escape politics in our everyday lives we still have our own choices on how we choose to deal with situations. In contrast if politics was in fact everywhere we would have all of our choices made for us by government officials, we would be living under a dictatorship. Everything is not political not as long as we have the freedom to choose how we live our lives.
