Defining Character II

What is character as refers to our politician? LAGuy has a very modern idea that how the politician lives his life is separate from his political ideas and plans. This is the compartmentalization idea, that was popular during the Clinton scandal. (forgive me LAGuy if I mischaracterize you.) Whereas, I believe that ideas have consequences and the corollary that actions spring from ideas. Therefore it would be very hard for a person to not want to enact his/her perfect world.

The ideal world of Hillary Clinton is intimately linked with her character. (Because I disagree with it does not mean I think she is wholely a-(or im-)moral.) LAGuy says that he will vote for ("hire") the person who most represents his programs etc and conversely will not vote for the person who represents programs he hates. "the more "character" he has, the more reason I have to vote against him. That's how little character matters. " But in saying this he narrowly defines character to mean only the integrity of the politicians stated political ideas with his intent to enact them. He misses what is the larger point, which is that the political ideas and ultimately actions are directly related to who this person is. Now LAGuy I think will argue that this is a distinction without a practical difference. The who of the politician is not really what he hires. A machine could as easily do his theoretical politician's job.

Of course there are two big practical objections to this theory. One is that we don't know ahead of time all the issues that will come before a politician. We only know "how they would generally vote" by knowing their character which is " the inherent complex of attributes that determine a persons moral and ethical actions and reactions." Thus we need to know their character to know how to judge their possible actions in the unknown.

Two, our vision and the politican's vision compare ultimately as our characters do. Our loftiest ideals cannot rise very high if we do not have actions which have supported them in the past. This is something which he will probably strongly disagree with and so I will try to clarify as much as possible ahead of time. My own knowledge of this comes from practical experience. Whenever, I have endeavored to actualize (George Orwell cringes as I add -ize to nouns to verbify them) an ideal, I realize how hard it is. And as I persist or retreat, my own courage to achieve this end defines my belief in its potential for success by anyone. In other words, if I do not really have the courage and persistence to see an ideal brought closer to a reality, I do not really believe that ideal. I believe something less than that ideal. Thus my own personal belief in keeping promises, for example, does actually determine my faith in anyone's ability to keep promises. The more I struggle and persist in my goal of keeping promises, (the more reliable or trustworthy I am) the more I will believe in the ideal of trust and reliability. Obviously I will not always succeed, still my habits do affect my politics. If I don't trust people (or myself) then I might be more inclined to allow artificial barriers (laws) to exist that might not be necessary if people could be trusted.

I hope this clarification of what character means, and how in practice it does not work as LAGuy theorizes it, makes his idea of compartmentalization of character unrealistic.