Psephy's ~ologies: A post in three parts: an explanatory note

Monday, April 9, 2012

A post in three parts: an explanatory note

A post in three parts

As a new-ish blogger, I’m still coming to terms with the question, ‘What is a reasonable blogging frequency?’ Is it when I have something to say? (That could be every day.) Is it best to confine my thoughts to a weekly post? And what about the times when there is going to be so much to say that I have to break up a post into manageable, readable chunks? This week’s blog is one of those…a post in three parts. The first two weeks of the new regime in Queensland has some of us wondering whether this is going to reinvigorate or recess the state of politics and politics of this state…

The posts in order are:

Part 1: Hubris and humility

Part 2: Women in politics

Part 3: ‘Politics is not a TV show’

They inter-relate, but you can read them separately, or in any order you choose. But most of all, the lesson is we need to be engaged with our politics and politicians—there is something to be said about the truism, ‘we get the politicians we deserve’—we just need to think about that.

By the way, I am working on building in more features to the blog. It's just at the moment, I have more things I want to say than I have time to make a silk purse...you know the rest...

In case you're wondering...

Thank you for visiting. My blog is like many others, mostly a way to extend my conversations on Twitter and/or comment on all the politics as the need arises. Politics is broadly defined here and, as I get older, I am trying to philosophise about life and politics--hence the '~ologies' (the 'psephy'--silent p--is short for psephologist, one who analyses elections).
At present, I'm seeking to find better ways for us, the electors, to engage with those, our elected. I am concerned about where too much apathy towards our politicians might lead us. I actually think the onus is on our elected representatives to engage with us as well.
I'm doing this via explorations of the idea of the 'social contract', espoused most famously by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the 18th century, but flavoured by others including Machiavelli, Hume, Locke, Kant, Mill, Arendt and Maruyama. These philosophical threads weave their way through all my posts here...they are ideas we need to revisit.

I am also a passionate educator and, after some three decades in Australia and in Japan, you'll find I have a bit to say about that too. In April 2016, I relocated to Tokyo to take up a position in the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law at Musashino University. I'll be teaching Japanese politics and peace studies to Japanese students, in Japanese. These views are my own and any resemblance to actual events is likely to be coincidental. But such are our constructed lives and opinions.