Political education

[Tankdown]

Curious, If I am to seriously get into politics. What books, authers, philosophy, or news should I read?

[Camarohusky]

Books: For the most part, ignore them. For the general purpose of understanding politics books are very useless. Political books are very singular. They tend to focus on a single issue or asingle person. As a beginner that is pretty worthless. Not to mention the bias. All sources carry a bias, but when you read numerous sources the majority of biases will tend to dull out. That is not the case in a huge amount of information coming from a single source. If there were ANY books I'd suggest to get a handle on politics in general they would be recent history books (i.e. history from WWI to present). They tend to give the sort of background informaton that will grant a wider perspective on the whys of history instead of being a huge in depth treatise on a thousandth of a percent of the political landscape.

As far as news goes, I'd give a few keys: shotgun, bylines, and generic. Shotgun your news finding. Go all over the place for your news, that way any bias will be most smoothed out. Read the byline news, like Yahoo or MSN. These half stories will be good enough to get the general gist of things before attempting to delve deeper. Finally, the more generic, more boring, and less exciting the news the better. Exciting news outlets use heavy bias or loose journalism to get ratings. Stick to those outlets that at least try to make it look like they have no reason to excite you into coming back.

Philosophy in politics is 100% a waste of time. The only philosophies that matter in politics are the ones people hold as beliefs. All of this intellectual philophoical stuff is nothing but puffery when it comes to politics.

Overall, sources are merely secondary. Form your own opinion and try to defend it against one who disagrees.

[orangebomb]

At 6/5/13 10:27 PM, Tankdown wrote: Curious, If I am to seriously get into politics. What books, authers, philosophy, or news should I read?

Basically, everything that Camaro said.

Every news source, political blogger and even us regular people have some sort of bias when it comes to politics. The difference is that some do their homework using various and credited sources with our opinions, while others rely on one-sided sensationalized media for their opinions, and needless to say, those should be greatly avoided.

I would also implore that if you have something that you agree or disagree with anything in politics, try and be specific about your reasons why you feel that way, instead of slamming others for being ignorant and disagreeing with any of your opinions. A good example would be, "here what's I think the problem is with X is, and here are some solutions to the problem." instead of "YOU ARE WRONG, STUPID LIBERAL/CONSERVATIVE SHEEPLE!!!"

While it's no guarantee that you will get all rational thoughts and opinion posts using the former, {especially from the idiots here} at the very least, the more knowledgeable people here will give you some decency and maybe some leeway.

Oh, and before I forget, never forget that politics in general is the equivalent to either 5 year old toddlers or adult drunks arguing with each other. It may be fun at first, but gets annoying fast, especially if the OP or the issue itself is very polarizing. I'm not trying to dissuade ya into politics, just simply giving you fair warning.

[Halberd]

I use the news and wikipedia. Also forums and imageboards.

I completely agree with what camaro said about books. We had to do an essay for history this year (highschool) and I had to choose two books for my essay because they both had two biased opposite views from each other.

On the up side books sometimes have pictures and info that the internet doesn't have (cause after all the internet gets a massive amount of its information from books) but you should just be really careful with what you trust and don't let people's bias warp your views

[Camarohusky]

I want to clarify one thing: Books are not useless when it comes to political learning. They're actually quite useful. They just often tend to be very narrow and very advanced. Using books to get a view on politics as a whole is like trying to use a chisel and a hammer to carve a mile long tunnel.

If you're looking for in depth information on a single issue or person, including pictures, charts, and alike, books are extremely useful.

Very few people have the time or patience to read enough books to get a wide array of issues in through that medium.

[Tankdown]

Amazing how bias is everyone's favorite word.

Shocked that no one mention about getting involved in the community. Guess community service, or joining any local public speeches to learn more on local leaders isn't important to make this world a better place.

A tad shocked what Camaro said about philosophy. I like to hear in more details.

[Knis]

At 6/5/13 10:27 PM, Tankdown wrote: Curious, If I am to seriously get into politics. What books, authors, philosophy, or news should I read?

Authors; Paine, Locke, Hobbs.

Individual Books: Das Kapital/Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf, etc.., And

When it comes to philosophy you should be as eclectic as possible. Figure out for yourself what makes sense and what doesn't.

[Tankdown]

At 6/6/13 07:49 PM, Knis wrote: Authors; Paine, Locke, Hobbs.

Individual Books: Das Kapital/Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf, etc.., And

^So are these your personal favorites?

If so thank you for that's mainly why I did this. The opinion and knowledge of others.