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Hello dakka

Having just started studying Politics at University we were posed a question be our Lecturer asking whats written as the thread theme:
'What is Politics and is Politics inevitable?'

I was wondering what Dakka's take on this is, and it doesn't overly matter what political party allegiances people have or what sort of government people beleive is best. Rather I just want to know what you think Politics is (not the politicians before the word 'corrupt' jumps up) mostly so I can build up some background ideas to work from.

ps. Please try to keep flame wars out of this

Well, I would think it obvious that politics is gak, and as the saying goes, gak happens.

Politics is the art of deciding what people will allow other people to do. It is determining who makes the decisions for society and what they are.

It will always happen as long as there is a group of people who need to make decisions.

Do you have more than two people in a single place? Then you will have 'politics.'

Politics is the allocation of power. Wherever there are people there will be power that needs to be handed out, and then you'll get politics.

Politics is the decision-making process whereby the state uses it's power to settle disputes between constituencies. In so much as conflicts and states are inevitable politics is too. In a looser sense being political just means handling other people in a way that helps you get what you want.

It isn't in a looser sense, that is the definition of politics. Whenever you have more than one person you have politics, generally. Government will always be political by nature, but you don't have to be a government to have politics. Families have politics, soccer teams have politics, and even couples have politics.

Politics Is Simple, Lets Break it down:

"Poli-" As in "Poly" Meaning Many/Multiple
"Tics" or "Ticks" Small blood sucking creatures,

Therefore "Politics" must Equal "Multiple Bloodsucking Creatures"

To me, it seems that the word 'politics' has evolved to mean the science of the distribution of power amongst groups of people, a science that governs or is concerned with pretty much all human interaction.