Another conversation over drinks

posted by The Vidiot @ 7:29 AM Permalink

I wish Mr. Vidiot had more time to blog because he was ON last night. We were discussing the pandemic stupidity (pandemic! pandemic! PANDEMIC!!) and I was still stuck in "Why? Why go nuts over something that is clearly not a big deal?" and he explained, very clearly, and I'm certainly not going to do it justice, that the logic of the institutions needs a problem to solve. Without a problem, legislatures wouldn't have anything to legislate. If there's no legislation, the executive wouldn't have anything to uphold and enforce. It would also put the judiciary out of a job since there would be nothing to decide. So the institutions create problems so that the institutions have something to do.

Go beyond the pandemic nonsense (pandemic! pandemic! PANDEMIC!!) and look at the Specter story. The media is loving it, the republicans are loving it, the democrats are loving it, everyone who is part of any institution is loving it because its giving them something to do. The republicans can act all 'republicany' and posture and spin, the dems can walk around all 'peacocky' and pound their chests, the media have a story to report on and get all breathless about. It's like a hurricaine, only it doesn't matter to any real people.

I'm sure all of this is Sociology 101, but sometimes, after he's done explaining it, I'm like, how could I not have seen that?

Labels: pandemic, sociology, specter