Politics and Ethics

Two issues that bear a close relation when we talk about being free to choose or take decisions, for example.
Politics pursues the aim of organizing a peaceful coexistence between human beings in a country so everyone can choose what it is convenient for them.
I think that in order to make an opinion about POLITICS you have to know a lot about the political history of a country, that’s why I can not make an opinion about which one was better than other or why we are going through this current situation in our country.
Savater takes into account two aspects:
The Political System of a country has to respect citizen’s freedom of speech, expresion and choice.
And it also has to guarantee assistance of those who need help or suffer financial problems.
Taking these aspects into account I think that there are many examples in which politicians are not taking conscious decisions about what is ethically correct for us as a society.
Although we live in a “democratic” country, sometimes it seems as if we are under a dictatorial regime where nobody feels free of choosing what it is convenient.
Moreover, we don’t have to watch the tv to see that there are many people from the North who have nothing to eat, we just travel by train and you’ll find many poor, dirty children asking for money.
That’s why I wonder where politicians study ethics, why they can’t do anything to solve our problems, why they vigorously pursue their interests and their needs or the needs of few rich people.
Would it be because the ones who voted for them were not responsible at all?

When choosing is sometimes so difficult…

There are times when we are tired out of deciding which is the best for our lives, we think that there’s no solution for some problems so we feel we are in a dead end.
According to Savater in chapter 2, our behaviours on deciding on such things are conditioned by “orders”, “customs” or “whims”.
Orders come to our life when we are children, parents do not tell us why we have to do it, but just do it! Customs are born with us and it is just like that, we cannot choose anything. Both orders and customs come from the outside, that is to say that we are not free to choose.
But on the other hand, whims are what we like, or we prefer to do, we have no reason to do it. Sometimes we react in a way in some siuations in oder to go against others.
Reflecting on this, in difficult situations we cannot indulge our whims but try to do what is convenient for us without forgetting others.
We have to learn to think twice before we make decisions that can change our life forever.