[Session 4]"'Grandpa,' the little boy asked as he returned from History private lessons, because the History subject at school will be abolished soon, 'were you, grandma, father, mother, uncle and aunty, in Noah's Ark?''Of course not,' replied his grandfather huffily.'Why weren't you drowned, then?' replied the little boy curiously.""Now, let's move on!" said Aloe, to continue the podcast session. "So, are there any good side to Dynastic Politics? So far, I haven't found any authors yet to provide a positive review of this topic.Stephen Hess wrote at length about the history of dynastic politics in the United States, starting from the Adams, Lee, Livingston, Washburn, Muhlenberg, Roosevelt, Harrison, Breckinridge, Byard, Taft, Frelinghuysen, Tucker, Stockton, Long, Lodge, and Kennedy dynasties.Hess, satirically, wrote like this, 'The Constitution could not be more specific: 'No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States.' Yet, in the nearly two centuries since these words were written, the American people, despite official disapproval, have chosen a political nobility. For generation after generation they have turned for leadership to certain families. 'People's Dukes,' Stewart Alsop calls them.The scholarship of politics, however, pays little attention to this phenomenon. It is as if a native ethos—'all men are created equal'—prohibits calling attention to the fact that there are some families who have more talents or more appeal to the voters; who, in short, are far more equal than others at the political starting gate. As John Fischer, one of the few writers to devote himself to this equalitarian blind spot, has written, 'The notion that exceptional people ought to get exceptional consideration—and that their abilities might be transmitted by heredity—is felt to be shockingly undemocratic and un-American.'Then in mid-twentieth century, suddenly, surprisingly, shockingly, American political fife seemed to be largely peopled by such unique families. They were all around us; we could hardly avoid them—Kennedys, Lodges, Longs, Tafts, Roosevelts. The current United States Senate alone contains eighteen members who are in some manner dy-nastically connected.This trend may be because public service is becoming a family tradition, as it has long been in Great Britain; or because politics is beaming a “rich mans game” and the dynasties can usually afford to play; or because Americans vote for a son under the impression that they are voting for the father—or grandfather; or because we feel assured that the “People’s Dukes” will keep their hands out of the till; or because there is some ability which can be transmitted through the genes; or simply because the voters have a sneaking weakness for dynasties.'Hess also tells why he suggests his study, that it 'is in the nature of calling attention, taking note. Its purpose is to bring together for the first time the panorama of American political dynasties from colonial days to the present; to investigate their roles in shaping the nation; and to recount the lives of some two hundred often engaging, usually ambitious, sometimes brilliant, occasionally unscrupulous individuals.'According to Hess, a dynasty is 'any family that has had at least four members, in the same name, elected to federal office.' The word 'elected' should be stressed, for this elite has not existed through 'divine right' or nepotism. It has been freely chosen. Further, Hess says that 'American political dynasties are fluid, mercurial things. Some will die. Some will be born.' The dynasties have been wealthy, rarely have they been immensely wealthy. Moreover, as a high birth rate has been a dynastic characteristic, their money is apt to be dissipated through dispersion.Yes indeed that the families of America’s political elite have also managed to produce poets, novelists, scientists, inventors, clergymen, educators, and men of commerce. While the Roosevelts are known now for other talents, they can point with pride to the inventor of the electric organ, an early steamboat innovator, a pioneer conservationist, a New York philanthropist, a radical economist, and a connection with Mother Seton. Four other dynasties also claim important religious figures, yet the dynasties have not escaped their share of insanity, suicide, alcoholism, mental retardation, financial reverses, acts of embezzlement, and sexual scandal.Most surprising has been the high mobility of the dynasties. Since these families have been well to do and well connected, it might be assumed that the sons would choose to remain in their well-preserved compounds. But greener pastures do not only beckon to those whose grass is burned out. Perhaps reflecting the wanderlust of their nation, political dynasts have been a footloose lot.Hess then says, there are certain traits that are generally found in all politicians—no matter what their fathers’ profession—for example, ambition, gregarious-ness, energy, often a physical attractiveness, tenacity. Given a 'political personality,' a man may be attracted to public life and the public may be attracted to him. Can such characteristics be inherited? Will a political personality, through genes and chromosomes, produce another political personality? The author is neither geneticist nor biologist and the riddle of nature-nurture is complex. But the latest studies agree that, while personality traits are not inherited in an absolute sense, certain potentials are inherited. 'Biological inheritance,' write Professors Kluck-hohn and Murray, 'provides the stuff from which personality is fashioned and, as manifested in the physique at a given time-point, determines trends and sets limits within which variation is constrained.' Thus a dynasty may start with an inherited tendency, at which point environment comes into play. Many dynasties are founded, or greatly reinforced, by one dominant personality.In an era when the nation is producing more leaders of inherited social, economic, and political advantage than at any time since the American Revolution, the question of class leadership in a democracy deserves careful scrutiny. 'History,' E. EMgby Baltzell tells us, 'is a graveyard of classes which have preferred caste privileges to leadership.' In countries where a decaying aristocracy retains some degree of governmental control this can create serious problems. But this has not been the American habit. Rather than polluting the political blood stream, the caste-conscious heirs of once potent political dynasties have proved to be harmless and somewhat pathetic. A century after a wise man of humble roots was elected President, one of Abraham Lincoln’s last male descendants was quoted as saying with airy disdain, 'I never take part in politics. None of the family does.'More than a half century ago Harvard’s president, Charles W. Eliot, wrote, If society as a whole is to gain by mobility and openness of structure, those who rise must stay up in successive generations, that the higher levels of society may be constantly enlarged….” While he felt that the family, rather than the individual, was the important social unit, he was not preaching a doctrine of exclusivity. He was neither snob nor Brahmin apologist. Rather his ideal society envisioned all families as “free starting,” with a fluid aristocracy that made room for “new-risen talent.'There is interesting things in R. D. Laing's essays about Family, before moving on to the Politics of the Family. He writes, 'We speak of families as though we all knew what families are. We identify, as families, networks of people who live together over periods of time, who have ties of marriage and kinship to one another. The more one studies family dynamics, the more unclear one becomes as to the ways family dynamics compare and contrast with the dynamics of other groups not called families, let alone the ways families themselves differ. As with dynamics, so with structure (patterns, more stable and enduring than others): again, comparisons and generalizations must be very tentative.The dynamics and structures found in those groups called families in our society may not be evident in those groups called families in other places and times. The relevance ofthe dynamics and structure of the family to the formation of personality is unlikely to be constant in different societies, or even in our own.[...] What function has 'the family' in terms of the relationship of members of the family? The 'family', the family as a fantasy structure, entails a type of relationship between family members of a different order from the relationships of those who do not share that 'family' inside each other.The 'family' is not an introjected object, but an introjected set of relations.The 'family', as an internal system one is inside, may not be clearly differentiated from other such systems, to which one can give only such very inadequate names as 'womb', 'breast', 'mother's body', and so forth. It may be felt to be alive, dying or dead, an animal, a machine, often a human protective or destructive container like the facehouse bodies children draw. This is a set of elements with partitions the self is in, together with others who have it in them.The family may be imagined as a web, a flower, a tomb, a prison, a castle. Self may be more aware of an image of the family than of the family itself, and map the images onto the family.'Family' space and time is akin to mythic space and time, in that it tends to be ordered round a centre and runs on repeating cycles. Who, what, where, is the centre of the family?[...] The most common situation I encounter in families is when what I think is going on bears almost no resemblance to what anyone in the family experiences or thinks is happening, whether or not this coincides with common sense.Maybe no one knows what is happening. However, one thing is often clear to an outsider: there is concerted family resistance to discovering what is going on, and there are complicated stratagems to keep everyone in the dark, and in the dark they are in the dark.We would know more of what is going on if we were not forbidden to do so, and forbidden to realize that we are forbidden to do so.Between truth and lie are images and ideas we imagine and think are real, that paralyse our imagination and our thinking in our efforts to conserve them.[...] One way to get someone to do what one wants, is to give an order. To get someone to be what one wants him to be, or supposes he is or is afraid he is (whetherornot this is what one wants}, that is, to get him to embody one's projections, is another matter.[..] What we indicate they are, is, in effect, an instruction for a drama : a scenario.'""Ok, I think it's enough for this session. We're going to continue this topik on the next session, bi 'idhnillah."Aloe was going to move to the next session, but first thing first, she'd like to sing Broery Marantika and Dewi Yull's song,Bukankah ini ku tanyakan padamu oh kasih?[Isn't this what I asked you, oh love?]Takkan kecewakah kau pada diriku?[Won't you be disappointed in me?]Takkan menyesalkah kau hidup denganku nanti? **)[Will you not regret living with me later?]
[Session 2]
