Dominant convictions, for good or ill, disclose the shared fate of a people; the convictions going out of favor do the same.
Politics, in my way of thinking, is at best a tertiary or later phenomenon: by the time we get to such matters, decisions have been made and emotions stoked based on underlying beliefs which, usually, escape most people's conscious thought. They are usually not so much chosen as reflexively defended as ontologically irrefutable, the very ground beneath one's feet and the air which allows the lungs to expand.
They were integrated into one as basic interpretations of the world worked out by various people and forces within one's culture, one's community, one's family. In fact, initially, a large part of "who one is" is determined by the interpretations and roles one is assigned by the culture of one's birth or upbringing.
Yet these beliefs... are capable of being doubted. Often, they are little more than prejudices and abbreviated remnants of more complex, nuanced ways of looking at the world. They are at all times in need of review and expansion, if not revision, editing, or abandonment and renunciation. Circumstance and integration of many perspectives on one's circumstances are necessary... necessary, yet completely avoidable as the ready-made interpretations of tradition are always strongly calling us to cease struggling with such matters, to rest, to follow, to perpetuate, to impose.
All of this comes before and after something like politics, which is one effect of convictions and perspectives and even theories. It grows out of life, but is not human life; and as such it can hinder or assist in the activity that is living. Usually and unavoidably it does both at the same time and forms yet another thing we must struggle with as part of our circumstance, something to change and constantly adjust (in a democracy); or escape and resist (in an authoritarian setting).
These meditations intend to explore these issues from all levels and many points of view -- the level of life and conviction, the level of ethics, the level of theory, and the level of politics. Some essays will be on a technical level, others on a common, conversational level, depending on the subject matter.