An Introduction to Politics in General and the Politics of Anieth

What is Politics?

Politics is another of those words that everyone "knows" and everyone does not know. Most people think of politics as something "they" do off there, where laws are made and things are decided and wars are declared and the kings and queens live and the presidents are elected, and, well, they really don't know! Most people don't realize that politics begins at home in the family as soon as there are two or more people trying to live together. Yet, let us look at the word for a moment. Politics is derived from the Greek word for city, "polis". From this word we get the words, police, polite, policy, politic, and politics. It simply is a word for the way in which we live together, usually in the wider world of the city/state.

Why do we say that politics begins at home? Think of your mother saying to you as a child, "that's not polite." Think of your mother trying to get you to do something you don't want to do. Usually she does not begin with force. She manipulates you and shames you and lectures you and yells at you and denies you rewards and punishes you and bargains with you and, finally, she just grabs you by the arm and forces you to do what she wants. That is politics, government, polite society, and the police. Mom begins it (and Dad.) However, look at the difference between the way that mothers and fathers traditionally treated children. Mom manipulates you, but Dad just gets angry. We could say, half in jest, that Mom is politics and Dad is war. At least that is the way that it is in Anieth; for the world of politics is run by women and the world of war is run by men. In Anieth, politics is a woman's game so that men don't have to compromise honor and face by negotiation. Of course this is a tradition and a habit that is just invented, for on Earth, politics of the family might be female but politics of the state is usually male, or male oriented. A normal man of the Horse People would find male political behavior on Earth disgusting and emasculating and we of Earth found the male attitude to be negligent and asking for trouble. However, Anieth is closer to the family unit, and it was rare for men to be involved in family negotiations.

Part of the difference is in the structure of the family. On Earth, in the West among nomadic peoples, the tendency was toward a matrilineal society. (See What is Family?) This meant that a man was born into his mother's family. When he was an adult, he could leave that family and go out to seek his fortune elsewhere. Sometimes he was fostered into another family. The grooms went into another family rather than the brides, who stayed in the family center. The land was owned by the family and the stock and houses and such was also owned by the family. Children belonged to the family. Women were not bought and sold like they were in the East, but tended to be attached to their children and their wagons and tents and goods while the men protected the group or rode out on adventure. Men loved the fact that if they did not like a woman after a time, they could leave and go find another woman and another family. Families were always on the lookout for good men to guard the stock and the waggons.

A man often did not know who his children were. He gave his personal good to whomever he chose, but his "family" goods went to his sister's children. This made sense because the goods were part of his mother's family and not his. He was not burdened with goods, but had his horse, his dog and his weapons and his clothes and that was pretty much it. He depended on and demanded the generosity of the family he protected, whether that was his mother's family or his wife's or his friend's. This pattern is still evident in our modern society in the carryover of the dowry. Among people who had more goods, a groom's family was compensated for the loss of the son. The more status he had as a warrior or a protector, the higher his price. Often the exchange of goods went both ways, but we still see the dowry being abused as late as the 20th Century. In the East, where brides were bought and sold, the bride's family was compensated with a bride price. To have a bride leave her family and impoverish them with her dowry leaving and going to the groom is a bad mix of traditions. In Anieth, the situation was matrilineal, but the Zelosians were patrilineal and were attracted to the huge dowry that came with the native brides.

On Earth and in Anieth, the duty of the family was to bring a child up with high status so that child could marry well and improve their situation in the outer world. Families who had defective children knew that they had to keep them at home. Parents had the job, not only of "civilizing" children, but of teaching them the manners and mores of the culture in which they lived. They also had to judge what would appeal to the future bride or groom and their family. No matter what the fashion, a mother wanted her daughter to be the height of it so that she would appeal, not just to potential mates, but to their families. If brides were to be quite, demure, covered and maimed by foot-binding or having their necks stretched or impossible corsets, the mother saw too it that all the wildness was beat out of her daughter. If a bride was to be strong and bear fine children and work the fields and set up a house and provide for her family, she was taught these skills and slapped down when she was lazy or weak. It did not matter what the native nature of the child was, but what the current fashion was. Currently, males must be aggressive in business, but not in the home. They must be tall, clean, able to wear the uniform of their career well, bright, eager and willing, but also strong willed and forceful enough to manipulate others with charm and intelligence. A man in modern times must also succeed in a career choice that is lucrative for his wife will add to his status with his business partners by keeping up a show house and a show family. And it falls on the parents to mold children into the current fashion. This is politics, for the state mimics the family on a larger scale: its members must conform to the latest fashion. It protects those who do not have high status, but they serve the greater good in whatever capacity they can rise to. The state wants it's members to have high status internationally so that they can "run the world." Running the world simply means bringing in wealth in the form of food, goods, and other desireables and making sure that others do not take it away.

This is a diagram of the four-fold caste system popular on Earth and also in Anieth where it existed in the Horse People and in the Zelosians. In order for a political system (a city-state) to be stable, the structure needs to support social climbing and falling of the smaller parts (families and individuals) without chaos issuing as what happens in an invasion or a revolution. The castes must be stable and easily identified by manners, language, morals and costume. However, there have evolved values belonging to each caste that underly the superficial markers and make it hard to people to move from caste to caste. These values are what is taught at the family level and also in schools or to school aged children.

Values are usually caste driven and can override and underscore political structures. The values of the Tualárach and of all the other peoples of the book follow this fourfold structure. To get away from the slave/farmer/warrior/priest stereotype, here is another way to look at the castes that is somewhat symbolic.

Water-serfs-performers
Fire-priests-creators
Air-nobles-protectors
Earth-farmers-traders

The problem is when a caste system is not voluntary or particular castes takes over and imposes its values upon other castes.

Briefly here are the values:

The first values are metaphysical

• Water: presence, physical health, perfection of physical ability, prowess, strength and endurance
  
• Fire: time, creation and evolution, exploration and spiritual enlightenment and inspiration
  
• Air: power, mental ability, development of interactive structures, trickery and mental agility
  
• Earth: wealth, management of resources, control of accident, projection and security

The second values are epistemological:

• Water: learning through practice, "body smarts", agility and coordination, accomplishment through trial
  
• Fire: learning through exploration, altered states, creation and destruction of systems, maps and revelations
  
• Air: learning through memorization, systems of learning, precedence and procedure, weighing and judging
  
• Earth: learning through cooperation, social skills, team work, passing on of successful ventures, tradition

The third values are ethical:

• Water: honor of self, honor of competence, honor of youth, honor of health. Rejection of slavery, rejection of sloth, rejection of age and ill health.
  
• Fire: honor of work, honor of invention, honor of age, honor of sacrifice. Rejection of ignorance, rejection of accepting reality, rejection of inexperience, rejection of selfishness.
  
• Air: honor of law, honor of justice, honor of trial, honor of battle. Rejection of anarchy, rejection of tyranny, rejection of initial position, rejection of security.
  
• Earth: honor of security, honor of success, honor of popularity, honor of peace. Rejection of theft, rejection of waste, rejection of poor planning, rejection of poverty.

The fourth values are aesthetic:

• Water: beauty, symmetry, harmony, and the distraction of enchantment
  
• Fire: purity, integrity, truth and the passion of the spirit
  
• Air: rarity, honor, status, and strength of force of will
  
• Earth: popularity, comfort, expense and the satisfaction of fulfillment

The fifth are economic:

• Water: everyone should share equally, from those who can to those who need
  
• Fire: products are given away, everything is valued by time saved and earned for more work
  
• Air: the strong shall rule and distribute according to law and justice protecting the poor from the rich
  
• Earth: opportunity exists for each man to make his wealth and law is there for him to keep it

The sixth are interpersonal:

• Water: romantic love, harmonious sharing of affection, care of the young
  
• Fire: passionate need, kindred of spirits, care of the aged
  
• Air: lust, marriage of status, care of the underprivileged
  
• Earth: companionship, shared lives, care of the family

A healthy political system takes these values into account, building on the lessons taught to children. However, values change and the shifting of power in each caste can sometimes throw values into an anti-attraction. Such was the case when the merchant caste became dominant in the West and the values of the nobles and priests set to mark them out as higher began to have a shunning effect or a shaming effect. This also happened in Communist countries where the values of the slave/worker/performer caste became the dominant political power and threw the structure into flux as people scrambled to "unteach" their children the values of the merchant, noble, and priest castes that were suddenly damaging to social success in the larger world.

On the Family, Law, Religious and other pages you will find out more about values. Our pages mostly focus on the political situations that made interaction challenging for us.