As we know by living everyday, politics is one of the most important and spoken sections. This happens because our life revolves around the politics that we live. Fun fact: although politics is the central focus of our lives – better yet, the central focus of how we should live our lives – , we are not literate in this aspect. Is not a subject we are taught at school or a conversation with our parents. It is a subject that we have to understand as we grow up.
The importance of understanding politics
So, as we already established, politics is the central point of our lives. That is because, based on that, we are able to do or not do something, understand wrong and right, pay for our actions, etc. It is something that is imposed on us. Nevertheless, we live in a democracy, which means that we have the right to choose. The politics that dictate the laws of our world, they are chosen by us, with every vote of trust that people deposit in each candidate.
So, we have the power. And as Spider Man’s uncle Ben once said: “With great powers comes great responsibilities”. Which means that, by choosing someone to govern our country and everyone who lives in it, we are choosing the destiny of our entire ecosystem. It’s a BIG deal. So, it is not something that we can choose just for the sake of choosing. Agreed?
Think about the latest elections, there were times in which we wanted to know all the candidates, see all of their proposals and know all the laws. But, first things first, our primary concern should be understanding how politics works. The proposals, the votes, the strands, the history, and the history of politics.
As we saw, there isn’t such a big concern for us regarding understanding and learning about politics. But for now, how about some tips for you to get started in this subject? Below, we separated some things that you can include in your everyday routine to facilitate the process of learning, and I really hope that helps you with it :)
1. Search and research
We have such a great search repertoire to compare and learn about politic. You can find the history of politics documented in laws, papers, books… and one of the biggest instruments for the sociological study of humanity: the cinema. Art has a potential to bring joy and knowledge for those who are eager to learn.
That means that there are options to know more about the politics and be inserted on the subject. Books and movies, especially, are the most famous forms. Both of them carry with an expressive language, almost playful. We are raised to think that politics is hard to understand and boring to learn, so, it’s important for you to find a way that makes it easy to understand the concept.
We have movies that approach specific moments from politics and history. Watching them can bring you knowledge for understanding not only what influence and contribution that the episode had for the political scenario, but also, can help to understand a little bit more about political critical thinking and how things developed, both in the national and international political context. Two acclaimed tips for you: Winter on Fire and Argentina 1985.
On the other hand, if you are the booklover type, these universes are the spaces where you can find books that contain almost a tutorial to help you to understand politics. How it works, its reasons, the strands… A little bit more explained and theoric, depending what you are looking for. A brazilian book written by a woman that can help you in your journey is “Política é Para Todos” by Gabriela Prioli.
And, to complete our list and give you all the best options, another approach that has conquered many hearts, are the podcasts. Designed to make it easier and optimize your day-to-day routine, the podcast talks about a lot of subjects in a daily and informal way, being easy to understand for all audiences. The tip of the time is the podcast “Café da Manhã”, by Folha de São Paulo and hosted by the journalists Magê Flores, Gabriela Mayer, and Gustavo Simon.
2. Practice politics daily
To understand politics, you don’t have to be a politician, not even pick a side. What you do have to know is everything that is happening at the moment. So, the best option to follow all the news is: read newspapers – and news websites. It’s important to be online and active in every step of the way, because, by knowing how things move, you understand more about the subject. Besides, it is really important to understand the scenario that we are in.
You can download some apps or newspapers online to make it easy. All the news is updated all the time, giving you the chance to accompany every decision and understand step by step.
3. A real match: politic and history
As with all fields of our life, understanding politics requires time, energy, concentration and disposition for learning. Besides, it is a really dynamic field of study that changes everyday, a field that has been in the history of the world since about the beginning of everything, having its starting point in Ancient Greece. And, for those of us that want to understand more about politics, what’s better than understanding both old politics and history?
It’s important to build a solid base of learning about this subject. You will see that, if you compare them, history repeats itself a thousand times, and, by knowing the history, we can identify some situations in the present and, luckily, prevent bad things from happening again.
To do so, it is really necessary to study history. All those things that already happened, gives us a perspective about some things. First, history explains how we got here, the reasons behind it, the hits, the mistakes, the different sides…and helps us to better understand how and why some things – since ever – work the way they do. Actually, history is the biggest area of research that we have to study, learn and apply to our own reality.
4. Extra tip
Since we get into the historical theme, it is recorded that women do not have such an active participation in fields of politics. That happens because, for the most part, the history that we know was predominantly dominated by men. A research made in 2017 shows that, in Brasil, for every 7 male MPs, there is just one female MP.
So, here goes a big thanks to all the brave women we are turning to. Today, these numbers are changing and growing, but still have a lot of male chauvinism and zero equity. Therefore, history shows that a lot of women have fought to change the politics of the world for us to live as we do. So, now it’s up to us to keep this history going.
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The article above was edited by Fernanda Miki Tsukase.
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