Politics Under Your Skin
by David Munez Mendez, , December 11, 2005
Nowadays, most of young people don’t want to think about it. They say “It’s easier if you just keep on going”.
Does politics matter? Even if we are not conscious about the rest of the world (the world that begins next to our door), politics is not something invisible and far away from my daily life (the people who I talk to everyday and those things that I can touch).
Politics is my neighbor’s. Politics is under my clothes, under my hair... Nowadays, talking about politics in some countries is really difficult or it’s a “must be for the brave”. But it doesn’t mean you cannot think about it or if you want to, take sides.
When you are defending your own interests, you’re doing politics. When you are taking sides about every little matter of your life, you’re doing politics. We’re exposed and affected by decisions and rules that can change our lives or behaviors. It seems that someone or something can control what we can or cannot do, what we can or cannot say, what we should or shouldn’t think about.
Politics is everywhere. Recent nominees to the Supreme Court in Washington D.C. are far away from our personal world. But these people are going to set the rules under which we have to live. My entire world and my behavior are ruled over by someone’s personal objections, prejudices, bias… and we’re not conscious about that because “politics sucks”. 
Actually, trying to participate in politics is the only tool that “regular people” have in order to say something about how we would like to live our lives. And this fact doesn’t mean you have to go and support candidates or political decisions at the Parliament’s entrance. It doesn’t mean we have to spend our time trying to talk about matters that we don’t understand. We are involved in politics every time we discuss or argue about something relevant to us. This means that we are invited to think. But sometimes it seems that politicians apparently don’t want us to think. Some people say that limited participation and apathy have a positive impact on democracy. Otherwise, the system wouldn’t work properly or it would be really slow. We don’t know if it’s true or not. But if we have the power to choose our governments, we should be informed of the importance of some of their decisions. They “sold” the nominations to Supreme Court like another episode of political issues (just another story). The right to participate in official political matters is linked to individuals. And this means that even if we didn’t participate in last elections, we still have the power and we would like to be informed about the importance of some “political stories” that will rule our lives during the next 10 or 20 years. It’s not just another political issue. It influences my behavior and the way my life will be ruled. “Taking sides” on politics and thinking about the importance of some issues is the only way to use our power. That’s the only way to control directly our lives. They’re setting the rules of the game and we don’t think about that because politics sucks.
If we have a look of the actual marketing rules, we can understand our buying behavior. Actually, Clotaire Rapaille is one of the most prestigious gurus and marketing researchers. He assure that “people don’t know what they want”, and that’s the way advertisers influence in our behavior. In politics, things go similarly. If you don’t know what you want or what you see… then, someone will decide in behalf of you or someone will tell you what to do. Politics and advertising walk together.
We are talking about they try to sell something as it was washing powder or breakfast cereals, when in fact the product is our own expression of freedom....
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