Politics has never reached the importance in people's daily lives as it has any time before in history. In today's world, the globalization trend has made all of our lives interconnect whether we are aware of these connections or not. Furthermore, our world population has become so large that the competition for natural resources, especially non-renewable ones, has become an intense rivalry among many different nations and even some of the global corporations. In his 1936 book, Harold Lasswell stated that "politics is who gets what, when, and how[footnoteRef:1]." There is a clash of cultures and ideologies that accompany the ongoing struggle for economic activities and industrialization. All of these forces are interconnect as the world faces some of its greatest challenges that civilization has had to face. The only way that these challenges are going to be overcome peacefully is through knowledge of these environments and finding creative solutions to ecological and social problems. [1: (Why Politics Matters)]
Discussion
Politics is one of the oldest and controversial topics in history. It represents a wide range of differing opinions that are often based upon strict ideologies that are imposed upon us as we begin childhood development. Many of the aspects of...
Such trends are clearly evident in the study of different demographics and how they have different identifiable opinions towards various issues. For example, female youth voters have outnumbered males who make it to the polls in every year since 1992 and there are also even more pronounced differences in the number of college educated women vs. non-college educated women that turn out to vote with the education received leading to a higher likelihood of participation in the electoral process[footnoteRef:2]. [2: (Why Politics Matters)]
Humans drive the political process and they are prone to mistakes. During the McCarthy era in the United States, the only individual in the U.S. State Department who could speak Vietnamese and who had a good knowledge of that country was forced to resign because of the witch hunts of Senator Joseph McCarthy[footnoteRef:3]. Much of the Vietnam catastrophe could have been avoid with better information about the people and culture of the Vietnamese. Yet it is often the case that ideology drives politics and politicians are known for believing that their point-of-view represents reality when in many cases the actual events…
