Posthuman Blues

I'd like to take this opportunity to announce my "write-in" candidacy for President of the United States. I haven't decided on a running mate yet. I might just do without one. Seriously: Who cares? "Politics" is simply a convenient label for the process by which stark realities are assigned numbers and filed away for the benefit of speech-writers.

By now you're probably telling yourself, "I bet Mac would make an ideal President -- but where does he stand on the issues?" I think that's a fair question. But before I start in on a bunch of nebulous political concerns (of which I honestly know quite little), I think it's fair to examine these vague, frequently abstruse, self-perpetuating phenomena we call "issues."

What, exactly, constitutes an "issue"? And why do we keep hearing about the same "issues" every four years? Granted, I have no former experience in the political arena, but it seems to me that the defining nature of an "issue" is its subsequent resolution. The fact that the so-called "issues" that dominate presidential elections are never satisfactorily resolved strikes me as extremely curious. If I didn't know any better, I'd even consider the possibility that there's an implicit vested interest in perpetuating various problematic "issues" so that voters can be more easily manipulated.

I also hear a great deal about "values." You're probably wondering right now where I stand on the issue of values. (And yes, as far as I can discern, the very prospect of "values" constitutes an "issue" of its own; conversely, "issues" can take the form of a pressing "value." I think. It's all quite complicated. And again -- it often seems as if this state of near-terminal abstraction is willfully perpetuated, like a gear in a machine that's lovingly oiled lest the entire mechanism come screaming to a disastrous halt.)

Forgive me for sounding cavalier, but my stand on the "issues" is that there are no issues, at least as popularly conceived. I think issues are flimsy thought-viruses, mere gears in the electoral machine. Deeming something an "issue" is a way of distancing oneself from it.

As President, I'll do away with "issues." Completely.