The More Things Change...

Kenyan politics are a mess. The political parties are largely linked to tribal groups in the country, and partisanship is vastly fiercer than here. Last year arguments over a disputed election dissolved into violence that convulsed the country for weeks and left a number of people dead.

Eventually a coalition government was formed and the violence burned itself out. But the parties involved in the coalition are still squabbling, and there are fears that the tensions simmering under the surface could break out again.

In response to this situation, a number of women’s groups in Kenya have called for a one week sexual boycott. The idea is that until the men start talking to each other instead of fighting each other, their wives will withhold their favors.

Just thinking about this idea brings a smile to your face. The concept of women using their sexual power to bring the men in their lives to heel seems rife with comic possibilities. Maybe it has already been done. Wasn’t there a movie along those lines…?

Actually, the idea is much older than that. The same concept forms the plot of Lysistrata, an ancient Greek play, written by the playwright Aristophanes in the 411 BCE. In his version, the city-states of Sparta and Athens are at war. The women of both cities cut the men off until they agree to make peace. The play is, of course, a satire. By poking fun at the men and women of Sparta and Athens, Aristophanes points out the absurdity of our behavior in both sexual politics and state politics. At the heart of the story is an incongruous concept: sex makes us crazy, but that craziness can make us behave more sanely with regard to larger conflicts.

Twenty-four hundred years ago Aristophanes looked at people and politics, and came up with an idea that resonates through the ages, right up to the present day.

That is why I am a conservative. The raw material of society is people. The human animal. Our motivations and desires are the same as they were millennia ago. The institutions, mores, and practices that persist over time do so for a reason: they work. Why they work may not be obvious to us, but we hazard the foundations of society when we make ill-considered alterations to institutions that have developed and held up over long periods.

I believe the current mania for “change” is ill-considered. History is littered with the wreckage of attempted utopian schemes. Until you change people, you better be careful when trying to change society. It has been over two millennia, and we are still waiting.

Even with a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, you cannot repeal the Law of Unintended Consequences.