Post relocated to blog.odedniv.me/definition-of-politics, go there for an updated version.
“Using a resource which belongs to others in a wrong way, for self beneficiary rather than for the benefit of the owners of the resource.”
This quote is mine, something that one day just popped into my head — just like any other idea you had. This post will explain every single word in the definition above, until everything makes sense.
It starts with you saying: “Well, wrong is subjective!”, and so I’ll counter with an explanation of the word wrong in this context.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that there are multiple right answers for a single problem; but since there is no God-like alien to guide us from a completely objective point of view (at least not one that you would trust to do so), there are only my own values to separate right from wrong. So when I say “in a wrong way”, I mean that the politician himself (see above definition) considers it to be the wrong way.
So how do I know that the politician considers it to be the wrong way to use the mentioned resource? Well, I don’t, but when someone is doing what he considers to be right, we don’t call it politics — we call it doing their job. Prepare to read this term a lot as the opposite of doing politics.
Now for an example: if the head of a development team uses his team to develop something useless that his boss would like — you would call it politics. When he uses the same team to develop something helpful which his boss wouldn’t even know about — you would call it doing his job.
Oh yes, I am a developer, good catch!
To my current boss — I’m insinuating nothing… Just using your job title.
I’m pretty sure the long read above also explains the words “for self beneficiary”, so I feel like I can skip that.
Let’s explain “a resource which belongs to others” .
This time I will start with an example: when you work hard, and use your money to buy a medium to large television, you use your own resources for self beneficiary. You will not call it politics simply because it’s yours and you can do whatever the hell you want to do with it. Only when you use resources that belong to others — such as a government person using tax money, team leader using the company’s time and budget — only then it is referred to as politics.
Well that was dead-simple.
Last but far from least: “rather than for the benefit of the owners of the resource”.
Last example: when the same team leader uses his team to clean up his boss’s office you would call it politics — he is using the resource for self beneficiary even though he knows this is not the right way of using a group of nerds, and it does nothing to improve the team’s nor the company’s status — both being the owners of the resource.
On the other hand if he’d take the team out for a day under the yellow sun, this would be considered to be part of his job as it benefits the owners of the resource, well, that’s another thing marked in my calendar to prove.
I heard the words “that’s how it is in politics” far too many times. These words mean someone did something wrong (or as I dare call it: evil), usually using your sweat and money — to get more votes, support, cash or other enjoyable things.
Please stop considering that a proper part of our life.
