To say that politics is about division is a general statement. It may even be unifying. But it isn’t neutral and so it will be (and is) countered by statements that disagree.

I’ve been thinking this over for a while now, and ultimately, I very much like what you have done by making the connection between sacrifice and law. It is clearly not equally applicable in every instance. HIV-positive persons and sex offenders are stigmatized people, and the laws that concern them bear the mark of that stigma. The founding of a library, or the establishment of a holiday, could only be compared to an incision through an act of strained rhetoricity. But so much is not required; your category helps us think through some of the commonest acts of politics.

I love the OED, should have checked that myself but I’ve got the end of term lazies something fierce and a mild case of the end of term stupids.

I stand corrected about the etymology of decide. I’ll have to think more about the -cision stuff and get back to you. I think there’s a related something here about negation vs positivity.

cheers,
Nate

The OED presents the following etymology for “decide”:

[a. F. décider (1403 in Hatzf.), ad. L. d{emac}c{imac}d{ebreve}re to cut off, cut the knot, decide, determine, f. DE- I. 2 + -cæd{ebreve}re to cut. In OF. also des-cider, in Eng. des-, dis-: cf. DE- I. 6.]

And the following is given for “decision”:

[a. F. décision (14th c. in Hatzf.), ad. L. d{emac}c{imac}si{omac}n-em cutting down, decision, n. of action from d{emac}c{imac}d-{ebreve}re to DECIDE.]

The etymology for “incision” is quite interesting:

[a. F. incision (13-14th c. in Hatz.-Darm.), ad. L. inc{imac}si{omac}n-em, n. of action from inc{imac}d{ebreve}re to cut in, INCIDE v.1 The 16-17th c. spelling in insc- arose from erroneously referring the word to L. scind{ebreve}re, scissum to divide, tear, cut: cf. abscision, abscission, and scissors (orig. cysours, cizars, F. ciseaux).]

The prefix “de-” has a rather complex etymology.

Etymology aside, I like what I take to be the spirit of emphasizing division, but it seems to me that politics could just as much be said to be about uniting rather than dividing.You say that politics is about dividing, but at a level larger than the individual. Which means that politics is about some level above the individual at which at least two individuals are united with each other against other individuals.

Similar relationship between dividing and uniting in the line you quote from Jodi – one movement or position is only recogizable as itself if it differs from a second movement or position. Parallel to the disagreements over sovereignty at I Cite, if these movements or positions are to be recognizable as being movements or position then there must be some unifying quality to them qua movement/position. Also, to say “all politics is about division” is itself a type of unification.

take it easy,
Nate

I didn’t necessarily have economic questions uppermost in my mind as I wrote the original post; that was the result of negotiations with commenters.

It’s good to get your take, though I admit that I don’t see how each act of political affiliation and collective decision cuts into the body politic. The bodily metaphor appears problematic; a “healing” could mean the successful repression of a resistance movement. An amputation could mean an insurgency — perhaps the body we are looking for here is the body in Evil Dead 2, where the hand becomes possessed and goes for its own throat.