Politics as a Vocation

 
 THE POLITICS OF GERMANY

This is an interesting and very wide lecture on the concept of politics. There is politics in almost everywhere, and also varies on so many factors such as; culture, education, believe and standard living in a particular country. The politics in some part of the world especially Africa is totally different from those in other continents because it is engrossed with culture, believe and so also religion. It's a cultural and power tussle activities, which results to violence every time during the election.

"To be sure, mere passion, however genuinely felt, is not enough. It does not make a politician, unless passion as devotion to a 'cause' also makes responsibility to this cause the guiding star of action. And for this, a sense of proportion is needed. This is the decisive psychological quality of the politician: his ability to let realities work upon him with inner concentration and calmness. Hence, his distance to things and men. 'Lack of distance' per se is one of the deadly sins of every politician. It is one of those qualities the breeding of which will condemn the progeny of our intellectuals to political incapacity. For the problem is simply how can warm passion and a cool sense of proportion be forged together in one and the same soul? Politics is made with the head, not with other parts of the body or soul. And yet devotion to politics, if it is not to be frivolous intellectual play but rather genuinely human conduct, can be born and nourished from passion alone. However, that firm taming of the soul, which distinguishes the passionate politician and differentiate him from the 'Sterilely excited' and mere political dilettante, is possible only through habituation to detachment in every sense of the world. The 'strength' of a political 'personality' means, in the first place, the possession of these qualities of passion, responsibility and proportion." (Page 26)

I like this paragraph because it emphasizes on possession of the qualities such as passion, responsibility and proportion. Passion is very important towards engaging oneself in career and politics is just like a career, and there a politician must first of all other things develop a sense of passion. Secondly, in every action of the politicians, responsibility must be a guiding tool. They must be aware of their action as a responsibility to serve with integrity. Thirdly, distance,  ability to make their actions become reality without being biased or subjective.
These qualities are what the lecture refer to as the strength of a political personality.