>>War may be politics by other means - but that doesn't mean politics is
>>simply low-intensity war.
>Politics is conflict.
Here's a balancing viewpoint which is not in opposition to the above slogans but does modify them *considerably*.
Gloranthan politics are the politics of the sacred.
Gloranthan politics are primarily ritual. Ritual in all the multivalent senses of the word. Rituals of community, fertility, world maintenance, of order, of hierarchy, of authority and submission. Rituals whose prime purpose is to link the sacred and the profane, strengthening that link and glorifying in the majesty, power and knowledge of those whose maintain that link. By definition, such politics are communal, and to a large extent cooperative, even when their effects are violent, confrontational and divisive.
Gloranthan politics are display. Display of sacred power, sacred knowledge. Display of conspicuous wealth and magical energy.
Gloranthan politics are ritual repetitions of world-building and cosmos creation.
Gloranthan politics create and maintain cultural definitions and meaningful oppositions.
Defining purposes are almost *always* mythic in genesis and outcome.
Gloranthan politics, though secular in effect, can never be considered apart from their ritual, mythic and cosmogenic purposes. Outcomes are planned for their mythic outcomes, seldom for power, wealth or authority for its own sake.
Gloranthan politics, working to mythic imperatives, are often consciously self-defeating or self destructive from a secular viewpoint.
Kingship is a sacred kingship, a priesthood. Tribes and states and even empires are mythic, ritual entities.
Politics is the art of choosing the right ritual.
We need less nineteenth century political theory, and a bit more history, ethnography and myth.
John
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