America's new national export... prepubescent conservatism. Woo hoo. Touted as the next Rush Limbaugh, 14 yr old Jonathan Krohn may indeed be the new face of neo-conservatism.
Now, brushing aside the obvious political banter, I am not interested (in this post, at least) in pushing some political agenda. On the contrary, I find the far more interesting side of the story to be our nation's preoccupation with youth and the political fostering of this home schooled child. It's a little sad when the betterment of society misses out on a superior mind. And while there are a million valid reasons (at least to the people who make them) for the societal value of politics and political theory, its only real, intrinsic value comes through its social commentary; a snapshot of our current public state-of-mind. It does NOT improve it however. At the heart of politics is an extremely complicated set of practices and institutions bent on reorganizing, reinforcing, or maintaining balances of power, and the pursuit of the best practices and control over the most influential institutions is [by far] more of an American pastime than baseball ever was.
I also find it mildly ironic that the majority of this child's life is spent in pursuit of an arena of society which he can only tangentially affect (although, some would argue that speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is much more than a tangentially influential affectation.)
Now, brushing aside the obvious political banter, I am not interested (in this post, at least) in pushing some political agenda. On the contrary, I find the far more interesting side of the story to be our nation's preoccupation with youth and the political fostering of this home schooled child. It's a little sad when the betterment of society misses out on a superior mind. And while there are a million valid reasons (at least to the people who make them) for the societal value of politics and political theory, its only real, intrinsic value comes through its social commentary; a snapshot of our current public state-of-mind. It does NOT improve it however. At the heart of politics is an extremely complicated set of practices and institutions bent on reorganizing, reinforcing, or maintaining balances of power, and the pursuit of the best practices and control over the most influential institutions is [by far] more of an American pastime than baseball ever was.
I also find it mildly ironic that the majority of this child's life is spent in pursuit of an arena of society which he can only tangentially affect (although, some would argue that speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is much more than a tangentially influential affectation.)
