Politics and research

 Politics and research

In the past few weeks I spent a couple of days attending meetings (online, of course) with a political agenda. I do not mean this dismissively. On the contrary, I'm happy to see politics meet research, in search of solutions to real problems in society. The problem is a gap between the different levels of thinking. Political thinking is often at a high level of accumulation that connects problems we encounter in daily life but, being focused solutions, these levels may underplay conflicts between the various problems, as well as subjugate them to principles. Abstract reasoning is one thing, the validity of principles another. Even great thinkers often fail to understand that they are talking about how people should behave in their view rather than the actual behaviours and their complex motivation. 

Similarly, from a research perspective political thinking tends to be abstract and geared towards quick fixes. This makes identification of the actual problems to be researched rather difficult and, from a political perspective, irritatingly slow and distracting. I know that there are many researchers who promise direct cures for social issues but more often successful research manages to elucidate what is hidden behind these issues and facilitate improvement only there. Of course, the effects can be far-reaching but it takes more than the research results to reach the political or societal goals. In other words, I feel quite capable of explaining the problems street pavements may cause to pedestrians and what a well designed pavement should do than of guaranteeing efficient and safe pedestrian circulation. The latter depends on many more factors and the pedestrians' choices.