This short essay will discuss the following statement:

Metaphors from sport and war are not just rhetorical devices for talking about politics. They
exemplify how people ordinarily think of politics; that is they always see politics as
confrontational

Unlike the previous essay, this will not focus on study and analysis of academic sources and
definitions, it will focus on showing the examples to prove the point - in this essay, author will
state her believes revolved around this statement. First is that in war and politics any type of
rhetorical devices is subordinate to facts and reality - politics is not philology, its “biology”,
politicians should be able to confront and manipulate centres of powers to get what he or she
wants. Second is that indeed, both politics and sports is always about confrontations, as different
interests collide, however, in politics compromise is possible. Third is that war actually
subordinate to politics and diplomacy (which is essentially politics). Fourth is that sports is
certain copy of war (and thus politics), since different interests collide there, but in a safe, even
“parody” way.

The word 'politics' - comes from Greece - politikos, meaning something relating to citizens of a
city. “Human beings are by nature political animals, who naturally want to live together”, said
Aristotle, implying that politics is the science or art of people living together (Standford
University, 2011). In politics, various interests of people collide, when fortune, careers and even
lives is under the threat. Thus, it is evident that in politics, people are never judged on their
statements, words and the rhetorical devices they use, real actions and interests are the first thing
that professional politicians look at.

“Politics is the art of the possible”, said Otto Von Bismarck (QuotationsPage.com, 2013). Indeed,
politics begins when the process of haggling between different group of people (or even nations)
starts. Ideally, politicians should find the way to achieve the situation when his party (in the
sense of group of people with similar interest) will get everything it wants while paying nothing
in return. However, since this situation cannot be achieved, politicians should seek for acceptable
compromise. Between groups with different interests, there could be a compromise, but not a
meaningful contact. In the view of this, language of war and politics should support this desire to
find most advantageous compromise - in politics everything should be automatically
reinterpreted in own favour. The main aim in this game not to change the mind of opponent
(which will never be changed if there is no interest or benefit), but to show own strength and
reinforce the moral of own side, great example is propaganda.
How common people should treat certain politics and their words? A politician is a person whose
activities are strictly regulated. Politician is in a narrow zone of transition between the
government - inhuman organism and the lives of individuals. Meanwhile, political life is
connected with the social instincts of a person, who always refers to oneself with a politician's
words about, trying to assert oneself at his/her expense. Thus, common people should treat
politicians as their servants (“public servants”) whom they may support or not in their fight for
power. This is normal phenomenon; however, each politician should correctly determine the
political rank of opponent, based by person’s legal capacity and the degree of subordination to
the will of another. Thus, it can be concluded that each word of politician, metaphor, analogy or
any other rhetorical device pursue only one aim - increase own influence and power. However,
politicians should never lie - otherwise the opponents will expose him/her as a liar, thus
discrediting person, s/he should put the correct accents - this is the main area of using rhetorical
devices in politicians. Thus, unlike manager, politician is a person that uses people who are
above ones rank - politician tries to manipulate people who are more powerful, smarter, better
informed and richer than she/he is. Here, the manipulation cannot be done with the help of
metaphors and other rhetorical device; however, they can be used to help convince influential
people that certain actions are beneficial for them.

“War is the continuation of politics by other means”, said Carl von Clausewitz, meaning that
politics is all about confrontation, and war is the last resort in politics. For example, certain
person, with the help of local authorities is evicted from ones home in the centre of the city,
while construction company offers good compensation. This person however, does not want to
live own property - which may lead to legal pressure, then to intimidation and even murder. In
any civilized country the person can go to court and, very likely to defend own rights at the stage
of legal pressure. In international law, there is no such place to defend own rights. There is a
court in The Hague, the UN, but they are actually secondary, powerless, and for the most part
insidiously disguised institutions. Therefore, state can intimidate, beat (impose trade sanctions,
etc.), or to kill (to declare war) another state. This is normal even for the most civilized country,
the examples are not far to seek.

Although, what Clausewitz suggested is that negotiation process is the basis of any military
action, thus killing is just a certain phase of the negotiations. There is no wars actually- only
political conflicts and their negotiations. For example in 1890, Germany decided to take away
Helgoland Island from Britain and achieved this without the war (Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty).
What the possible military conflict would change? In the case of Germany win, nothing, there
would be the same articulated and documented claims resulted in international treaty, fixing
some territorial (other) changes. On the other side, the entire international politics are 'wars',
most of which are cold wars or wars with zero duration (claim and its peaceful satisfaction or
peaceful waiver of claims). Even if we take the war itself, there is economic, political and social
aspect, apart from military. Nowadays, military aspect is negligible while confrontation lies on
other areas. One example is war in Iraq and Afghanistan, where economic sabotage, diversions,
bribery of political leaders and individual terror are most important factors.

However, rhetoric devices can be used for fooling ordinary people, while other parties in
negotiation/confrontation are only interested in facts. In earlier time, rhetoric devices were used
in propaganda among conscripts to make them want to serve and kill for their country to win the
war with the purpose if getting the desired changes, now it is used for creating “public opinion”
for the same purpose. One example can be called as something like “Nuclear and resource war
between U.S. and Europe”. Because of the unprecedented propaganda campaign, nuclear power
plants have been completely discredited among western people. Meanwhile, the conventional
thermal power plant is much more harmful, particularly in terms of nuclear waste. Concerning
the security, the breakout of high hydro dam will can lead to much dire consequences that the
accident in nuclear plants. NPP is fundamentally different from all other power plants, because
the possibilities for increasing capacity are endless. With a normal situation in nuclear power in
the modern post-industrial world, any country would require only ‘brains’ for its development.
‘Brains’ create innovations, while the products can be assembled in other developing countries.
However, after the discredit of nuclear power, any country requires ‘brains’ and ‘oil’ (also
meaning natural gas and other sources of energy). Until recently, the non-national oil (and
natural gas) was in the grey zone of free competition between multinational corporations. Now
control of the resources become most important factor in international politics. United States
will try to control oil-rich regions with the help of military power (which is now evident to most
of ordinary people), while EU (and UK) will try to use its large immigrant community as the
cadre for establishing neo-colonialist control in oil-rich regions (which is less obvious yet). Thus,
it can be suggested that any political action, on local, regional, national and international level
stems from confrontation between people, with the increasing information awareness of common
people, majority of common people would agree with this statement nowadays.

Unlike politics, interests in sport are less significant - losing a match can lead to disappointment
for fans and decreased opportunities for career of a sportsmen, while losing war or 'political war'
can lead to financial and social losses (as well as to higher military casualties). In addition,
unlike politics, compromise is unachievable in sports; there is only one winner. Due that fact that
sport results do not significantly affect life of people, sport became the only area where direct
confrontation is not suppressed by politicians and even supported by media, the latter use it to
enhance the further merge of show-business with sports. For example, the behaviour of football
fans in recent years is well known as virtually the only source of mass unrest on the streets of
European cities. Meanwhile, nationalism of football fans is caricatural and ludicrous, thus
discrediting the idea of direct confrontation between the European nations.

In conclusion, it can be suggested that the range of arguments have proved that politics is all
about confrontation and supported other viewpoints of the author on this topic.
References
QuotationsPage.com, 2013. Quotation Details, available at:
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/24903.html [Accessed 9 November 2013]
Standford University, 2011. Aristotle's Political Theory, available at:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/ [Accessed 9 November 2013]
Yoo J., 1996. The Continuation of Politics by Other Means: The Original Understanding of War
Powers , available at: http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/facpubs/1611 [Accessed 9 November
2013]