policy and the bigger picture

           Policy has always interested me. How things work and more importantly what function they serve has proved to be something of an obsession to my thoughts. Policy is the language of process in a world full of differing actors with differing plans, all to achieve differing ends. Policy always has an end in mind. Integral to policy formulation is action anticipation. What happens when we do this? How will this react to this? Questions that address eventualities and causalities. I think of policy making as a science. Once you have aggregated the relevant variables in the policy, all that remains is to analyze and anticipate how those variables will play out under their given constraints. Of course, this isn't a simple process. Forecasting the future can be rather pretentious as any meteorologist can tell you. Complicating matters is the human variable, intrinsic to the purposes policies. Human behavior can be somewhat formulaic in its generalities, but rather unpredictable in its particulars. Ironically enough, policy has a knack for revolving around those particulars. It is often the problems of the few, that become the problems for the many.

         Take prisons for example. A policy in operation that revolves around the problems of the few. Prison is not some naturally occurring phenomenon, it is human policy making in action. We decided that certain parts of our population were a risk to the population as a whole and so we developed a policy of isolating them in captivity. However, over time, our policy on prisons has changed, become more nuanced you might say. In the "developed" countries of the world, there are humanitarian rules guarding the rights of prisoners--although those rules do walk an intrinsically ambiguous line. Regardless, there can be other outside effects of our prison policy. It is completely within the realms of possibility that a policy designed to keep dangers to society in prison actually creates more prisoners and more dangers to society than it solves. I won't push this point on prisons any further, I think you get the idea. Simply, some plans are good plans and some plans are bad plans. Some plans solve problems and some plans create more of the same. The trick is to separate the spurious from the worthwhile. Policy ruminates in the details that are so very integral to the bigger picture. Michelangelo painted the gargantuan Sistine Chapel a top of scaffolding mere inches away from the surface of the ceiling. He was a master of the bigger picture. Even when it was impossible to see in the trenches, all it took was a moment to step back to gain some perspective.