SELF-ASSESSMENT IS PEACE

The Forgotten Oldest Profession!

Politic is amongst the oldest professions on earth, in fact, it is the first oldest profession that has been forgotten and is mostly replaced with prostitution as the first oldest profession (Wickman, 2012). Wickman, 2012 confirmed this in an article “World’s Oldest Profession? Is Prostitution Really the World’s Oldest Profession?”. Hisey Patton, answering a question on quora.com: “What is the oldest profession?” on 18^th February 2017, said that prostitution is the first oldest profession.  Johnson, 2016 also refers to “Teaching as the Oldest Profession”. Johnsons’ argument is that, it is not only humans who are the only animals that teach; and that the teaching profession is older than human and any other profession. Is teaching profession also older than God, the chief politician?

There is a very tall list of writers with none of them referring to politic as the first oldest profession on earth, but we will end it with these two writers. Jim Blasingame said on 14^th August 2015 in an article, “The Oldest Profession Is Not What You Think” that selling is rather the oldest profession of the world. Gerald Goll on 4^th March 2017, answering a question on quora.com: “What is the oldest profession?” disagreed with Hisey Patton that prostitution is the first oldest profession but it is rather tool and weapon making for hunting. That is hunting is the first oldest world’s profession.

Even the second position given to politics is been competed for as some writers also refer to spying as the second oldest profession (Reynolds, 2004) whilst others refer to Astrology (Coulson, 2017). Out of seventeen (17) nominees of professions for the second oldest profession, politic was surprisingly not mentioned (Steinitz, 2007). However, in a book written by Arthur Krock 1971 entitled: “The Consent of the Governed and Other Deceits”, a chapter was entitled “The Second Oldest Profession” referring to politics. Just three years later (1974), Ronald Reagan a Former American’s President also said when he was a governor, that: “It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first”. He was a bit closer to the fact that politics is rather the first oldest profession of the world! In an article; “The Five Oldest Careers that Have Survived to Today” (Baker, 2010), politics was not even amongst the first five (5) second oldest professions of the world.

Now, what at all is politics? There are competing definitions of politics making the definition of politics on itself political (Leftwich, 1984; Bambra, et al., 2008). The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines politic as “The art or science concerned with guiding or influencing governmental policy”. This definition narrows politics to only governance which is far from the case. Politics in its effective form, refers to everything on earth (Bambra, et al., 2008). This means that there is even politic in what most writers claimed as the first oldest profession of the world. It can be used as a term that describes any structural power relationship, likewise; arrangements in which one group of individuals is controlled by another (Millet, 1969). This therefore, means that any and or every issue is politically oriented; the same applies to anyone where everyone can be engaged in politics (Bambra, et al., 2008). These definitions make it clear to us that every profession has some traces of politics in it, thereby giving us the real position of politics in our lives.

Before we come back to politics, let us look at what a profession is and see whether politics qualifies to be a profession. The term profession has its root form a Latin’s word: “Profiteering”, meaning; to declare publicly. To define profession precisely, it is considered to be a vocation marked with specialization training and educational knowledge (Reddy, 2016). Job, Career and profession can be confusing for some people but they are not the same; though they are used interchangeably in some cases. A job refers to any activity or piece of work that one does to be paid with money/cash. The future of one’s career is determined by his/her current job(s). A career makes up a series of jobs that one does one by one to gain experience and skills. When you are doing specialized services to others, you are in a profession. You can build a life-time business opportunity with your profession (Reddy, 2016). Politics, therefore, is undoubtedly a profession where student go to school to learn Political Science. There are scientific researches that confirm politics as a profession (Manoj et al., 2016; Schneier, 1987).

Now, knowing what politics is, we can confidently say that politics is a profession. Most of the writers who have used other professions as the first oldest professions on earth quoted the Holy Bible to support their claims. But besides the Bible or Quranic quotations, our environment itself which is political; confirms why politics is the first oldest profession. From the many varying definitions of politics, I can also say that politics is the act of convincing an individual or group to agree with what you want to do. We can see this in Genesis 1:26 where God said; let us create man in our image, after our likeness and let them rule over everything on earth.

Even though the Holy Quran has a different opinion on what the hadith “Allah created Adam in His/his image (‘ala suratihi) is as narrated by Abu Hurayrah, the word image is still believed to be attributes of Allah like hearing, seeing, knowledge, and so on (Younas, 2009). Genesis 1:26 agrees with John 14: 8-9 where Jesus was talking about his death saying that he is going to the Father and Philip asked him to show them the Father. Jesus answered him in the verse 9, saying: “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?”. This means that politics existed even before creation and during creation. God was convincing the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit so that they would agree and create man in their image and likeness. The act of God giving man dominion over the other creatures on earth, on itself is political!

Therefore, God Himself who created heaven and earth is the chief politician and He keeps assessing Himself throughout the creation. Genesis 1:4 says: “And God saw the light, that it was good: …”; this was self-assessment done by Him. The same thing happened in Genesis 1:10, 18, 21, 25 and verse 31. And God saw that everything He had made was very good (Genesis 1:31), that is self-assessment too. If God Himself is a politician, how can other professions be older than God Himself who is the creator and ruler of everything? Politics was in existence before creation, during creation, after creation, and will always be there - before man was created politics was already existing. If prostitution, selling, farming, tool making for hunting, and so on were the first oldest professions; who does the prostitution, selling, farming, or tool making to hunt? These professions are done by human beings, but every human is a political animal (Aristotle).

If politics is a profession and the first profession of the world, do you self-assess your political environment? Is it important to do self-assessment on your political environment? Then wait for the importance of self-assessing your political environment. Thank you for Reading.

References

Baker, L. (2010). The Five Oldest Careers that Have Survived to Today. Retrieved at 9:05AM, 20.10.18 from http://coachmeg.typepad.com/career_chaos/2010/10/the-five-oldest-careers-that-have-survived-to-today-.html.

Bambra, C., Smith, K., & Kennedy, L. (2008). “Politics and Health”, Naidoo, J., & Wills, J. (Eds.), Health Studies. Palgrave Macmillan London. 2: 257-287.

Blasingame, J. et al. (2015). The Oldest Profession Is Not What You Think. Retrieved at 8:34AM, 20.10.18 from https://www.forbes.com.

Coulson, G. (2017). The World’s Second Oldest Profession, And Why It Works. Retrieved from https://in5d.com/worlds-second-oldest-profession-works/ on 21st October 2018 at 8:25PM.

Definition of politics. Retrieved on 21.10.18 at 4:21PM from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/politics.

Johnson, B., R. (2016). Teaching as The Oldest Profession. The Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education (JUNE). 14(2): E22-E23.

Krock, A. (1971). The Consent of the Governed and Other Deceits. The New York Times. 39.

Leftwich, A. (1984). What is politics? The activity and its study. Oxford: Blackwell.

Manoj, A., K., Sridharan, D., & Kulandaivel, M. (2016). Politics as a Profession. Open Journal of Political Science. 6: 186-190. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/oips.2016.62018.