Hydraulic engineering is not an exercise in identifying the “perfect state of fluids” and then trying to fix fluids in that state. It is an exercise in identifying the properties of fluids that govern how they respond to various forces, and then using that knowledge to build fluid-dynamic systems that behave in useful ways.
Done right, politics is similarly an exercise in identifying the properties of humans that govern how they respond to various forces, and then using that knowledge to build human-dynamic systems that behave in useful ways.
The fact that individual humans change in the process of traveling through these systems is undeniable, but no more relevant to the perfectibility or imperfectibility of politics than the fact that different water flows through my pipes every day is to the perfectibility or imperfectibility of plumbing.
(shrug)
Hydraulic engineering is not an exercise in identifying the “perfect state of fluids” and then trying to fix fluids in that state. It is an exercise in identifying the properties of fluids that govern how they respond to various forces, and then using that knowledge to build fluid-dynamic systems that behave in useful ways.
Done right, politics is similarly an exercise in identifying the properties of humans that govern how they respond to various forces, and then using that knowledge to build human-dynamic systems that behave in useful ways.
The fact that individual humans change in the process of traveling through these systems is undeniable, but no more relevant to the perfectibility or imperfectibility of politics than the fact that different water flows through my pipes every day is to the perfectibility or imperfectibility of plumbing.