Thoughts on Al Gore

"If I do my job right, all the candidates will be talking about the climate crisis. And I'm not convinced the presidency is the highest and best role I could play. The path I see is a path that builds a consensus - to the point where it doesn't matter as much who's running." - Gore, cited in Time magazine issue May 28th, 2007

Gore, scathed after his year-2000 defeat which he seems internally embittered by, has turned away from politics, which is why he refuses to run, and has become a man trying to work the public sphere. The public sphere was a term introduced to me by a theorist in the canon of sociology, Jurgen Habermas, who says that the public sphere is that part of public life that is the inter-flow of ideas, thoughts, and opinions, especially for political policy. In Europe, the printing press as well as coffee-shop-type establishments - where the educated could gather over a cup of coffee or tea and read newspapers and discuss current events - were things that supported a stronger public sphere. But Gore, in his recently published book, The Assault on Reason, blames television for the decline of the public sphere: "The world of television...makes it virtually impossible for individuals to take part in what passes for a national conversation." He puts hope in the internet to strengthen the public sphere.

Apparently, many are trying to pursuade Gore to return to politics and run for president next year, but the confident charismatic Al Gore that we now know is only possible because he didn't become president in 2000. It was politics that stifled who he really was. Apparently his global warming slideshow was something he'd already put together in 1989, but tv-media never reported on his environmental side. Gore expresses in his interviews with Time that being out of politics lets him be more free and true to himself, and thus has made a big impact on the minds of many.