when all you have is a hammer, everyone looks like a nail

[sophiaserpentia]

I'm tired of politics.

Well... let me be more precise. I'm bone weary, exhausted to the core, by the antagonism and infighting and sniping and hatchet-jobs. I have no idea how we, as a society, are supposed to comprehend what is going on in the world, and what needs to happen and how we're going to accomplish it, when social discourse has become so bitterly acrimonious it becomes a political issue in itself.

Slowly, but steadily, I've been taking blogs off my reading list. First it was queer and feminist blogs. General lefty blogs have followed, starting with FireDogLake, which I got so fed up with I even removed from my bookmarks. There aren't any blogs anymore that I regularly read. I still read them from time to time, but I feel like I have to steel myself in preparation.

It's not that the topics depress me. They do, they always have. It's not that I don't agree with their views on what's right and wrong -- I do, most of the time. It's the overwhelming acrimony. There's no sense of community, no sense of coalition, just an overwhelmingly consistent approach of, "I'm right and this is why someone else is wrong." Anyone at any time can go from being an ally to being a target, and it's unnerving. The acrimony gets into my blood and then the anger sits in my brain like battery acid, eating away at my insides since it has nowhere to go. John Stewart's plea to Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala on their show "Crossfire" comes to mind.

Do I still care about social issues & economic policy? Of course I do. But the fact that I even have to assert that shows that we've gotten to where this is the game you have to play if you have political opinions. Well, I have political opinions, but I am convinced there must be other ways to disagree, other ways to call someone out.

I'm beginning to see this as part of the work of the revolution. I've written before about affinity politics vs. identity politics, and when I say there's no easy-mode radicalism I mean that we're called to examine our own attitudes and behaviors on a very deep level, so deep that to subscribe to an "-ism" is to duck the issue. The ways out and through are likely to be shown in art, music, fiction, poetry; to be expressed in community gatherings and perhaps religious expression as well (though I feel the need to add a few caveats to that since so much of the current acrimony is expressed in religious terminology). I was toying with the idea of this as a kind of "para-politics:" an accompaniment to the political process that forces everyone involved to be mindful of their opponent's humanity and common cause. I don't expect that the adversarial mode of politics will ever go away -- nor do I think this would necessarily be a good thing -- but I believe in the necessity of tempering it with mindfulness.

Comments

[lassiter.livejournal.com]

I was talking to a co-worker earlier this morning about Vermont, and the actively involved population there - mainly pretty solidly to the left of any other state. They organize via town hall meetings, in person, and the national parties have very little input into the process (hence, left to their own devices, they repeatedly have chosen to re-elect overt Socialist Bernie Sanders). I don't think 24-hour news channels and the internet have turned out to be good for grass-roots politics, since the net has devolved into merely providing endless echo chambers for the news channels' endless repetition of the major parties buzz-phrases. If we're going to effect even local political change in the US, we'll need to start meeting face-to-face and discussing the real issues of our communities, outside the context of party politics and punditocracy.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I can see how face-to-face meetings would make a big difference, and I think you're right.

[ankh-f-n-khonsu.livejournal.com]

I don't think 24-hour news channels and the internet have turned out to be good for grass-roots politics

Hrm... how many instances of ICT-mediated grass roots organizing would never have been possible without "24 hour news channels and the internet"? Have you seen "Us Now"?

[lassiter.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't yet. And yeah, I didn't mean to sound so all-encompassingly critical. But in general, I do think the net, while enhancing organization among small grass-roots groups, has so far had a less-than-positive effect on political dialogue and opinion-shaping among the ordinary, non-activist citizenry in the US.

[ankh-f-n-khonsu.livejournal.com]

Agreed. The exceptions, as always, prove the rule. ;)

As well, there's a growing body of literature examining the implications of "super-abundant information". It's a contentious matter in several fields.

"Us Now" chronicles several provocative exceptions - mostly central to the UK - so if you're interested in this domain, you might track down a copy. You can find download links in my review, which can be found here.

[ankh-f-n-khonsu.livejournal.com]

Sadly, the left is every bit as rife with oppositionalism as the right. Nothing new there, but I also find it unnerving.

FireDogLake publishes some good work. Although far from perfect, they're less inclined to hyperbole than many... Then again, I suppose that's not accurate - it depends on the issue and a whole lot of context.

Nevertheless, I can definitely see the value in avoiding the vipers. Getting caught up in their mud-flinging contests isn't high on my list of priorities, either. Along those lines, have you any experience in the field of cultural studies?

Finally, I find it intriguing that alobar should make a post on family's impact on personal politics on Monday, only to be followed by two more politicization posts today - one each from you and me: Strategies for Revolutionaries: On the necessity of conscious politicization.

Politics seems to be occupying a great many minds - and antagonizing a great deal of disgust.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Many of the posts at FDL are fine. I think what bothered me was a tendency towards what felt like a kind of ideological absolutism among some of the contributors and many of the commenters. The atmosphere in a lot of forums now is that if you say the wrong thing once, no matter how much you have contributed to that point you are now the enemy and will be excoriated as such. You can't maintain a community where half or more of the energy goes towards everyone policing everyone else making sure they all believe the same things.

The net effect of all this noise and acrimony is that activists are not able to be effective. At all. A handful of moneyed interests are getting everything they want, the ecosystems going to shit, meanwhile the rest of us are run ragged attacking former allies for taking the wrong position on issue X.

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

Well love, you know I had gotten to this point years and years ago working as an activist in DC, although for somewhat different reasons than you are now. That being that "activism is not effective". It only took me two years there to realize activism was just all part of the game, and they are easily able to accomodate it.

[ankh-f-n-khonsu.livejournal.com]

Indeed - critical theory terms this process 'authoritarian deliberation'.

[nebris.livejournal.com]

Well, you know where I'm at on this. ;)

~M~

[stacymckenna.livejournal.com]

Amen. The constantly antagonistic polarization of our culture about EVERYTHING from politics to parenting is just... exhausting. It makes hermiting seem really darn attractive...

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Well, I may take breaks from time to time, but I don't see myself really withdrawing. I'm probably going to give more of my attention to the kinds of things I described as para-political, though.

[stacymckenna.livejournal.com]

I did say "attractive", not "the best option. ;) I fully endorse engaging in formats that aren't a danger to your blood pressure or likely to totally kill your willingness to participate.

[redslime.livejournal.com]

I've steadily lost interest. I don't read any political blogs regularly at all. Too time consuming and redundant. I do listen to NPR and read some of the links in my friends list. I'm much more interested in human connection these days.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm definitely still interested. It's my exposure tolerance that's dropping. :)

[akaiyume.livejournal.com]

"I'm right and this is why someone else is wrong."

I've seen a lot of this too. And most of the time (well, if you take out obvious trolling) what it comes down to is that both sides are right. Depending on the angle it is viewed from. If one person speaks out about a topic from their point of view, then chances are they are going to be stepping on the toes of someone who has a different intersectionality of privilege/lack thereof.

Because it seems the current system is set up so that the conditional benefits given some groups and that which would make it not conditional are the very things that are used against another group to keep them in line. So much so that speaking for yourself is (whether you mean to or not) often speaking if not exactly out against an allied oppressed group, at least speaking for something which is less than beneficial for that group.

And that is really scary. So people who are in the same situation, different box get blamed instead. Instead of the system which has decreed that there must be identity boxes and then set these boxes in opposition in the first place.

I am convinced there must be other ways to disagree, other ways to call someone out.

Sometimes I think acknowledging there can be more than "right" on an issue would be a step. Listening and believing people when they say how "X" affects them, even if it is in radically different ways. Right and wrong are kinda identity boxes too if held as an absolute.

[anarchomo.livejournal.com]

We're taught to think about things in a zero-sum way. The Quakers, anarchafeminists, and indigenous groups have some good ideas about process-tweaking and consensus building, though naturally some people get overzealous about them.

At a more basic level, I think things polarize because it's tempting to see things in absolutist terms when you're under stress. Things are so so terrifying and outrageous--it's hard to look at them in a nuanced way. And of course that absolutism encourages following "strong," aggressive leaders. Authoritarianism is a kind of organized panic. I think we need to deal that that fear and outrage--the collective trauma--if we want to be able to think clearly as groups.

[kittenkissies.livejournal.com]

Become a Politcal Mystic?
"The Spectre Politic?"
It would be so goddam nice if the Dems could get together on something more than once every twenty years or so.


This is all we got. For all the amazement, uniqueness, and progressiveness of other parties, the big two will dominate for some time to come.
This funk will probably not break until we elected a non-Republicrat as President.