How do people live without being political? Everything is political. How do you live with someone who doesn’t in fact know much about you if they don’t know this?
A lot of people are weirdly comfortable with their lives and don’t feel like anything is structurally wrong. If they have issues they blame themselves or fate. You’ll hear a common refrain from them like, “I just want to focus on my own life.” They’re completely atomized and yet prefer it that way.
This is the majority of white Americans, by the way.
Not being political just means that the status quo works well enough for an individual that they will respond with immediate anger if you are so gauche as to mention something like LGBT people existing
Okay so don’t take this in any way than me just relating my personal experience, but while I agree with what you are saying from the position of someone who sees the depoliticization of the working class as disastrous and idealistic, and who does organizing in their community with other commies and socialists, I can’t stand politics. I organize with people who are good at it, and several people who like it and went to school for it; but while I can “play the game” as a matter of pure necessity, it is such a source of burn out and negativity. And I honestly don’t know what to do about it anymore, because powering through it has stopped working
I get it. But at the same time I don’t. I’ll try to explain.
I don’t know if it’s my neurodiversity or what, but I have never been able to separate my personality from politics in any way or politics from everyday life for that matter. Might also be cultural, I don’t think these are separated as strongly where I live. I visited the US once and had a partner there for a short while and the difference in this was a revelation to me and I didn’t like it. This was the one time I tried to pair up with my literal political opposite and it was a bad time, those shitty politics show up in everyday life: in the way people treat others, think about things, relate to the world, talk about other people, see history, see current affairs etc. I didn’t feel we could have a lot in common when this was a guy who started forming an aneurysm if you said “Obama”.
I can small talk and work with people who have bad politics (to me), but I won’t seek co-operation or closeness with them because I see life as political and don’t think the relationship can really be all that great with anyone who for example is very neolib in their thinking. I mean my grocery store choices are political and I will make choices based on that all the time. If that makes sense.
Pretty sure my profession highlights this too as working in welfare is always political, the decisions made always have room for consideration and the direction those decisions go tends to be dictated by the politics of the worker.
It might be that defining politics as a profession, as something external with some special sort of expertise and separating it from the people is actually the issue? The professional politician is definitely a disgusting representation of representative capitalist politics, but to me that isn’t what being political means, it’s a bastardization of it.
Okay so there’s some differences between what I’m talking about and what you are talking about. Everything you are saying is reflective of my experience as well, except I’d drill down more on your last paragraph or two.
Like you make good points that I agree with wrt dealing with people who you have nothing in common with concerning their individual political opinions. With this much difference, especially concerning what you said about dating someone with drastically different politics, the politics indicate deeper held values that made you romantically or socially incompatible. That is Fairly normal and unsurprising, and my experience is largely similar.
But what if you’re in an org that actually has somewhat strict rules about who can join: what political opinions they have, and what priorities they fight for? What if you agree with 95% of what an org participates in, but you see that they are wrong about 5%? And that is creating bad reads of current events, etc? Like for example, you join a group of explicitly Marxist communists, but they just aren’t that great about colonialism and decolonial struggles, despite being well read, well connected, relevant, and offer tons of amazing resources to its members. The people who have been dedicating their personal time and energy and money to educating you and trying to grow the org are now wrong about something crucial to the orgs ability to take on impactful work. A group within the org develops a critique that addresses the problems, and you find yourself aligning with them, but this puts you at odds with others who are struggling against those criticisms, people who you personally care about but seem to be somewhat hurt by your support of the critique?
Or you find yourself a leader of a few local working groups in a large national org, but other leaders, whose politics you find acceptable, due to their affiliation with factions that don’t like whatever faction you belong to, like not even actively vindictively opposing you, tend to go out of their way to distinguish themselves from you, at any conspicuous opportunity. They don’t like Marxism, or they think that “communism” is a synonym for “authoritarian”, or they are just kinda opportunist cuz they are young and not as well established. But yet they are in charge of work that you know is important and you need to participate in.
Even working in cadre is exhausting when I learn that someone I work with who I really admire and helped to get me established is like really into UFOs and alien conspiracy theories. Other than that you agree on everything else, but yet every once in a while discussions veer into this positively absurd territory.
And all of these are real examples from my perspective. If I imagine how I must seem to the other people referenced here, my actions become just as exhausting and frustrating.
In my experience a lot of leftists agree that everything is political, but then don’t really participate in politics outside of individual political opinions. There is a realm of the expressly political that exists not apart from but still distinguishable from the realm of the “everything is politics.” If you wanna say that is a bastardization that’s fine but what’s the alternative??
Right I get what you are saying I think and agree on the need to compromize and feel the same frustration even in my work. Few of the most lovely based leftists I have come across have for example turned out to hold weird crystal healing or antu-science views or whatever. But I also try to allow people some room to hold different views if the general core is ok, even when I don’t agree.
So I don’t personally talk about a 100% political fit between people, but mean that the basics have to at least be there. I work a lot with folks who are all anti-ML and anti-communist, but still leftist as this is all that exists here. It feels bad, but it is the reality. But I would not likely spend my life with them which is what my original answer is about relating to the OP. Or I might if their politics is open to discussion and at least aligned with mine as most left politics tends to be. But the politics still very much exists in the relatioship.
I meant that the profession of politics can be a bastardization of what politics is, to be clear.
I’m great at navigating all of these other inter personal/political dynamics except when we have to actually work together on the basis of politics. My experience of doing political work with other volunteers doing political work has been like working through the 5 stages of grief, where when I reach “acceptance,” I’m basically like “fuck this, it isn’t worth sacrificing my mental health” except this road of self improvement and political/historical education that I’ve been on for like 12 years leads to this. I feel very lost even though I’m exactly where I’ve intended to go
How do people live without being political? Everything is political. How do you live with someone who doesn’t in fact know much about you if they don’t know this?
A lot of people are weirdly comfortable with their lives and don’t feel like anything is structurally wrong. If they have issues they blame themselves or fate. You’ll hear a common refrain from them like, “I just want to focus on my own life.” They’re completely atomized and yet prefer it that way.
This is the majority of white Americans, by the way.
Not being political just means that the status quo works well enough for an individual that they will respond with immediate anger if you are so gauche as to mention something like LGBT people existing
Okay so don’t take this in any way than me just relating my personal experience, but while I agree with what you are saying from the position of someone who sees the depoliticization of the working class as disastrous and idealistic, and who does organizing in their community with other commies and socialists, I can’t stand politics. I organize with people who are good at it, and several people who like it and went to school for it; but while I can “play the game” as a matter of pure necessity, it is such a source of burn out and negativity. And I honestly don’t know what to do about it anymore, because powering through it has stopped working
I get it. But at the same time I don’t. I’ll try to explain.
I don’t know if it’s my neurodiversity or what, but I have never been able to separate my personality from politics in any way or politics from everyday life for that matter. Might also be cultural, I don’t think these are separated as strongly where I live. I visited the US once and had a partner there for a short while and the difference in this was a revelation to me and I didn’t like it. This was the one time I tried to pair up with my literal political opposite and it was a bad time, those shitty politics show up in everyday life: in the way people treat others, think about things, relate to the world, talk about other people, see history, see current affairs etc. I didn’t feel we could have a lot in common when this was a guy who started forming an aneurysm if you said “Obama”.
I can small talk and work with people who have bad politics (to me), but I won’t seek co-operation or closeness with them because I see life as political and don’t think the relationship can really be all that great with anyone who for example is very neolib in their thinking. I mean my grocery store choices are political and I will make choices based on that all the time. If that makes sense.
Pretty sure my profession highlights this too as working in welfare is always political, the decisions made always have room for consideration and the direction those decisions go tends to be dictated by the politics of the worker.
It might be that defining politics as a profession, as something external with some special sort of expertise and separating it from the people is actually the issue? The professional politician is definitely a disgusting representation of representative capitalist politics, but to me that isn’t what being political means, it’s a bastardization of it.
Okay so there’s some differences between what I’m talking about and what you are talking about. Everything you are saying is reflective of my experience as well, except I’d drill down more on your last paragraph or two.
Like you make good points that I agree with wrt dealing with people who you have nothing in common with concerning their individual political opinions. With this much difference, especially concerning what you said about dating someone with drastically different politics, the politics indicate deeper held values that made you romantically or socially incompatible. That is Fairly normal and unsurprising, and my experience is largely similar.
But what if you’re in an org that actually has somewhat strict rules about who can join: what political opinions they have, and what priorities they fight for? What if you agree with 95% of what an org participates in, but you see that they are wrong about 5%? And that is creating bad reads of current events, etc? Like for example, you join a group of explicitly Marxist communists, but they just aren’t that great about colonialism and decolonial struggles, despite being well read, well connected, relevant, and offer tons of amazing resources to its members. The people who have been dedicating their personal time and energy and money to educating you and trying to grow the org are now wrong about something crucial to the orgs ability to take on impactful work. A group within the org develops a critique that addresses the problems, and you find yourself aligning with them, but this puts you at odds with others who are struggling against those criticisms, people who you personally care about but seem to be somewhat hurt by your support of the critique?
Or you find yourself a leader of a few local working groups in a large national org, but other leaders, whose politics you find acceptable, due to their affiliation with factions that don’t like whatever faction you belong to, like not even actively vindictively opposing you, tend to go out of their way to distinguish themselves from you, at any conspicuous opportunity. They don’t like Marxism, or they think that “communism” is a synonym for “authoritarian”, or they are just kinda opportunist cuz they are young and not as well established. But yet they are in charge of work that you know is important and you need to participate in.
Even working in cadre is exhausting when I learn that someone I work with who I really admire and helped to get me established is like really into UFOs and alien conspiracy theories. Other than that you agree on everything else, but yet every once in a while discussions veer into this positively absurd territory.
And all of these are real examples from my perspective. If I imagine how I must seem to the other people referenced here, my actions become just as exhausting and frustrating.
In my experience a lot of leftists agree that everything is political, but then don’t really participate in politics outside of individual political opinions. There is a realm of the expressly political that exists not apart from but still distinguishable from the realm of the “everything is politics.” If you wanna say that is a bastardization that’s fine but what’s the alternative??
Right I get what you are saying I think and agree on the need to compromize and feel the same frustration even in my work. Few of the most lovely based leftists I have come across have for example turned out to hold weird crystal healing or antu-science views or whatever. But I also try to allow people some room to hold different views if the general core is ok, even when I don’t agree.
So I don’t personally talk about a 100% political fit between people, but mean that the basics have to at least be there. I work a lot with folks who are all anti-ML and anti-communist, but still leftist as this is all that exists here. It feels bad, but it is the reality. But I would not likely spend my life with them which is what my original answer is about relating to the OP. Or I might if their politics is open to discussion and at least aligned with mine as most left politics tends to be. But the politics still very much exists in the relatioship.
I meant that the profession of politics can be a bastardization of what politics is, to be clear.
I’m great at navigating all of these other inter personal/political dynamics except when we have to actually work together on the basis of politics. My experience of doing political work with other volunteers doing political work has been like working through the 5 stages of grief, where when I reach “acceptance,” I’m basically like “fuck this, it isn’t worth sacrificing my mental health” except this road of self improvement and political/historical education that I’ve been on for like 12 years leads to this. I feel very lost even though I’m exactly where I’ve intended to go