Been going back and forth on this, as personally I don’t have much problem with politics posts and discussions. I know how they can get, and some of why people dislike them, but nevertheless…To not discuss politics enables the worst among us to take the reigns and drag us all over the cliff.
Given that, I’d like to pick apart what may be meant when people say politics. It’s a can of worms, so to try to focus things a little, let’s say, is it when they’re distinctly partisan that disliking them may be meant?
Something you find across the board is the sentiment that a lot of political journalism has very blatant partisan-leanings, and for some organizations there’s zero doubt of that.
I should also take a moment to clarify here, when I say partisan, I mean any strongly held political views, not merely left or right, but also including moderate/centrist.
Or is it slightly less the kind that matters, and more the volume of it, pervading every discussion? Especially when one may already be aware and trying to address it in their own ways, and is visiting an online community to get a little respite.
What’s your take on this?
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Politics is inevitable since it is literally making decisions in groups (along with all the other baggage attached to that including power structures, etc.). If you have a group of people you have politics. End of story. Anybody saying “keep politics out of my <whatever>” is exercising politics: specifically the power structure elements of it. They are being oxymoronic (as well as the same minus ‘oxy’).
So it’s not politics that’s objectionable, I’m going to guess, but rather …
… drum roll …
PARTISAN politics.
And “partisan” doesn’t mean “left/right”. It means any kind of politics that separates and generates an in-group and an out-group. (The root “part” is in partisan as well as political party for a reason.) Partisans by their very nature automatically hate the political opinions of their non-partisans—their “out-group”. (And people like me hate all partisans for being that way.) This is true if you’re “left” (by whatever definition you use), “right” (ditto), feminist, religious, plutocratic, anti-religious, liberal (in the non-American sense of the term), progressive, racist, etc. etc. etc. If you’re dividing society into parts, some of whom are deemed “not one of us” you’re a partisan.
It is partisanship that is toxic for the most part. Partisanship is what gives you “the party of ‘NO’” in most democracies (especially the USA, but not exclusively): you can’t, as a partisan, admit that the “other team” did something good or has a good idea. This gives us ridiculous situations like the most memorable one to me: Pierre Trudeau lambasting Lester Pearson’s plan to introduce wage and price controls, getting elected on a platform against that, then promptly introducing wage and price controls. It turns out Pearson’s plan was a good one, but for reasons of partisanship Trudeau couldn’t admit it. He was a “Liberal” (read: center-left by American standards) not a “Conservative” (read: center-slightly-left by American standards—keeping in mind that the American “left” party is a center-right party in almost any other country).
And indeed, I’ll go a step farther: political parties are explicitly anti-democratic. They are specifically there to undermine democracy. In Canada, for example, you in theory vote in your riding to send a representative to speak on your interests to Parliament. Political parties subverted this, however, and now you vote for a party to provide a representative that represents the party’s views to you. Your views don’t matter.
So politics is inevitable. You can’t avoid it. But partisanship doesn’t have to be, and it’s partisanship that is destructive, even when it’s for a “good cause”.
I have always felt that the arguments are always rather skewed on this every time they’re trucked out.
The North-American Right-wing will say “Keep politics out of my (games / movies / music / hardcore porn)…”
The unspoken end part is “that I don’t like.”
The Left will often say “Everything is political…”
While the unspoken part is “but only if looked at through an astoundingly specific and personal lens. Oh, and also a large majority of the media is on my side and therefore producing content for me.”
And both arguments are goofy and hand-wave each other away with the same amount of shitty dismissiveness.
Yes, politics could theoretically be in everything… to you. You can interpret anything any way you like. But also no, your interpretation does not make neutral media “political” to the large majority of people all of a sudden. Your interpretation is not law, it is opinion and the intent of the creator trumps your interpretation.
Yes, politically-charged media can be done VERY well. But also no, it doesn’t need to be ONLY directly speaking about / parables of current events. This is lazy, hacky writing.
Yes, sometimes things need to be said in a piece if that’s what the art is about. But also no, do we need ten thousand pieces on the exact same thing, all saying the same message, and bringing nothing new to the table.
You can set up interesting “What If” scenarios where one side isn’t generically stupid, evil warmongers and the other side isn’t all noble, selfless underdog do-gooders bravely fighting The Man.
Bad guys can do good. Good guys can do bad. The world is a lot greyer than people want to have to face up to, and I wish our media was smarter and more challenging.
I fear that people don’t want that, however. They want their media to cater to them as much as their online social media. That fucking terrifies me.
This is what I remain unsure of, I think some may want what you’re worried about, but I also think there may be as many that want less catering in the sense of reinforcing messaging, and more in a lower overall volume. That comes with its own sort of problems depending on how that’s accomplished, however I think if the approach is to focus political discussion towards constructive ends rather than fueling despair and disengagement, it might prove better.
