Monday, March 14, 2011

Can Someone Be Apolitical?

"Apolitical"

We hear it often.  Someone espouses the view that they don't like "politics" or they are "apolitical."  However, we all know that that person MUST have a political view.  Everyone does.  They can certainly be indifferent to certain political goals, but everyone has an opinion, a viewpoint, an idea about politics.  Are these people lying?

Well, no.  These people just are trying to say something based on their feelings of frustration with arguing (i.e. defending their political positions) or having someone else force their political views down said person's throat (i.e. apolitical).  So they are not lying, but they certainly misunderstand what politics is.  Politics is essentially how our world-views shape our actions and decisions.  This inevitably has an effect on the people around us.  Therefore trying to be apolitical is false proposition, but in the United States we don't understand the difference between having a political conversation and hurting each others' feelings.  So we close up and try to say things like, "I don't talk politics" or "I'm just apolitical."  Sorry, but that doesn't fly.

The truth is that we, as Americans, have a really thin skin when it comes to discussing politics.  This is understandable when considering how personal political viewpoints are, but they should never stop us from trying to discuss our differences. Sometimes however, people calling themselves apolitical are just trying to force a shield against those who would disagree with their own.  So while they claim an "apolitical" stance, they put it up as a barrier against people who do not share their own viewpoint.  This forces the other person into a state of constant awareness about what they say and do.  Frankly, it becomes an act of trying to mitigate what we say and do.

In this case, "apolitical" is just a cover so people don't have to expose their own views.  This way, they never have to defend their position, or have to think about why they hold the views that they do.  They can just sit back and relax in their own ignorance.  To further the problem, then.  These "apolitical" types like to hide in their own "apolitical" narrative, which they have deluded themselves into believing, and then they attack anyone with an opposing viewpoint from their "apolitical" stance.  In other words, they are political cowards or fence-sitters, who either refuse to expose their views because they fear actually having to talk about them.  This fear needs to be conquered if we are to move forward.

Why is this important?


There is a great article about this on Electric-Revival.  So I won't go into too much detail, but the author talks about the hurt-locker as an apolitical movie.  However, the author counters with the fact that no matter who makes the movie, what that person's views are, or how they view the subjects in question, their viewpoint will inevitably show through based on their content and delivery.  The difference, however, is that "[w]hen we praise the film’s apoliticism what we might really be doing is praising its subtlety."  This is the case in point.  When we talk politics, bashing someone over the head with our point of view is unnecessary.  We should rather use subtelty to make our points clear, and eliminate issues of communication.  A heavy-handed response may make the audience withdraw, while the subtle use of voice, tone, and how we define our points may, in fact, be the best course of action.

This is important because many times in politics, people disagree on minor points, but when it comes to major premises we fail only based on definition.  An example of this is where I talked about the immigration issue with a Republican.  The Republican in question agreed to my points that we needed to lax our policies on immigration, while maintaining his position on illegal immigrants.  I used the case that immigrants do not, in fact, hurt our economy.  I was able to use this argument because I connected it to his personal family history.

His family arrived from Italy at Ellis Island and were allowed to gain entrance very easily.  However, today, our immigration policies are much more strict and needlessly difficult.  Therefore many people skirt the system in order to gain faster entrance.  The use of quotas is stupid in that it actually hurts the folks who want to enter legally, but can't.  And it hurts the people who entered illegally because they don't have the same protections as other people, driving down the cost of their combined labor.  Employers can then charge them much less than they should make in wages, exploiting them at their will.  However, we need immigrants in order to grow economically because they also pay taxes, and they inevitably need to buy goods and services, paying taxes in doing so.

He agreed to all of these points because I connected them to his goals: economic growth, job protection, and equal taxation.  I dispelled the myths, but because I was able to connect to his family history and unite our goals, immigration reform and reducing the number of illegal immigrants, we were able to come to a mutual consensus.

This is why it's important.  Without talking with one another, we allow our use of words to get in the way, while our pundits use us to win another election.  Our viewpoints are not inseparable, and no one is truly apolitical.  The truth is that we are not as different as we make ourselves out to be, and we need to quit hiding behind the wall of "apoliticism." It is divisive, and that is exactly what politicians want.  When we don't talk about issues, they can use or own language and ideas against us, stopping us from enacting real change in our political landscape.  They do it to further their own careers, rather than benefit the rest of us, and their greed, their tactics of fear, and their use of rhetoric are our greatest enemies.

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