On Political Posts
I find myself expressing regret and a strong urge to withdraw from communication each time I make a political post, not least because I tend to do so only when I’m feeling really provoked, which can lead readers to a rather one-sided perspective on my views (for instance, while I’ve expressed skepticism about Obama, I’ve not come close to expressing the extent of my feelings, which only got worse with his capitulations after effectively winning the primary). But each time, people who I respect and trust– some of whom are not of the same political persuasions– urge me not to quit, or at least that it’s not a bad thing.
The promise of the participatory web is that it gives many more (but not everyone, sadly) people a place to speak out and, if their words merit it, gain an audience. My duty– our duty– is to honesty and sincerity and as much objectivity as we can muster given our philosophies and beliefs. Beyond that, there are many things upon which reasonable people will continue to disagree, and I need to believe that finally it is the multiplicity of personal voices– not a univocal objective voice coming from me or anyone else– that has the potential to matter. I don’t need to be a dispassionate, clinical observer to make a contribution; I need to be passionate and partial as long as I remain as fair and honest as I can. The ultimate judge is the social mirror and whether I can stand the reflection of myself in it.
So, I’m not going to stop making political posts. I’m also no longer going to refrain from vocalizing my activism in various less traditionally political areas (intellectual property issues, for instance). I am right, I think, that alone such posts do not matter a bit… but, in conjunction– if not at all in agreement– with others, it is part of an obligation and an opportunity I should pay attention to.
The bottom line: I am who I am. The alternative to sharing that person is to go back to my experimental posture of the last few months and disconnect completely. Disconnection has many positive attributes, but would also mean leaving this job (which I almost always like and sometimes love) and the community that I’ve grown fond of. A few months should determine what my best course is!
September 12th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
I support the honesty and the continued posting on politics, and you can expect I will continue to disagree with you on some issues (but, I’d guess, less often on character judgments).
And while I think you’re right in claiming, “I am what I am”, this has reminded me of the traditional triumvirate of “taboo” topics for social decorum in conversation (though I’m never quite sure if it’s “Religion, Politics, and Sex” or “Religion, Politics, and Art”–perhaps it depends upon the setting). The Web may have changed all that however, and some may say that the willful omission of these topics is simply a polite self-repression anyway.
For my part the desire to keep politics unobtrusive in my social life is pretty strong, and so I treat it defensively, avoiding the topic unless challenged. In fact, I’ve often supposed that it may be this (perhaps overdeveloped) sense of preserving social norms and avoiding ineffectual conflict that tends to lessen the attraction of public protests to conservatives (though it’s always fun to jest about alternative explanations).
September 12th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Well, I don’t plan on turning my blog into the Huffington Post or the Drudge Report… But I have to accommodate the fact that my summer-long withdrawal (mostly) from the social networks I participate in revealed a deep and growing dissatisfaction with the nature of my own choices in terms of decorum and expectations.
So in part I want to reclaim this space as MY space, not in the sense of ownership, but in the sense of more realistically but who I am. I am pretty far to the left, though with conservative streaks and a fair amount of inherent contradiction to boot. As an example, this will probably manifest itself in revealing more of my skepticism about my own stock in trade, seeing that some of my most deeply-engrained conservatism and traditionalism centers around the processes of learning and making art.
My disclaimer was an attempt at setting the stage for a bit of change… my separation of Ruminate from Cosmopoetica an even earlier one.
September 12th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Awesome, well it will be interesting to see how this progresses (incidental pun!).