this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2023
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This is the kind of dumb trash that makes me apolitical. Just like being athiest, I think having extreme beliefs that privileges abstract ideologies over real humanity activitely makes people less empathetic and more dangerous.
The breadth of the human experience is so much bigger than the desparate shouts of politicians and their distracted followers.
Even if communism in its platonic form is closer to a humane government system than capitalism, I still don't want to be constantly exposed to it.
Why, because political discussions are more concerned with complaining about a flawed system - AKA a flawed group of people erroneously granted too much power - than it is actually about solving problems.
Caring about humanity is why I care about politics, though. Politics is the vehicle through which humanity's fate is decided. If you don't participate in it, you allow people who do to run roughshod over you. Politics decides whether your country goes to war or not, whether people die in poverty or not, whether the climate apocalypse kills us all or not.
Note that by politics I do not necessarily mean electoralism. Voting is a stopgap measure at best. But there's much more to politics than voting and elections.
Abstaining is not apolitical, either. Every choice you make related to politics, including the choice of not participating in elections or discussions or whatever, is political and has consequences. That doesn't mean you need to be on political messageboards 24/7, either, but choosing to do nothing at all is an extreme position, of a kind. Apolitical just sounds like apathy, to me.
Whether the consequences of said apathy fall on you personally, well, perhaps not, for someone who feels safe enough to abstain.
P.s. please vote so us trans and nonbinary people don't end up genocided. K thanks.
I get that. The fact that I can be "apolitical" exposes the incredible privelage I have, in the place I live, the color of my skin, my gender and sexual expression.
Perhaps my insulation from politics makes me less empathetic than I could be, and makes it so I don't need to participate in world affairs like I could.
My problem is the sheer redundancy of it all. In my case, a two party system where both sides are shitty, the presidency is an old-ass white sausage fest.
I guess to me the discussion is all noise, because the moral choice is always more obvious than what the prejudiced assholes would have anyone believe.
Yes, I will vote to protect trans rights and lives.
idk what feeling safe has to do with it. I was homeless a few months ago, I do not feel safe in my own private life. Regardless of that–I still prefer my link aggregators to have a focus on topics which I find entertaining.
Idk about you guys, but I get ZERO entertainment value out of political discussion or discourse.
Why does that necessarily have to reflect negatively back on me? You aren't willing to accept me just because I don't find enjoyment in the same things that you do?
i don't think anyone's saying it does--and in fact i think you're kind of reading into a point that's not being made (at least not intentionally). as i'm interpreting @Lowbird@beehaw.org and @balerion@beehaw.org here, they're just saying that abstention or apathy is also an unavoidably political act in political discussions or circumstances, even if it seems like it isn't, and that in some circumstances it can be as extreme as taking a political position.
i'd also note Lowbird in particular is making a distinction between "apolitical" abstention and the decision to not participate in online political discourse, because those are two different things and certainly the latter doesn't speak to much of anything on anyone's part politically.
They're painting those who abstain from online political discussion to be privileged types who are taking advantage of the feeling of safety in their own lives and identity. I was simply refuting that caricature because I am a prime example of a person where it simply does not fit.
To be honest with you, when I want political discourse, I'm going to go and seek that out from scholars in the form of well-written books. There's really barely any insight to be gained from the average complete moron on the internet.
No, they're pointing out to people who claim the label "apolitical" that that's both a political stance and a privilege that not everyone gets to have.
I obviously identify myself as apolitical on the internet when I have zero interest in discussing politics with strangers on the internet.
Does that make me privileged somehow?
Your privilege is being apolitical. That is the privilege. For many of us, that isn’t an option.
I do not disagree with you. I know I am discounting the value of politics, which absolutely does not innoculate me from the consequences of those who participate in it.
For sure, political action is most effective through active participation such as protesting, writing to senators, participating in campaigns.
I think what I am actually annoyed by are the ineffectual joking/memeing and reduction to shouting out buzzwords that seems to have suffocated any hope for a lucid discussion ethical problems and how to overcome them.
Lastly, saying politics controls everything is at best a truism, and at worst it makes it a nebulous term. It is like when people say "society is to blame for ___." No, people, inviduals are to blame. Saying society is at fault is meaningless. Even en masse, individuals are accountable. Obviously that includes me. My actions, my morals, how I treat others can make world a better or worse place. Politics is not some invisible hand controlling the world.
But holding a few individuals to account for systemic problems will rarely accomplish anything. Societal problems require societal solutions. We can only achieve meaningful change via collective action. If it were the case that individuals could simply get up in their own homes and choose to change the world, we would already be in a better world, because most of us want that better world. The mere fact that shit sucks right now proves that the will of atomized individuals is not enough to change anything.
I agree. While I generally dislike its usage in media and political discussion, society is the correct term for a population under a shared set of circumstances who are together affected by changes in policy.
I know it unfair to put the responsibility, or blame, on any one invidividual. Even the loudest evil person with a lot of influence is only powerful due to systemic and voluntary allowance of power.
I know companies with their massive waste production contribute exponentially more to climate than the choices of all individuals.
Still, some people have more power and influence than others. Those individuals are empowered to make decisons that affect the lives of millions of people. It is not some evil cloud silently fucking everything up.
Anyways, yes, the solution to these problems will always be collective action. My viewpoint only serve to mythologize the individual and does not address the fact that it is the complecency of a massive number of people that allows bad things to happen.
i'd be interested in why you feel these essentially exclude each other. at least personally, i think they tend to go hand in hand.
Sure, obviously change happens when it is forced upon you, someone becomes fed up enough about the status quo to do something about. I agree, complaining is literally the step of identifying a problem, which only then it can be solved.
To give an anology, political talk to me is a lot like trying to learn a language by arguing over its syntax. It is easy to caught up in rules, what is allowed and what is wrong, coming up with theories that will predict sentences, instead of listening to people who actually speak it.
It just seems to me that for a lot of people the argument is the appeal.