Periodically I find amongst friends, especially in this day and age, that people seem to misunderstand what I’m doing here with my comments. They think, for example, that a criticism I may share of something like the “Green New Deal” means I’m shilling the standard Republican party line, which then somehow makes me homophobic or something–seems absurd to me.
But this day and age is full of groups trying to anger us or frighten us in order to get us politically involved without questioning why–and that leads to tribalism: you’re either with us or you’re against us.
So let me outline a few things.
First, I am not shilling for any political party or political tribe.
Shilling for a party often involves party apologetics as one justifies the failings of one’s own party as being less problematic than the failings of the other political party. And frankly, at my age, I find this boring and predictable.
Worse, by becoming a party apologetic, most people stop thinking for themselves–they stop questioning the philosophical and ideological basis of their thinking, outsourcing it to a group of people who fundamentally only want power.
Because at its core, that is what a political party is: a group of people seeking to hold power together. Party positions, as I’ve learned in my more than half-century on this planet, are often taken by political parties only as required to hold power.
Second, when I use certain labels without definition (“republican”, “conservative”, “fiscal-conservative”, “right-leaning”, “capitalist”) to describe myself, or other labels (“democrat”, “left-wing”, “progressive”, “socialist”) to describe others–take it as me vaguely waving a hand at a map of the world, generally gesturing to one continent or anther.
That is, I’m using these labels as a ‘short-cut’ to a generally accepted general definition of these terms. But it’s just general hand-waving; don’t read too much into them. For example, if I describe myself as “Republican” because I happened to be a registered Republican in the 2016 elections, do not take it that I’m against abortion (I’m pro-choice), or against immigration (I believe laws need to be loosened so immigrants can more easily enter this country), or one of a hundred other political beliefs either promulgated by the Republican Party or claimed by the Democratic Party. (Slurs by Democrats are particularly egregious; I’ve had people claim I’m “anti-woman,” and “homophobic,” for example. Of course I also acknowledge slurs by Republicans at Democrats; if you claim to be a Democrat I’m not going to automatically believe you’re a Godless communist-anarchist who wants to destroy capitalism and send us all back into the stone age. You only told me what party you’re likely to vote for–which in this day and age tells me nothing about your beliefs.)
And yes, I understand that these labels are not only imperfect, but are constantly being redefined on social media to one party or another’s political requirements in order for them to seek power at the expense of the other. Which is why if I want to talk in detail about these items, I’ll try to define what I mean rather than use the short-cut.
Third, if I post a comment showing disagreement with a Republican Party platform item, please do not try to convince me to switch party registration or to vote for someone else. I find such comments boring; see my comments about “party apologetics” above.
Fourth, the vast majority of my political posts are me complaining about something which is of concern to me. Usually that involves hypocrisy–like a rich white person lecturing poorer darker-skinned people on the horrors of being rich and white. Or lectures by someone who has it all trying to let folks who have far less than they do why accumulating stuff is morally wrong.
They may also involve issues of economics, which is, at the bottom of the stack, really involve what people want and the countless economic decisions (really, personal choices) people make in their lives. One of the most egregious topics of conversation revolves around trying to reshape the economy, as if the economy is some sort of machine whose gears we’re trapped in, rather than the collective expression of our desires and wants. Why this bothers me is because in attempting to “tune the machine” what is really happening are powerful people telling us what we want is wrong, and we shouldn’t have so much of it.
That often comes dripping in hypocrisy as well–such as the hypocrisy of banning inexpensive sugary sodas while exempting more expensive sugary coffee drinks which may have even less nutritional value. (Throw in a paean about how this ban “helps the poor” make “better choices” and you’ve hit my personal trifecta of bullshit: forcing choices, exempting yourself, and lecturing those you think are inferior to yourself.)
Fifth, at the bottom of my own personal philosophical stack, I honestly believe in the freedom of man. That is, I sincerely believe in those words in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights, amongst which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Expounding on this, I truly believe that man has the right to live as he will; to create and think as he will, to love as he will, to work as he will and to rest as he will, amongst others.
I sincerely believe that these rights are the only true way we can do due justice to our individuality and ability to reason and perceive the world, and for every man (and woman, ‘natch) to seek to chart his own course through the universe.
And I earnestly and honestly believe that these rights are not just a statement of “yeah, sure, that sounds nice,” never to be given a second thought. I believe these rights (and others) are unfathomably deep–running through the core of culture and politics and economics.
For example, consider the right to work as you will.
What is work?
Work is not toil. If we only had the right to toil as we will–we would be no better than the slave who has the choice of serving in the master’s fields, the kitchen or the bedroom. We would have no power, in other words, to use work in order to better ourselves and improve our own lot in life; the best we can do is choose how we better our master’s lot in life.
Work, however, is necessary to our survival. That is, when you see a bird of prey swoop down to catch its meal, or see a beaver build a dam, or watch coyotes hunt or hedgehogs dig a burrow–we’re watching “work” in action. We’re watching animals take actions in order to insure their survival and comfort.
Work is, in essence, effort expended towards our survival and comfort. Some “work” may not even really seem like work to us–but the result is the same: the effort you put into the kitchen combining ingredients and baking in an oven then covering with a frosting turns into a cake. Other work may seem pointless to us except for the salary we receive at the end of the day: either as we directly exchange that cake for money, or exchange other efforts on our part for money.
And if we have the right to work as we will–this has some very deep consequences. One of which is the implication that we have the right not just to toil as we wish for our master’s comfort–but that we have the right to enjoy the results of our own toil–to earn money as we wish and to spend that money as we wish on things we may need, want or desire.
So if you believe we have the right to work as we will, that implies far more than the choice to service our master’s fields, kitchen or bedroom. That implies that we have the right to make or do things and individually enjoy–and control–the results of our action.
This implies some sense of property and ownership: ownership is the exclusive control of the products or services we create through our effort. Without it, and someone could simply confiscate the cake we baked above without us being able to stop it.
It also implies some sort of medium of exchange: we have the right to exchange our products or services with others in exchange for a medium of exchange–money–which we can then trade with others.
Now we may not like what we’re compensated for our efforts. And we may bristle that others seem to have more than us.
But that’s not an excuse to put others into slavery just to satisfy our own aesthetic annoyance that someone else seems to also be benefitting from putting our efforts together with the efforts of others in a large group or organization.
Of course if your chosen profession is to repress others–to burn books or to assault people who think and write bad things–well, we may be able to sympathize with the idea that perhaps this is the only way you can keep food on the table and a roof over your heads. But perhaps you may wish to rethink your line of work.
However, there are certain professions which are illegal which are only because of our moral or ethical outrage–which is just a polite way of saying our sense of aesthetics–of what we think looks pretty–makes us think we have the right to interfere with your right to work as you will.
Such as sex work.
So this is just a long-winded way of saying that I believe in individuality and the right of each of us to chart our own way through the universe, exercising our ability to reason and to feel as we see fit, so long as it does not radically and directly interfere with others doing the same.
And that right: for each of us to chart our own way through the universe–is inherent in our power of reason and is the only true way we can do true justice to our individuality.
Further, aesthetic considerations: he’s too rich or seems to powerful, her line of work looks ugly or sinful–are just excuses we use to expand the idea of “direct interference” (like punching someone in the nose) to things that displease us. (Like outlawing sex work because it seems immoral and may spread disease–as if the mistake made by a prostitute not taking proper protection is any more dangerous than one mathematical mistake made by a civil engineer that causes a bridge full of pedestrians to collapse into a river.)
Aesthetics, in other words, is no excuse to limit other people’s rights. In fact, it’s one of the most condescending reasons to attempt to limit other people’s rights–and yet we’ve fallen into the habit of judging others based on our own aesthetic framework All. The. Fucking. Time.
I know the following will seem as a surprise, especially in this day and age of perpetual political anger and perpetual political fear being ginned up by fear-mongers who are trying to keep us afraid, angry, and voting without taking a serious look at who we are voting for or what we are supporting.
But when I post about a thing, I’m not shilling for a political party.
I don’t give a shit who you vote for–and really, only marginally care if you vote at all. (I’d prefer it if you think politics are so God-awfully important we need to do something, that you actually get involved yourself by both voting and volunteering to help in the campaign of a politician you support, regardless of party.)
I don’t even think I can change your mind. If I thought you were so weak willed, dear reader, that I could change your mind with a half-dozen hundred-word essays, it would imply that I didn’t think very highly of you.
Nor should you think you can change my mind with a response. Please pay me the same courtesy I pay you.
It’s not that my thinking doesn’t evolve over time. It does, but it will evolve on my schedule as I contemplate the universe around me, and try–as you are–to make sense of it myself.
Nor, really, do I care if you read what I write. Someone will. If you don’t want to read my writings, please unsubscribe unfriend me. (I really wish groups like “Facebook” would call “friending” what it really is: subscribing to someone else’s feed. By calling it “friending” it implies a level of connection that cannot happen in social media, but only in person, over drinks or a good meal.)
Mostly I write what I do because it entertains me, because it helps me gain a deeper understanding of the universe, and because I wish to complain about some very specific issue which I find hypocritical or a violation of my deep-seated notions about what I see as our fundamental rights as human being.
And if I can convince you to just think a little bit about your own ontological stack: about what things you believe are fundamentally important to you and how those beliefs may have surprising consequences in how you see the world–well, bonus. Though I don’t expect that.
After all, you have the right to think as you will.
And if you think that my writing is simply shilling for a particular political party, well, you’re not paying attention.
Fuzzy little things that I find interesting. 