Keeping Out of Politics
Richard Greenberg, George Bernard Shaw, and George Orwell (again).
A friend of mine told me recently that she considered me a “political writer.” I can see why one might say this. I write a lot of essays about political issues. I have read a lot of George Orwell, an acclaimed, self-proclaimed “political writer,” and have claimed some of his ideas as my own. However, I’ve never thought of myself using this label before, however true it might be. I often engage in political debate (my chosen position most often that of the “devil’s advocate”). This would certainly make me a writer who discusses politics, and sometimes voices political opinions. However, my purpose for writing is not to advance any type of political agenda,1 and is, instead, firmly against the idea of any political allegiances. My reasoning for engaging in such writing can be best summated in a George Orwell quote:
“In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics’. All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”2
My mom made a comment once that, in the last few years, she has started noticing people once again using ‘political’ slurs to insult people (for example, the word “fascist” is being slung around meaninglessly). She claimed that she hadn’t noticed these insults being so prevalent since the 1960s, in the heart of the Vietnam War.3 We are, once again, in a political age. We consume tons of political media—older generations favor cable news, and younger ones tend towards endless social media scrolling. We divide ourselves into different ideological camps, whose grips on reality are each slowly slipping away into absurdity. Our futures are uncertain, our perceptions of truth even more so. Because of this, I find it just as hard to ‘keep out of politics’ today as Orwell did in the 1930s and 40s, the era of the Second World War. To stay silent on political issues in such a world is simply oblivious, (even though abstaining from propaganda is probably the most intelligent thing that one can do). Nevertheless, my friend’s statement illustrated an unfortunate truth: once a writer voices a political opinion, all of their writing becomes colored by this opinion in the eyes of their readers, unintentional as this may be.
I recently read the play Pygmalion,4 by George Bernard Shaw (who apparently insisted on being called simply “Bernard Shaw” while he was alive—an illustration of how little authorial intent really matters). I loved the play. I admired Shaw’s style of storytelling, which I found very engaging. The characters were endearing, human. The play was an effective take on class relations in England (and, in fact, I observed a lot of parallels between the story and Orwell’s work). However, my interpretation of the story was clouded by one sneaky mistake: I had looked up the playwright before reading, and learned that Shaw was an active Socialist.
Now, my own political bias (which may be more aptly called an ‘anti-political’ bias) is unkind to Socialists. For one, I consider socialism to be a very bad idea, and am often frustrated by humanity’s refusal to let it die. More generally, though, I am distrustful of anyone who identifies strongly with one political label. Political allegiances are ‘cult-like’; they cloud judgment. They are a waste of time and a misuse of mental energy. This is because the majority of them are predicated on a faulty idea: that one can fix humanity’s problems by changing the structure of the societies we live in. This is a notion that people cling to despite the fact that every human society that has ever existed has divided itself into a social hierarchy, that these hierarchies can be observed in small-scale social orders, too, such as families and friend groups. Socialists aim to destroy large-scale hierarchical division, but it is impossible. It would counter human nature.
This statement reminds me of my experience of a different play: Take Me Out, by Richard Greenberg. The play as a whole may be described as “political” in that it tackles ideas such as race and homosexuality, but this is not the type of politics I am talking about.5 What I have in mind is one particular monologue from the play, in which a character proclaims that “baseball is a perfect metaphor for hope in a democratic society.” The character gushes about equality of opportunity, the principle by which democracy is theoretically founded upon, and which, he argues, the rules of baseball exemplify perfectly. He praises the umpires—“justices”—tasked with making sure that the game remains fair. He praises the idea that a player can appeal an ump’s decision:
It’s inevitably turned down, but that’s part of what makes the metaphor so right.
Because even in the most well meant of systems, error is inevitable. Even within the fairest of paradigms, unfairness will creep in.
Immediately after this comes the punchline:
Baseball is better than democracy—or at least than democracy as it’s practiced in this country—because, unlike democracy, baseball acknowledges loss.
While conservatives tell you, “Leave things alone and no one will lose,” and liberals tell you “Interfere a lot and no one will lose,” baseball says, “Someone will lose.”
Not only says it—insists upon it!
So that baseball achieves the tragic vision democracy evades. Evades and embodies.
Democracy is lovely, but baseball’s more mature.
I love this statement. It is so true. The very idea that one can ‘fix’ the fundamental problems of humanity is so arrogant, so naive. The way Greenberg acknowledges this—countering America’s greatest folly with America’s favorite pastime—is beautiful. And, as with all beautiful things, it is, inevitably, misunderstood.
I worked at this show for two weeks straight (meaning that I’ve seen it several times) and, nearly every night, I observed the crowd cheer maniacally at the statement “unlike democracy, baseball acknowledges loss.” The first time this happened was the first time that I had watched the show myself, so I didn’t think much of it. The second time, I was uplifted—I had been impressed by the monologue the day before, and thought that it revealed something encouraging about humanity. In a time when it seemed like everyone in the world was indoctrinated into some type of political foolishness, it was nice to see that so many people grasped the absurdity of our political climate. Each time afterwards, though, I realized a dark sort of irony—that these people were cheering before the character had made his point. He had not yet defined the word ‘loss’: the idea that it is impossible to remove the bad from the world. He touched on the idea briefly in his statement about umpires, but there was no way that the audience was clapping so vehemently because they anticipated the idea being elaborated upon. If so, that was the line they would have applauded after. And, if they were applauding in opposition of partisanship, the applause would come after “baseball’s more mature” or “someone will lose.”
Instead, they applauded after “baseball acknowledges loss.” This, in fact, was one of the only moments in the play to garner such applause. And as the laughter and the applause kept happening night after night, I came to the only conclusion that I could think of: that the audience was misinterpreting what was meant by the word “loss.” My hypothesis is that they clapped in mockery of the ‘stolen election’ claims made by Donald Trump after the 2020 presidential election. After all, this was a fairly hot issue that hasn’t really left the mainstream narrative since its inception. Isn’t this a perfect irony? Night after night, immediately before Greenberg’s anti-partisan point, the crowd’s enthusiasm was fueled by partisanship.
It is actually a testament to the ‘good’ part of humanity that people commit themselves so strongly to the abolition of our evil. Richard Greenberg would likely agree that this is also illustrative of our irrational side. Humans are capable of appalling acts of evil. There are evildoers among rich and poor alike, and deviants have sprouted forth from every social norm that has ever been established. People often dwell upon the question: are humans inherently good or inherently evil? Well, the question’s pervasiveness proves with certainty that we are inherently extremist thinkers (which is perhaps why we are consistently taken by political ideology). Humans are both. If we were one or the other, we would see only one or the other, and the question would never arise. There’s good and bad in all of us, and this duality is expressed in the way our social systems order themselves.6
We are also tribal thinkers. We like to form groups based on our ideas, and, when we encounter an opposing group, we tend to pass judgment on them without actually listening to what they have to say. But doesn’t this make countering political ideology as futile as acting in support of it? I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion that being ‘anti-political’ is as much of a waste of time as being political. A complex society devoid of politics is as contrary to human nature as the idea of a socialist utopia. We will never stop political groups from forming, and will never stop human populations from dividing. My ‘anti-political’ works will only reach the small segment of the population who read with an open mind (a percentage which is basically negligible). People will always join groups which seem to give their lives meaning. People will always chase utopia, and they will always fail.
Pygmalion is about a young woman who is coached by a teacher into speaking and acting like a ‘lady.’ By changing her accent and her mannerisms, and learning what is and isn’t appropriate to say in ‘proper’ conversation, she was able to ‘pass’ as a member of the upper class.7 The message: people are people. The upper and lower classes may be separated by their access to regular showers, their fashionable clothing, the way that they pronounced their words, and the things that they chose to talk about, but none of these things are innate to a human being. Stripped of these things, all people are the same. Having knowledge of Shaw's political allegiance, I interpreted this as a “socialist” message. However, there is nothing inherently socialist about it. It is merely an observation about the human condition: that we are all equal, yet we organize ourselves into a social hierarchy, and that these categorizations influence the way we treat one another. Socialism was proposed as a ‘solution’ to these problems. However, whether or not one agrees with the solution, they should be able to see that the problem exists.
This was not always the case, though. In fact, we owe a lot to these early Socialists. George Orwell was one, and his ideas have become so ‘mainstream’ that we take them for granted today. In his writing, Orwell actively argued against the idea that there was something inherently different about the upper and lower classes. In the time that Orwell was writing, it was widely believed that poor people liked being dirty, that they enjoyed their long hours of grueling labor. He counters both of these assertions in his book The Road to Wigan Pier. Reading this book as a middle-class American living in the early twenty-first century, it seemed absurd to me that Orwell spent time refuting the idea that there is some inherent quality in poor people that condemns them to poverty. But that was the type of thinking that he was up against. Knowing this makes his Socialist identity a lot less surprising.
Of course, his proposed solution to this problem8 is as irrational as the denial that such a problem exists. There is no solution to the problem of inequality. It will always exist, as much as it shocks the conscience. Someone will always lose. When political zealots tout faulty solutions to pervasive problems, it is important to procceed with skepticism. However, just because the ideologue’s solution is faulty, that does not mean that the problems that they identify are not real.9 It is for this reason that socialism, when understood as a moralist's attempt a perfect world, seems almost admirable. It appeals to our generous, loving, optimistic side. The error that it predicates itself on—that human nature can be changed—is so attractive that it can almost be excused.
That being said, great atrocities can be committed with good intentions. In fact, the worst usually are. Resist extremist thinking. Do not stop reading the works of Socialists—they have a lot of good to say. However, do not fall into the Socialist trap. Just because you agree with the problems that they identify, that does not mean that you should also agree with the integrity of their proposed solution.
I started this essay speaking out against the label “political writer.” No matter what political allegiance a writer has, it does not mean that their writing is intended as an advancement of that political ideology. Pygmalion is not a socialist play. It is a play about human beings, which happened to be written by a self-proclaimed Socialist. Similarly, Nineteen Eighty-Four is not a socialist novel, it is an anti-totalitarian novel constructed under similar conditions. We should untether works of art from the people that create them; otherwise, we run the risk of throwing out the truth that they contain. Many great ideas have been circulated by people who have been duped by an ideology. By projecting our own biases and expectations onto writers, by assuming that all that an author writes is negligible because of a political belief they happen to hold, we become a different type of irrational ideologue, denying truth in favor of a lazy, short-sighted expectation.
Let’s start a dialogue. Share your thoughts in the comments about partisanship, twentieth-century Socialists, or any other ideas that this essay may have sparked.
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Of course, Orwell would argue that a good political writer is one who keeps their political agenda and their writing separate.
from “Politics and the English Language” (1946).
Note that Orwell was writing during wartime, that the Vietnam War was the last American war that utilized the draft (meaning that it was the last war the American public was forced to participate in), and that we are once again in a tumultuous, ‘warlike’ time.
I am not the first person to compare the Covid-19 pandemic to wartime. The inflation, the push towards sacrifice, the inundation with patriotic, ‘we’re all in this together’ propaganda, the glorification of people on the ‘front lines’ (healthcare workers are our new soldiers), the division within our population. One could argue that the two things serve the same secondary purpose—to divide, to distract.
Note that Orwell predicted in Nineteen Eighty-Four that this would eventually become the primary purpose of war. While I don’t think that this is true (humans are a warlike people—as long as we exist we will find some reason to argue), ruling powers have certainly taken advantage of wars to this effect for at least the last century. No matter one’s opinion on the origins of the coronavirus pandemic and its subsequent lockdowns, it is evident that the situation has been similarly exploited.
Better known by some as the musical My Fair Lady.
In fact, ‘trendy’ issues such as this usually serve to distract rather than elucidate.
I take care to use the words “order themselves.” All of the social planning in the world will not let us decide how the finished product will turn out, no matter what we’d like to believe.
Of course, Shaw also makes the point that you cannot move between social classes so easily—the rich are defined by their resources, not only their accents. He goes as far as to suggest that a poor girl who speaks like a ‘lady’ would have a more difficult time making her way in the world than one who speaks like a member of her own class. There’s no place for such a person; at least the latter would be able to walk amongst her own. It all works out in the end for Eliza Doolittle, though. Make of this ending what you will.
Best outlined in The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius.
There are exceptions to this, of course. For example, the Nazis’ scapegoating of Jews (their identified ‘problem’) was every bit as abhorrent as their proposed solution. Any political ideology which predicates itself on racism is similarly guilty.