My Last Statement on Politics

A case for political optimism

I used to be very vocal about politics. Aside from an unfortunate leftist stint in college I’ve never taken a political ‘side,’ but I was an extremely opinionated nonpartisan, compelled (almost to a fault) to speak up about what I thought was right and what I thought was ludicrous.

I was right about a lot and wrong about a whole lot more, but after a while, I realized that all of my writing and thinking was only leading me in circles. I wasn’t persuading anyone who did not already agree with me, it hardly seemed worthwhile to make people agree with me regardless, and all it really served to do was focus my attention on difficult and depressing problems when there were much more fulfilling pursuits elsewhere. Thus, I adopted the catch-all idea that “it just doesn’t matter.” It’s all a sham, so what’s the use?

It’s election season, though, which means even those of us who abstain from politics can’t help but confront it every once in a while. This meant that I was in the position to revisit my ‘stance’ on politics whether I wanted to or not. In this case, this meant calling my own apathy into question.

If we look at history, there have been numerous systems and structures of government, and whether they worked or not depended on the quality of the rulers and the ruled alike. To use a tired, infuriating phrase, it’s essentially a ‘bottom-up’ approach as opposed to a ‘top-down’ approach. Our politics is a sham because our rulers are corrupt and our people are not intelligent enough to do anything about it.

There. I said it (and if you’re reading this, don’t worry, I’m not talking about you). There’s a huge literacy crisis in this country. About one in five people in this country are functionally illiterate—the kind of numbers that we haven’t seen since the 1800s.¹ Although the exact numbers are up for debate, approximately half of Americans can’t read above a sixth grade level. Add to this the fact that most literate Americans are barraged with propagandizing from both ‘sides.’ Even assuming that the voting system is completely uncorrupt and works exactly as intended, what kind of ‘informed decisions’ are our voters making?

It hardly matters, because it’s been clear for some time that the average American (i.e. me) does not have a single clue what’s actually going on behind the scenes of our government, and that what we learned in Civics class, while probably true at one point, has at this point turned into the arbitrary rules of an elaborate puppet show.

So what’s the point? Well, this question gets at the real problem, doesn’t it? Over time, a lot of people have decided that it doesn’t really matter who wins and who loses, and have stopped wasting their time. It’s arguably a good move.

However, isn’t inattention exactly what a despotic regime would want from its population? Consider the cheesy truism “the opposite of love is not hate, but apathy.” Might it also be true that the ultimate goal in the breaking of a population’s spirit is not anger, but disillusionment?

The trend of American public opinion in the last several decades has been away from hope. Yet something strange is going on. The same people who hold the belief that the ‘powers that be’ are corrupt and ineffective to the point of incompetence somehow also believe that their ‘reign’ is infallible. They believe that their enemies are immortal, that the bad guys will always win.

It is a belief that has been supported by recent events. It’s no secret that power corrupts as reliably as it attracts corrupt people. Plus, the top authority in many of our institutions is not a person at all, but a clunky bureaucratic system that stamps out all progress and discourages genuine people who might otherwise be instigators of positive change before they can even begin. The only way to mitigate this problem is to dismantle these systems entirely.

But what about this ‘power corrupts’ thing? It’s true in the vast majority of cases, and it certainly seems that only a psychopath has what it takes to participate in our current system. But is it always true? What about that storybook notion that leaders are called to their positions by some sort of moral duty?

We’ve been fed so many lies, so much deception. Armed with the wisdom that the Second World War has given us about the possibility of a population rallying behind a monster, we are rightfully cautioned against faith.

We’re in a difficult position, though. The alternative to hope is destruction. The strange reality is that a population that cares—even if it’s just blind, stupid faith—won’t tolerate as much as one that’s given up. The lie of patriotism, as much of a falsity as it is, becomes somewhat true as people believe in it.

People have a strong desire to believe in something. I’ve heard this conflated with the religious instinct—the notion that people have replaced their need to believe in God with their need to believe in politicians—but I’m not sure if this is true. It seems that people lost their faith in divinity and humanity more or less simultaneously.

Is authority inevitable? Do we ‘need’ leaders? Regardless, we have them, and if our historical record is to be believed, this has always been the case. Furthermore, there have been good leaders and bad leaders presiding over every system, and the world is generally good when its leaders are good and bad when its leaders are bad. Thus, if we want change, doesn’t it make more sense to look at the quality of our leaders than the quality of our systems?

The bureaucracies that this country is built on are just ideas. The constitution itself is an idea, too—a strong one, and one that’s lasted a few centuries—but an idea nonetheless. Kingship, nobility, elected authority—these are ideas, also. This country is young. If we abandon the ideas that made us great for this short time, then we can consider this nation a failed experiment and move on.

But what if it’s just a lapse? Empires have rebounded from near-collapse before. Perhaps, instead of advocating for systemic change, our best hope is actually to put our faith in some ‘philosopher-king’ type who is selfless enough to wade through the muck and get something done. It’s an ideal, and will never be achieved perfectly, but perhaps if someone could try, something good might happen.

I’ve heard some people argue that this is Donald Trump. I am not nearly so optimistic. Honestly, a pretty large part of me has already resigned to the fact that we’re screwed.

If you asked me a week ago, I’d have said that I don’t care. Now, despite the fact that I know nothing and can do nothing, I reject this view. The only problem is, I’m not sure what to replace it with.

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1. From NCES data

“Adult Literacy in the United States”

“120 Years of Literacy”