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I should mention, to begin, that this isn’t going to be one of those juicy, dramatic, pop-your-popcorn goodbye posts. I’ll still be coming to DU to read the news sometimes, I’m sure. I just won’t be posting.
I’m getting off the “merry-go-round,” as John Lennon called it.
No, there will be no “Screw you guys, I hate DU!” here. This isn’t anything like that- DU has been an extremely important part of me for a long time. It has defined me in many ways, in fact, in what it has taught me. Rather, I’m ending my involvement in politics and I want to explain why. It’s likely that it’ll sound like a lot of other stories you’ve heard from people swearing off politics, but let me tell my version.
Most of you who are still reading probably don’t recognize much of me, but I’ve been at DU for the vast majority of its years.
And I’m only talking about myself, here- I’m trying to give you a better picture of who I am. Not tell you, but show you.
I first began following the news closely when it became clear the U.S. was going to invade Iraq in mid-to-late 2002. It was a very dark time for me because I had been taught, and truly believed, that the U.S. did not attack countries that had not attacked us, or at least those that were not serious threats to the world.
Long prior to the Iraq invasion or even 9/11, I had been told many times by my generally more liberal (at the time) friends that that wasn’t the case, that things weren’t that simple and peachy. They pointed out as some contradictory examples that our country expanded its boundaries aggressively in the first 100+ years it existed, and that we meddled in the affairs of many South American countries and fought a very long war in Vietnam. I dismissed those points, however, on the belief that, though I did not know them, we must have had really good reasons to do so if we went to war with or used our military against others. We stood for liberty and justice for all- it’s in the pledge, right? And we were protected by nuclear weapons. We didn’t need to do that kind of stuff. Other countries speciously invaded each other, but not us. I’ve long thought that much of that belief came from civics class, studying the Constitution, but now I think movies may have had an effect on me, too, sadly.
Another telling example of who I was: before my involvement in politics, pre-2002, I didn’t “get” that, in The Great Gatsby, Daisy killed Myrtle with Gatsby’s car on purpose. The whole point of that piece of the story didn’t even occur to me until many years after I first read it. I’d read it at least a couple of times, yet I actually thought it was a coincidental accident, and that Gatsby took the blame…for the accident. It was a staggering comprehension when it finally came to me otherwise.
Yeah, I was stupid. Just another couple of those many things I’ve been wrong about.
Anyway, so when George W. Bush began talking about invading Iraq after 9/11 (spring/summer of 2002), I literally did not believe it could happen. I remember sitting on the beach at a party with an old boss of mine- I can picture this very clearly, in my mind, still- and, when the subject of the possible invasion came up, looking him in the eyes, shaking my head and saying “He can’t do that.” I seriously thought, hey, Americans are smart, they know Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. He can’t just up and invade a country that didn’t have the slightest involvement in the attack. Americans weren’t going to put up with that.
Of course, I was wrong. TV news shows went along with the saber-rattling, and come 2003 most of the people I knew, including my own parents (whom I really trust) and other Democrats, believed we should invade. Not just should, but needed to. (Side note: My parents and I later reconciled on the issue.)
That war shattered me and my belief in my country and its people. Coping with that reality-check was not easy. I saw polls showing overwhelming support at home for the U.S. doing “something,” as long as they had the support of the international community. I’m not sure I can overstate the effect all of that had on me. One way of putting it is that people looked different to me after the invasion.
But I found DU, and saw that I wasn’t the only one so stunned by the whole thing.
After that, in the spirit of DU, I decided I wanted to change the world.
More accurately, I decided to act on my sense of duty to change things. In my mind, it was my responsibility, and everyone else’s, to make the world a better place. I’d been taught that, too- and still believed it.
There was plenty to be done, also. More than just the war needed fixing, though for years it was my (and, really, everyone’s) main topic of conversation. Well, that and the 2004 election. We needed economic policies that would strengthen the middle class and lift people out of poverty. We needed social policies that didn’t discriminate against people based on arbitrary categorization. We needed an energy policy that would, in turn, lead to a sane foreign policy. We needed an environmental policy that wouldn’t put our cities underwater in 100 years. As I saw it then, somewhere along the line we had lost what had made us exceptional. We needed to start thinking critically and creatively, and with more empathy. And we needed to work together. Our country had gone astray, and the minds of the American people needed to be fundamentally changed to put us back on the right path.
In my belief, from 2006 to 2007 I actively courted unbelievably hardcore, in-hindsight-already-lost rightwingers with the idea that their beliefs and reasonable, classical liberalism could be reconciled, if they could let go of their hate and fear.
A noble pursuit, all of that? I supposed, at the time. But talk about arrogance. I’ve been accused of displaying it before, generally in the context of thinking I have all the right answers. And while it may be arrogant to believe one is so blessed, that’s pretty common. What’s truly arrogant- not to mention foolish- is to believe that, as an individual, or even in concert with others, one has the power to effect a constructive, fundamental change in the minds of millions, or billions, of people.
No, arrogance isn’t just thinking you are unique in knowing everything, it’s the thought that- even if you did- it or you could make the slightest difference at all in the fundamentals of the human mind.
To this day, I’m not totally sure of exactly what I was trying to accomplish when I decided to get so involved in politics. Maybe I really thought I was going to save everyone. Maybe I really did think I was going to help kick-start a “sea-change in our collective consciousness.” Or something.
We did see an amazing, rising hope from 2005 to 2008 as people finally rejected the policies of the Bush Administration. That was great. But it didn’t last.
What happened was society changed for that time, but humanity didn’t. That’s because humanity doesn’t change.
Then, society changed back.
I think there is a difference between society and humanity that explains a lot about our world.
In my mind, our society encompasses such fickle, empirical concepts as our technology; language; laws and other government; dress, fads, styles, and other customs and etiquette; conventional wisdom/widely held beliefs of the time; maybe even some aesthetics. These things change.
But humanity holds steadfast through time, while also exhibiting all of its aspects at once, through all people, always. It is the stuff of which the greatest stories are made. It is emotional. Primal. Motivation and need-based. Its umbrella includes love, hate, joy, sadness, anger, jealousy, greed, pride, sex-lust (I guess you could just throw all of the Seven Deadly Sins in there), power-lust, blood-lust, and fear.
Fear.
That’s a huge one. It’s also one that comes in many different forms.
I believe one of its forms- existential fear (or “angst”), the fear that one’s life does not have a purpose, and the resulting impulse that one must come up with some justification for existing- likely has always been the primary driving force behind people’s involvement in politics, or even just simple dinner-table arguments. It’s the primary reason for having any opinion at all, on anything- opinions give purpose. It is also a large part of why our discourse is so antagonistic, though I think the antagonism has increased recently due to changes in our technology- societal changes- that allow us to communicate more often and more quickly with each other. Everyone’s chosen existential purposes and justifications and psychological frames are competing with each other, constantly, and now at the speed of light.
Wow. Who can go up against that?
But maybe that existential fear is where my sense of duty to “change the world” came from, to begin with. If it was, I don’t think I was alone in it, though the specifics of that duty were probably different for other people. It does makes sense that many would want to make (what they see as) the best of our world.
In any case, what these years have taught me is that there is nothing on the scale I have tried to affect, within our fundamental humanity, that is under anything near my control. I can’t change people, or how they think, though that’s the change that was needed, as I saw it (hate, jealousy, greed, fear, etc.). I’ve come to accept that humanity is its own creature, determining its own fate. Lord knows, I have enough trouble overcoming my own demons.
If I had it my way, people would all come to a place where they didn’t think George W. Bush invading Iraq was even a practical possibility. A place where it wouldn’t even occur to someone that Daisy killed Myrtle on purpose. But I know that will never happen, at least not in my lifetime.
I’m also very tired. I no longer feel any need for “privileged glimpses into the human heart.” I’m not everyone’s father. People have to take responsibility for themselves.
My leaving politics and DU is part of the evolution of my life and myself.
Thus, I feel relieved from my duty, and my existential fear. That relief has been a long time coming. Past this, and what I have done, there is nothing more I can do in my responsibilities to others.
I think what I’m saying is that my fight with the human condition is over.
I do think relief is the right word to describe what I feel about leaving politics behind. Now I can focus on things that are close to me, that I do have an effect on (oh no, here comes the “spending more time with my family” speech!), and that I do have a quite direct responsibility for- my family, my friends, my job, my neighbors, and myself. These recent years, I’ve realized how much I enjoy being with other people in situations where worldly ideas are not being discussed. I’m building a life with those close to me, and I like it. I prefer it. And it’s a purpose, a meaning, unto itself.
As for worldly ideas, I’m definitely looking forward to sitting out on my deck at night, looking up at the stars, and reveling in our insignificance. Watching the wheels. Thinking about the very important things others have taught me.
No, I wouldn't change anything.
Or maybe I’ll just have a beer and watch a baseball game. ;)
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