Let me preface this by saying nothing I say below is meant to criticize you personally or your beliefs, etc. (Always a good start!). But I've been thinking about something and your essay kinda fits right into it. So you're my victim. Sorry! So here goes:
You seem like a smart reasonable well intentioned person. I see a lot of activism in here that youve engaged in. Probably because your a smart well intentioned person! But I have been thinking: I worry we have too many activists. Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too many. I dont mean activists of any particular sort. I mean the whole caboodle. Too many abortion activists. Too many anti abortion activists. To many immigration advocates. Too many anti immigration advocates. Etc.
Activists are like lawyers. Very important! But if you have too many lawyers and not enough juries/judges, meaning thoughtful but impartial people who sit in judgement of the lawyers argument, the whole thing collapses. I worry we don't have enough of that latter group.
Now, one can say "well I can be an activist and still be open minded". And....yeah...you can to some extent. But I'm talking about more than "open minded". You say your very pro choice. You march for that. Advocate for that. Let's say tomorrow someone walks up to you and gives you an iron clad case against abortion. You listen, open mindedly, and think "holy crap this person has a point". But how much of what you are is bound up in pro choice activism? You probably have (activist!) friends who are suddenly gonna say "Yikes what happened to Lirpa?" Heck you're probably going to say to yourself! That's gonna be a barrier for you in being convinced by an argument. Even a correct argument. But what if you were "just" a voter. No one's gonna shame you for changing your mind, because you don't tell people what you believe in the first place.
Now I use abortion as merely an example. Could be anything. (I don't know my own feelings on it, fwiw.)
In the old days, tech limitations kinda did this for us. You read, listened to, or watched some political coverage. And then were forced to think about by your lonesome. You had to consider it. You couldn't really advocate for it! You could write a letter to the editor, I guess. But that's not scaleable like social media facilitated activism. Gathering others together to feel good and protest about your mutual beliefs was also much harder. No. The average person just had to read and think...and then vote on that.
And I think we should encourage that. It's not open mindedness, it's not political apathy it's, uh, 'engaged impartiality' to make a term? It doesn't mean you can't talk to people. But it means you don't advocate for "your position". And you might be able to see obvious issues with policies that more committed partisans can't. (I sure do! All the time!)
Look at politics now. No one tries to convince anyone of anything. They make up their minds and scream at anyone who disagrees. They become activists (of a sort). And then the campaigns just try to turn out enough of their activists to have more than the other side's activists. And it seems to me this is taking us to a really bad place. Instead, imagine a large group of smart, good people out there who said "I have no opinion on this. Convince me."
In short: I think we'd be a lot better place if more people said "convince me of your idea" rather than "I have a great idea". We need smart well meaning people like you to join our group of engaged impartiality. Come on in!
My 2 cents. And I recognize the inherent contradiction in being something like an "activist against activism". Well, all I can say is consistency is the Hobgoblin of small minds. But I'm totally down to be convinced otherwise :)
Let me preface this by saying nothing I say below is meant to criticize you personally or your beliefs, etc. (Always a good start!). But I've been thinking about something and your essay kinda fits right into it. So you're my victim. Sorry! So here goes:
You seem like a smart reasonable well intentioned person. I see a lot of activism in here that youve engaged in. Probably because your a smart well intentioned person! But I have been thinking: I worry we have too many activists. Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too many. I dont mean activists of any particular sort. I mean the whole caboodle. Too many abortion activists. Too many anti abortion activists. To many immigration advocates. Too many anti immigration advocates. Etc.
Activists are like lawyers. Very important! But if you have too many lawyers and not enough juries/judges, meaning thoughtful but impartial people who sit in judgement of the lawyers argument, the whole thing collapses. I worry we don't have enough of that latter group.
Now, one can say "well I can be an activist and still be open minded". And....yeah...you can to some extent. But I'm talking about more than "open minded". You say your very pro choice. You march for that. Advocate for that. Let's say tomorrow someone walks up to you and gives you an iron clad case against abortion. You listen, open mindedly, and think "holy crap this person has a point". But how much of what you are is bound up in pro choice activism? You probably have (activist!) friends who are suddenly gonna say "Yikes what happened to Lirpa?" Heck you're probably going to say to yourself! That's gonna be a barrier for you in being convinced by an argument. Even a correct argument. But what if you were "just" a voter. No one's gonna shame you for changing your mind, because you don't tell people what you believe in the first place.
Now I use abortion as merely an example. Could be anything. (I don't know my own feelings on it, fwiw.)
In the old days, tech limitations kinda did this for us. You read, listened to, or watched some political coverage. And then were forced to think about by your lonesome. You had to consider it. You couldn't really advocate for it! You could write a letter to the editor, I guess. But that's not scaleable like social media facilitated activism. Gathering others together to feel good and protest about your mutual beliefs was also much harder. No. The average person just had to read and think...and then vote on that.
And I think we should encourage that. It's not open mindedness, it's not political apathy it's, uh, 'engaged impartiality' to make a term? It doesn't mean you can't talk to people. But it means you don't advocate for "your position". And you might be able to see obvious issues with policies that more committed partisans can't. (I sure do! All the time!)
Look at politics now. No one tries to convince anyone of anything. They make up their minds and scream at anyone who disagrees. They become activists (of a sort). And then the campaigns just try to turn out enough of their activists to have more than the other side's activists. And it seems to me this is taking us to a really bad place. Instead, imagine a large group of smart, good people out there who said "I have no opinion on this. Convince me."
In short: I think we'd be a lot better place if more people said "convince me of your idea" rather than "I have a great idea". We need smart well meaning people like you to join our group of engaged impartiality. Come on in!
My 2 cents. And I recognize the inherent contradiction in being something like an "activist against activism". Well, all I can say is consistency is the Hobgoblin of small minds. But I'm totally down to be convinced otherwise :)
Sorry this is so goshdarn long.
Interesting piece. I look forward to reading the Occupy follow up, as I recall watching in real time that entire movement being destroyed by idpol.