Why Politics is Making Everyone Stupider
Reason, decency, and relationships are perishing at the hands of partisan politics.
I’m not the first person to comment on the rise in political polarisation over the past decade.
Regardless of political leaning, everybody with a hint of perception has noticed an uptick in politically-fueled division and hostility in recent years. And it’s not just in one country, but many.
Mainstream media pundits, independent media pundits, and politicians themselves lament the polarisation that they’re largely responsible for. Those on the right blame the left, those on the left blame the right, and the far-right and the far-left blame their preferred scapegoats.
Nobody blames themselves, of course. Convenient.
If this phenomenon was limited to the halls of power or just the internet, then it would still be an issue, but excessive fragmentation has real-world consequences. Millions of families have been divided, friends lost, and careers destroyed, all because somebody had the ‘wrong’ politics in the eyes of another.
Incredibly, some people celebrate and encourage this. After all, falling out with your ‘communist libtard’ sister or your ‘MAGA Nazi’ father is understandable. Isn’t it?
After all, if they don’t share your exact worldview or voted for a different candidate to you, then the only reason must be that they’re evil, hateful, and bigoted. Who cares if their day-to-day lives and how they actually treat people suggests otherwise?
I’m being facetious.
While I know that genuine extremists exist (usually radicalised by the aforementioned media and political influences), how likely is it that your beloved family member or childhood friend suddenly became a hateful person who ‘literally wants people to die’?
How likely is it that ~50% of your fellow civilians and neighbours are raging bigots, and became so just in the past few years?
Does that seem plausible?
If it does, then perhaps it’s you who has become the extreme, intolerant one.
After all, let’s remember what the word ‘bigot’ actually means:
“A person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.”
The definition is not:
“A person who votes Republican”
“A person who votes Democrat”
“A person who voted for Brexit”
“A person who voted Remain (in the EU)”
…or anything like it.
There is no mention of any particular political or religious orientation. A bigot is simply someone who is incredibly zealous about their own beliefs and biases, and intolerant of other people’s ways of life and viewpoints.
Unless you’ve managed to lock yourself tightly into an echo chamber, you’ll know that this trait is not unique to any particular ‘side’ of the political aisle.
Critical thinking, civility, honesty, and morality itself are in peril as people increasingly shift toward political obsession and partisanship.
Making politics the focus of your life and the lens through which you view the world leads to a loss of personal accountability and kindness. It causes people to develop victim mentalities, where they seek to blame other people for everything that goes wrong in their lives.
I see different versions of this every day online.
“It’s the left.”
“It’s the right.”
“It’s white people’s fault.”
“It’s the black people’s fault.”
“It’s the Jews’ fault.”
“It’s the immigrants’ fault.”
“It’s men’s fault.”
“It’s women’s fault.”
Even people who manage to avoid gross identity politics and hyper-partisanship may blame ‘the elites’, ‘the globalists’, or ‘the rich’ for everything bad in the world.
While all of this makes for a lucrative business of grievance politics and its downstream economy (commentary, activism, advertising, books, merch, etc.), it doesn’t make for happier people, stronger families, or better nations.
Obsessing over politics makes people worse, not better.
It’s rare to come across someone who is obsessed with politics (not merely interested), and mentally and spiritually better off as a result. It’s soul-destroying.
For too many people, politics has become entertainment, a team sport, and an ultra-low resolution filter to separate ‘good’ from ‘bad’.
At its worst, some people’s ‘thinking’ boils down to this:
“Everyone and everything that furthers my political agenda is good and must be supported, and everyone and everything that impedes my political agenda is bad and must be destroyed.”
Nuance be damned. Ethics be damned. Individuality be damned.
This is the mentality of an extremist, not a reasonable person.
Personally, I’ve been experiencing a heavy political fatigue over the past year, and I know I’m not alone in that regard. The past decade in particular has been a non-stop barrage of divisive nonsense. The 24/7 modern news cycle and access to infinite opinions via social media haven’t made things any better.
What is the end result of all this? Everybody ends up dumber, angrier, and more stressed. And very little gets accomplished which makes our daily lives better.
So, with all that said, don’t be afraid to detach yourself from this matrix and practice what I call ‘tactical aloofness’.
It’s not your responsibility to care about, let alone try to fix, every problem in your country, and the wider world.
If you have a particularly strong calling and the power to enact change, then do so. You don’t need to be apathetic. But make sure your own house is in order first.
I understand that politics is unavoidable to some degree, but becoming more focused on it is unlikely to make your life better.
Control what you can. That’s the true power you have.
1,
Zuby