In 1991 E. J. Dionne published Why Americans Hate Politics. The title was, perhaps, too memorable, because I mostly remember it today as a reference point for what it got wrong. He argued that, “on point after point, liberals and conservatives are framing issues as a series of ‘false choices, ‘ making it impossible for politicians to solve problems, and alienating voters in the process.” My recollection is that many of his complaints were that there were issues that people cared about and the political system ignored them and only paid attention to a narrow set of issues.
That may have been an accurate description of the political moment (and he argues that the Clinton administration, despite it’s flaws, was an improvement), but I don’t think it succeeds as a general theory.
Today I see political discussion and commentary that is much more available, higher quality, and more thoughtful than most of what I remember growing up. I also see a fair number of complaints that too many things are becoming political, or people expressing a desire to see less discussion of politics on Notes, and it’s worth thinking about what to make of that combination.
What are Politics?
Talking about why people hate politics requires some definition of politics.
I studied Political Philosophy in college and so I am inclined to a broad definition. Politics, broadly is the process of negotiating how to live in a society together. This isn’t just electoral politics, or “who gets what when and how”[1] but the entire set of ways in which people express their interest in what society should be, how it should function, what constitutes social virtue or vice, and the mechanisms for balancing those interests and the ways in which power operates. I think that most of the ways in which we engage others on the basis of sharing membership in a common society and try to convince them of our beliefs are politics.
There is much that is noble about that. I think about Dick Gregory’s heroic commitment to politics. At one point in 1965, he would perform his nightclub act in San Francisco, then get on a red-eye flight to Chicago where he was supporting a protest, and then back to San Francisco for work (he was also injured while trying to be a peacemaker in the Watts riots). He later said about that as long as people are marching they aren’t rioting.
For philosopher Hannah Arendt the ability to act and communicate in the public sphere was a key element of life (and part of the horror of totalitarianism was prohibiting the public sphere[2]). A dramatic example of the contestation of public discussion is the people arrested in Russia for protesting with blank signs.
It’s worth appreciating the bounty of what is available. I am frequently impressed by how much excellent writing is available online. I remember, as a child, there was a national edition of the Washington Post, printed weekly which was mostly a selection of opinion columns and editorial cartoons. On a weekly basis I read things which help sharpen my own thinking; either by clarifying an issue, making an argument better than I could, or presenting challenges to my own beliefs.
What is the problem
Having just gotten on my soapbox to defend politics as an important part of human experience and expression, I am not about to argue that online politics discussion is entirely healthy.
The first, an possibly unavoidable problem of discussing politics is that so many people are wrong. They are stubbornly attached to foolish ideas or operating off of clearly mistaken impressions of the world. Even worse, many people will look at me and wonder why I am so mistaken and so attached to foolish idea. Many of the defenses of politics that I am drawing upon above start from the assumption that people can disagree on various things and still recognize and respect when someone is speaking in good faith. That feels rare these days.
Last week I shared a clip of Mr. Rogers talking and part of what makes it so powerful is that he absolutely never gives the impression that people who would disagree with him are idiots (for lack of a better word). He presents his ideas not in conflict with an opposing side but simply as the best version of truth that he can offer.
It’s nice work if you can get it, but I think Lili Loofbourow offers a good disagnosis of why that isn’t the default experience.
I understand that’s frustrating, especially to those who wish to freely debate difficult questions with smart adversaries and can’t find any takers. You could call that refusal to debate “illiberalism,” I suppose, or you could recognize that there’s a history here. And if you want to know why people aren’t bothering to engage seriously or at length (or shout at you when you try), that history is worth trying to understand. For one thing, social media platforms got flooded by devil’s advocates who wasted the time and sapped the energy of people who were actually invested—sometimes cruelly, and for sport. That tends to weed out good-faith engagement. Add to this that most arguments worth having have been had and witnessed thousands of times already on these platforms, in multiple permutations. Those of us who’ve been here for a while know their tired choreographies, the moves and countermoves. If I see someone bring up “black-on-black crime” in response to an article about racist policing, I know how almost every step of the interaction will go should I choose to engage. Rather than learn from these exchanges, people of all persuasions on Twitter mostly enjoy the style of whichever “dunk” we happen to agree with. This isn’t universal, of course. One can try to engage in good faith, and some people do. But given that the reward for all that effort is likely to be mockery or contempt, one learns not to bother. “Black-on-black crime” becomes a cue to sign off. (Or lob an insult. Or quote-tweet with a mocking meme. There are lots of things Twitter is good for, and building solidarity among people who agree—sometimes by starting movements, sometimes by ruthlessly dunking on a minority opinion—is one of them.)
Online discussion is often both repetitive and reductive, gravitating towards a series of familiar statements and responses. I think that is a result of both the structure of social media (and we'll see if Substack does end up building for different incentives) and also that those rhetorical moves become familiar because they work. The internet is very good at certain sorts of optimization, and it creates an environment for the rapid evolution of a large body of emotionally charged political statements that are well-crafted to get attention.
I don’t offer any clear solutions, just the feeling that it’s still worth engaging with and celebrating good faith discussion and it has not completely vanished. Having a broad sense of what constitutes politics makes that easier — I just read two thoughtful essays about living with smartphones; neither of which is partisan, but both of which are political in the sense of being engaged with collective life in society.
Like many things in life, it’s good to cultivate an internal sense of, “is the example that I’m looking at representative of a healthy or unhealthy version of the broader category?” There is an awful lot of unhealthy political debate, and that is reason to conserve one’s energy but not to abandon the field.
Coda
There is a sentiment that I see fairly frequently which I want to push back on slightly because it’s one that I sympathize with. It is, essentially, people just need to calm down; they get far too worked up about symbolic issues that aren’t that important.
First, I have a theory which is that it’s very difficult to convince anyone to not care about something they are worried about. My theory is that trying to shift someone away from an entrenched position is more likely to succeed based on trying to add some additional think to care about, “yes I know that X is frustrating, but if you think about it from the perspective of fairness . . . “
Second, a common pattern for political fights is a case where a small number of people have strong feelings and the majority don’t care too much but are basically happy with the status quo. In those cases it can often seem like the smaller group of people is inflating the importance of the issue beyond all reason. But this impression is going to be affected by availability bias. It’s easy to think of examples of unreasonable groups, because those are the cases you hear about. All of the cases where the conflict is settled without much drama never make the news and are largely invisible.
Beyond those two observations we’re back to my basic reason that politics are frustrating — many (other) people are wrong, stubborn, or shortsighted.
[1] From Britanica, “In Politics: Who Gets What, When, How (1936)—a work whose title later served as the standard lay definition of politics—[Harold Lasswell] viewed the elite as the primary holders of power, but in Power and Society: A Framework for Political Inquiry (1950), written with Abraham Kaplan, the discussion was broadened to include a general framework for political inquiry …”
[2] I think this is the same idea expressed in this Camus quote, though I am putting the emphasis differently than Mills does.
Thoughtful commentary - well written and an excellent point about how difficult (but not impossible) reasonable discourse between otherwise reasonable people who are strongly invested in opposing viewpoints can be. Thanks!!
I think the moral relativism and inauthenticity that politics demands is at the very heart of people's hatred for it. The continuing appeal of figures about which it's said, "at least you know where he stands" testifies to that.
Also, being able to talk without saying anything is essential, yet most of us hate it. We tend to say what we think, and that is death for a politician MOST of the time.
At the same time, that's what enables one to practice the art. Even Lincoln was careful not to come out strongly against slavery, until it was safe.
For a more recent example from the other party, former Senator George Mitchell labored heroically to settle the Northern Ireland troubles; not totally successfully, but just to be able to listen to both sides and try to find some agreement -- that gets my admiration. Most of us couldn't do that.