In the maze of thoughts ... Left, Right, Centre; And I wonder why we're divided
No, no, no! Bad, Rawi, bad. No stepping into politics. Well, if you happen to read my self-mentoring series, then you know it’s too late for that. But don’t worry, I’m not about to dive deep into any swamp of permanent misery and relentless shit-flinging that is present day’s politics. It’s just that my mind got prompted by a writer friend of mine here. His words there made me think about how I moved on the political spectrum and how I eventually grown to a point where not only I despise it but also refuse to be driven by it, focusing more on ideas and the integrity of the potential representatives. It also somewhat explains why I throw any extremes into the same bucket regardless of their core idea but more on that later. Now, let’s dive in. *puts the armour on* Oh, don’t worry. It’s just a precaution :3
My compass through time
First, the simple prompt:
How have your political views changed over time?
Quite a simple question, right? True, and yet, the answer is going to be quite a big one. Because before I can start, I need to give a small backstory about the climate I grew up. By that I mean country, not family. Without being really precise, I come from a country which used to be a “buffer zone” for the Easter Bloc. Moreover, it’s a country that has been invaded for “not being the right kind of communist”. After we managed to get out of the Red chains, and dissolved our small federation in a few years, a new government was formed shortly after, consisting of the two strongest parties; Social Democrats (centre-left) and Civic Democrats (solid right; not hard-right or far-right). Now you’re probably thinking: “Wait, what? How could two essentially opposing factions unite?” Well, my dear reader, I sadly have an answer. It’s called “Opposition Contract”. Yes, through this thing, these two parties could essentially govern together. And believe me when I tell you that this is only the surface. In retrospect, we essentially managed to dodge an authoritarian bullet.
Why is this small story important? It explains why I was raised in a bit of an apathy towards politics. Nevertheless, once I reached the “blessed” age of eighteen, I went and cast my first vote, back then to a small party called “Freedom”. Who were they? Using present day terms they’d likely fall into a libertarian approach; low regulation, emphasis on personal freedoms etc. I somewhat stuck with them into my university years only until I started catching more and more from their party leader who was even one of our MEPs in the European Parliament. This of course put him in the spotlight and I was able to catch onto his views more. Result? My brain really quickly went into “This guy either has no idea what he’s doing or has no idea how he’s going to do what he’s talking about.” Looking back now, good riddance because whoo boy are they a bunch of shitheads.
Doing that however threw me into a complete political apathy. Like, I pretty much stopped giving a damn. My approach was pretty much “They’re all shit anyway so why bother?” This got further reinforced by events at home but that’s not a story for now and definitely not a story for public eyes and ears. However, there was one person in my life who planted a seed in my head that I didn’t know would grow into a part my present me. It was my mum who told me something along the lines of “You’re free not to vote sure, but then you have no right to complain about the state of things. You didn’t put even a minimal effort to try and change something so either keep your mouth shut or do at least that little.” And with future days ahead, I thank mum for proverbially kicking my arse back then ;)
But let’s go back to my last vote I had an opportunity to participate in. It was just after covid lockdowns were lifted and our back-then PM, a whiny, incompetent, micro-managing oligarch rat, proved pretty much how I described him and people got fed up and things changed. How much and how well? Long story short, “This is fine” meme would be quite accurate. Not that things are bad but they’re not good enough and vultures are starting to gather. What was my vote back then? Ironically, a coalition of Mayors and Independents (centre, at most centre-right) and our Pirate Party (centre-left with some parts maybe even solid left; at the time of writing in opposition due to their leader’s incompetence and herd mentality but I’ll get there).
So, this is my story through time when it comes to politics and frankly, you can see that if I were to be put on the spectrum, I’d be swinging like a pendulum. If you tried putting me on the map, I’d be circling around the middle or running around like a fennec high on caffeine. But why is that? Well, grab a drink and/or a snack and let’s go into the second part.
Ideological purity and a lack of personal integrity are a highway to hell
Alright, with this one I have to put in few definitions first to have the correct context. Ideological purity, in this case, means adherence to the ideas, yours or someone else’s, with no regard to the effect it has or may have on well-being of others or worse, your own well-being. Personal integrity refers to ones ability to maintain their own personal code and boundaries, the ability to admit mistakes and learn from them and the courage to say “No, this is too far!” when things start to reek of trouble.
Now to the point of how the former can manifest and how it is dangerous. This depends on whether you’re in a position of control of the ideology or the method of promoting it, be it party or a different form of movement, or being a citizen who’s a subject to the ideology. Since most of us are probably the latter in this regard I’ll start with this one. Why is ideological purity dangerous for you there? It’s quite obvious. It represents an ever-changing set of arbitrary rules which you have to adhere to lest you want to be dragged onto the gallows or have your standard of living quickly deteriorate. But what if you have some control? Well, then you’re only buying time before the inevitable. Because at some point either someone climbs higher “using” you as a “ladder” and your position can go down the toilet with a snap of a finger. And you’ll be left asking “But what did I do wrong?” Want an answer? You naively believed.
Now for an example from the real world. Remember the Pirate party I mentioned in my story? Well, their leader messed up quite an important task and for that our PM relieved him of his position. As an act of retaliation, the party left the government and “joined” the “opposition” (the quotes are on purpose because our opposition is a gang of whiny oligarchs and “free-turds”). Was it a good step? In my opinion, no. The leader of the party is someone who should’ve been somewhat competent in terms of the task and failed. Him pulling the party all-together shows not only the inability to admit failure but also the push for ideological purity (question, where was that during your elections, Pirates?). Funnily enough, one member of the party, our MFA, actually stayed because he’s genuinely competent (aside from the Middle East thing but that’s my entire country’s idiocy). He however left the party so he can continue his work. In this case his personal integrity kept him in, despite more recent actions being far more questionable on other terms. As for the Pirates, they had to reform many things in their party resulting in an overlap with their former “allies”. And guess what, they’re losing support. Their previous ideological purity shattered and their lack of integrity is now finishing the job.
Now you may ask “So what were they supposed to do?” Well, weirdly enough, they shouldn’t have entered the coalition in the first place. Because that was the first step in which they broke their integrity. And yes, you could accuse them of adhering to the ideology but in this particular case their choice wasn’t even convenient.
But this example is rather specific and mildly convoluted. A simpler example can be seen with many present day parties that profile themselves as “hard- or far-right”. You hear so much about their “ideological purity” but then you look at them and what do you see, aside from the complete lack of any integrity whatsoever? No adherence to their bull-crap at all. So yeah, purity for subjects but ethical sewer for the “chosen”.
Extremes weaponise ideas. They don’t offer solutions
Those who know me a bit more are aware of my opinion extreme solutions and ideas. I despise them with burning passion and anyone who identifies with them I throw in the same bucket regardless of what the idea is. I can already hear many of you scream “Oh great, another stupid centrist.” Oh my sweet summer child, not at all. Or at least not the type who just sits around and forcing you into a compromise. Nah, I’ll grab your sorry arse and throw you into the same arena with the opposing camp. Then I’ll watch with a bowl of popcorn how you eat each other.
Anyway, pardon my admittedly twisted power fantasy and let’s get back onto a more serious ground. The reason I’m so against extremes and wary of radical approaches is the risk of them spiralling out of control. The line between radically pushing for an idea and weaponising an idea to an excuse for atrocities is dangerously thin and it’s really easy to cross it, especially these days. Part of why I find social media discussions about these topics non-sensical is pretty much this; no sense for nuance and complete disregard for broader consequences. It can be summed up into “Fuck you, I have mine. Everyone else can eat shit and die.” Oh my, that rhymes.
Now you may even think “Wait, that sounds like a horseshoe theory.” Well, while the theory itself is oversimplifying and not exactly accurate, there’s one merit to the idea; that is when you’re an extremist, your position on the spectrum doesn’t matter anymore because any ideology becomes a mere tool to exploit and abuse to satisfy your needs. Or is anyone going to try and tell me that German AFD and BSW are different? Nah, same shit, different excuses. Take it from someone whose country got shafted by both extreme right and left alike.
Following a leader instead of an idea is always doomed to fail
Ever wondered about why we have celebrities? They embody the ideas, the results of their work and they’re easy symbols to follow (yay, another thing I utterly detest but that’s a story for another time). Same applies to political figures and frankly, looking at the present day, it’s sickening. The messiah complex and mentality is completely mind-boggling to me. Like, there are so many examples of bad cults of personality, both historical and present and yet we still do it. I even remember a conversation of some colleagues at work who are genuinely worried about our country’s future when it comes to next election and one of them said something along the lines of “If someone who’s good with people appears on our end, they can get a sweeping victory over the populist shit we have here.” It took me quite a bit of strength to resist saying “Oh yes. So we can just swap a manipulative fuckhead A for a manipulative fuckhead B and have a differently flavoured bullet shot into our skull. How about no?”
So yeah, long story short, as long as we follow people instead of ideas, we’re never going to get better. Pretty much sums up my stance on political figures. They’re MY employees and I’m going to treat them as such. May I suggest pondering on this approach?
Spectrum is designed to be divisive
And now we finally reach the main course. Woohoo! Release the marching band! Heh, now I imagined my woof in a marching band uniform. Art idea?
Anyway, back to the topic. A quick civics crash course into the Left-Right spectrum. Left-wing parties tend to be more collective-oriented while Right-wing parties tend to be more individualistic. Left tends to regulate and take more responsibilities on the institutions while Right leaves the responsibility on the individual. Left promotes support while Right promotes competition.
Now, look at the parties you have and tell me, which one fits into these cleanly. I doubt you’ll find a single one. So, a spectrum. But if it’s to be one, then there has to be a centre. But where is that centre? What is Left and Right. Where’s the reference point? Some agreed middle? Anything that doesn’t fit into my personal view?
See where I’m going with this? How hard it is to define any form of metric with just this information? How I can arbitrarily shift the scale to fit any need I want, creating an us-vs-them scenario? And people are wondering why we’re so polarised.
A proper change has to come from within, not from the outside
Alright, you managed to navigate this swamp with me and we’re nearing the end. You’re weary of the journey and you’re looking for a change. Is there one? Well, I can’t answer that. Frankly, nobody can answer that. And anyone who claims they can, should be approached with caution because change like this isn’t easy. Often you see people talking about taking down the current system and borderline burning it to the ground. First, see the extremism chapter. Second, many systems are insanely durable to “external threats”. It’s insanely difficult to take down a ruling system from the outside. And no, war is not an acceptable option and never should be.
“So what? You want to change the system from within? How?” Well, the “inner threat” is always the more dangerous because it can slowly erode the currently established norms and slowly push the changes in without anyone noticing them. This works both ways; the malicious one and the beneficial one. And we don’t really have to look far into the history for the examples of either. So, do you want to change the system? Study it, carefully interact with it, infiltrate it, exploit its weaknesses and implement your plan. If done right, when discovered, it’s too late to reverse the course and the change becomes inevitable.
Whoo boy, that was a long one. This has turned from a story time to a small rant to a philosophical talk. What a jump back into writing after the holidays and with a potentially hot and sour topic towards the end of the year. I’m going to need to spend some more time on my “cosy throne” of plushies. *grabs a jester hat* What? There’s a reason I call myself the “Jester King of Plushies”.
R.R.A.