Let me start by saying this – I apologize for using the above snark.
I can’t stand snark. I agonized over this poster. Yes, I thought of it. Yes, it’s marginally clever. But do I despise anyone who feels justified in not wearing a mask in this crisis – no. Do I hate people who think differently than me politically? No.
Am I frustrated? Yes.
The whole point of whyihatepolitics.com is to get people to calm the fuck down. I started it nearly 2 years ago, before any of the COVID crisis, because I’d had enough of one main thing:
I’ve had enough of people being so certain about the essential ‘rightness’ of their political views.
Why would this piss me off so much?
Exploring ideas is important to me. Unfortunately, ideologues and zealots rarely do much to get people to think. They may convince others to follow, but rarely do they inspire deep, nuanced thinking. It’s more like a sustained shout.
In the mind of an ideologue (someone who is fully committed to an ideology), there’s no room for grey areas, for I don’t knows, for nuance. And frankly, I VALUE the opinion of someone who is willing to say ‘I don’t know’ drastically more than someone who’s not – because deep down I know that they’re in touch with that key aspect of humanity that no-one touts… the fact that we are all ignorant, about most things.
And when it comes to politics, there’s a reason ‘political science’ is in the humanities department. It’s not exactly a field of study in which causes and effects can easily be measured.
We can’t even agree on whether or not a president / prime minister can take credit for the economy that exists while he or she was in office.
When was the last time we used simple science to test and compare political systems?
You know… taking an entire country as a control group and comparing it to another country, with equal population and demographics, while testing the effects of simple changes to single parts of the political and economic systems, and measuring the results of those changes over a period of say… 10, 20, 50 years?
Oh that’s right, we can’t.
It’s why nutritional studies are so goddamn hard. Getting humans to act like mice steps on all sorts of personal freedoms which we (rightly) value over getting perfect science.
We can’t even agree on what the goals are, let alone know how to get there. We can’t agree on what words like ‘healthy,’ ‘equality,’ ‘fairness’ mean. At it’s core, what the fuck does ‘Make America Great Again’ even mean? Obviously something very different to those wearing the hat than to those who think the hats are symbols of hate.
But even within a single ‘demographic’ (those wearing the hats) – ask 10 different MAGA hat wearers and you’ll get 10 different answers.
Consequently, there need to be a lot more people admitting that they just don’t know.
We need for the general public (and the media, and the politicians) to admit that ultimately running a country is a game – a game with real (and deadly) consequences, yes, but also a game without a rulebook. No index at the back to explain how the game can be won, or which scenario is ‘best.’ And the more we pretend we know when we don’t, the more we ultimately lie.
The more we lie, the more fearful we become that someone (especially ourselves) will catch us in that lie. And so we start to yell louder, to drown out the doubters.
Such a slippery slope, when so often you can win the hearts and minds with authenticity – with a simple ‘I don’t know.’
One example? Trump – he almost never says it ‘I don’t know’ or takes responsibility for his blunders. But then, neither do his critics. Which came first? Does it matter? This fever of the mind seems to not only exist on both sides of any argument, but as the fires of hate grow on one side, they inspire equal or greater fires of hate on the other.
I want to be a part of the conversation that stops that.
And so now here we are, in a moment in which the entire world is facing the COVID-19 pandemic, and we’re rabidly dissecting / criticizing / scandalizing everything: every step or misstep taken by governments in response to this, every word uttered by our esteemed / despised leaders, every perceived imposition against our ‘God-given’ freedoms.
And if that wasn’t enough, now we have individuals resisting the idea of wearing a masks in public, during a pandemic which has become the leading cause in the death in the United States.
So… on with the article.
Because really, what point are you trying to make by not wearing a mask in public?
Continue reading “There are political agendas, and then there’s what the virus does.” »
