A defense of politics

Over the past few years, I have sensed a growing hostility toward politics by young would-be academics. These people don’t object so much to the study of politics as they do the idea that political debate, as written by opinion columnists, or between presidential hopefuls, is not intellectual debate, but something lower and dumber.\nA good friend, someone who graduated with an BA in English, an enthusiast of literature and therefore reading, is a perfect example of this phenomenon. He has on several occasions commented that he sees no significant differences between columnists and pundits. To him, ‘punditing’ means the espousal of bloated ideologies by bloated right-wingers more interested in furthering their political agenda than legitimate debate of current events. It seems to me that the suspicion of columnists stems from the suspicion of politics in general. Many young people who fancy themselves intellectuals see politics as a limited, intellectually stunted pursuit, placing it on a lower rung than literature or philosophy. \nBut I’ve got news for you: hostility toward politics is no better than apathy. \nPolitics get a bad rap for a few good reasons: \na.) Politicians are largely stupid and uninterested in ideas other than how to get re-elected. \nb.) The current political climate does not even come near the political climate inhabited by many an intellectual (that is, a climate of stormy idealism that often mellows into a mild socialism, or occasionally morphs into a hot and fiery anarcho-syndicalism). \nc.) Philosophers and literary critics are defensive about the relative uselessness of their pursuits, and therefore romanticize their disciplines and downgrade any more practical pursuit. \nd.) Politics is viewed as separate from or outside of other disciplines, instead of something that informs and directs the interests of certain disciplines.\nThus, according to this idea of politics held by some, those who live and breathe politics, who make a living commenting on them or make a living expounding them (pundits, politicians, columnists) are themselves a lower form of intellectual life. \nBut when intellectuals separate politics from academic life and life in general, they create a classic case of a ‘false dichotomy,’ (right, philosophy majors?) Politics and literature, the way we learn, and even the way you (yes, YOU) think are not mutually exclusive. This is because politics refers not just to government, or even personal convictions, but to a ubiquitous cultural force that shapes institutions, beliefs and lives. This might seem obvious to some, but I know a lot of people who would like to pretend otherwise. What we choose to do with the knowledge that politics permeates through everything — including that TV commercial, that magazine cover, even that Harold Bloom anthology sitting in your lap — is an individual choice. I’m not suggesting that everyone dissect reality into political nibbles and bits, but I am suggesting an end to the denial. \nHostility to politics is still political, peeps. There’s no escape.