The Great UG Heights Political Debate

It’s been ages, I don’t know if anyone even reads this anymore but I’m going to post regardless. A few things have been stirring in my mind relating to the brouhaha surrounding the presidential primaries, and the arduous task of moving my lazy self to register.

In general, I’ve always tried to avoid conversations about politics. I hate saying that because I feel like it is a very “gosh I just leave that kind of talk to the men,” kind of statement, but its true, and partially for wimpy reasons. I really don’t like arguing, and especially in an area where it never feels like anyone is ever going to change his or her opinions even an iota from where they are. Yet when arguing isn’t involved, it can be even worse. Last year I realized that the two communities I was a part of, the liberal Jewish academic circles of Columbia and the UWS, and my staunchly conservative Orthodox hometown of Monsey, NY, were quite possibly the most boring political places in the world. Everyone agreed, the only dissent in Morningside Heights was on the extent to which offensive right-wing groups should be protested against (the protest itself an absolute given,) the only disagreement in Monsey was about whether the Arabs are literally the children of Amalek, or a brand-new form of evil.

For an English teacher these conversations are anathema. They encourage staid and uncreative thinking; they let students who should be challenged off the hook by providing them with catchphrases and party lines upon which they can pin their alliances. I have had great conversations about books and movies with people of all political stripes, and I promise you would not be able to tell which party they side with based on their appreciation for Emily Dickinson. It just sometimes seems like political divisions as we know them were some kind of royal accident. Somewhere in history people decided, probably at that time for good reasons, to divide into groups. Since then people have trying to cram their own values and beliefs into these pre-defined structures with the result being ugly and boring. Whereas every few years, the literary establishment is overturned by a new lens through which it can approach its material, the American two-party system has basically remained intact since the 1800’s (obviously with shifts in ideologies and whatnot, but modern parties do find their correlates in these earlier parties, someone tell me if I’m wrong). Anytime you have to choose one of two sides there must be some kind of simplification at hand, right? Perhaps my objection is that life is way more complex than politics. By focusing on who to vote for, why our party is the best, and why our opponents are idiots, we close ourselves off to all sorts of nuanced ways to view the world.

However politics are not just politics, they also involve ideas, primarily the big ideas of Liberalism and Conservatism, and ideas do have currency for me, even in my artsy, ephemeral, apolitical universe. So what are the ideas? Or how about, what is one idea- since I really don’t know enough about the topic to do an overview.

The way I’ve seen it since being swept away by Ayn Rand in high school, and then subsequently harrowed by legions of liberal college professors, is that American party divisions boil down to a question of whether the government going to vigorously pursue what’s best for its people, or let them decide for themselves. The first I guess is about “goodness,” the second is “freedom.” Liberalism, has a tremendous ability to be corrupted, it can be arrogant, it can wreak terrible havoc like Communism, at times it seems like an impossible project. At the same time, it can be a beautiful one. Liberals seize hold of dreams of eradicating poverty and pain, of really improving the world. Conservatives may have the same dreams, but they are not going to aggressively pursue them. There’s something scary about the laissez-faire, in the long run things will be better if we just stay out of the way approach. Historically, it may in fact have been better, but to not go help a crying, screaming baby, even if you know that’s its best for it to just keep on crying, can do bad things to your spirit if you are not careful.

So that, I think, in all its English-major ignorance, is one interesting plane on which we could discuss politics. HONESTY about what each ideology brings to the table and what it doesn’t. At best, Conservatism can keep a kind of delusional but noble Liberalism from getting out of line. At best, Liberalism can remind Conservatives that things in the world still suck, and if we are not going to rally our governments to respond to them, we should certainly respond to them on individual levels as much as we can. Of course there are tons of other factors to take into the equation of understanding American party divisions, and at the end of the day you need to vote so partisanship is in a way where any political conversation is ultimately headed, but still. I still think there’s a way we can recognize the absurdity of the political debates that surround us, and push towards a model where people aren’t so touchy about encountering an idea that is actually different. When you vote you need to choose sides, but you never really have to choose sides.