Political unreliability

Marie was here visiting for a few days, and we started talking about politics. In one sense this is not surprising: Marie has strong political convictions, and considers herself active in their defense.

But in another sense it was unusual, because normally I try to avoid discussing politics with her at all. The subject usually makes her angry, and she already spends too much time angry. When I introduced her to meditation in a simple way, the point was to cool the fires of her anger. So in general I don't think there's a lot to gain from re-stoking those fires.

The consequence, in turn, is that there are a lot of topics we can't discuss. I tend to think about politics intellectually (shocker, that), which means I am open to rethinking my positions and changing my mind when appropriate. And as it stands I can't really discuss those things with Marie, much as I would like to.

So as an experiment, I tried to ask her what she thinks about the Ukraine War, because I thought that would be the simplest and least problematic topic we could find in contemporary politics. I didn't necessarily think she would agree with my thoughts on it. But I did want to hear what picture she used to frame her thoughts, and I figured that we could discuss the war pretty dispassionately because it's not related to any domestic or intramural political dispute (such as abortion rights or Black Lives Matter).

I was wrong about that. It turns out that she sees a direct link between the Ukraine War and domestic political issues, because she still blames Russian interference for the election of Donald Trump. Therefore she sees Russia as posing a direct threat to her personally, … as a force, in essence, for evil in the world. We never got far enough for her to tell me what exactly she thought the United States should do about this evil, but it was a topic that disturbed her.

OK, I struck out on that one.

But what surprised me was that the next night, after too much to drink, I started talking about why I stand back from the political fray. I never talk about this. It shocked me to hear myself talking, but talk I did. Here is the gist of what I said, fleshed out with some things that I did not quite say.

I do not align with parties

I've told you before that I'm not much of a joiner.

In the context of politics, briefly, I agree with one party about this topic and with another party about that topic. I have not found a party that I can agree with completely, and I don't expect to. Also, I change my mind about issues over time. It's easier to change your mind if you don't have a prior commitment to a party, because the party won't change with you. Also, no party platform can afford the kind of nuance that is necessary when you are trying to explain the truth about reality. All parties deal in simplifications, and that means that all parties have necessarily to deal in distortions if not outright lies. So I can't simply adhere to any party.

The best political program still does damage

Politics is a blunt instrument. Attacking a problem with the political process means addressing it with a chainsaw, not a scalpel. In the first place, no law can ever take account of all the possible variations in the real world. (This is why Plato, in e.g. the Statesman, prefers the rule of an enlightened despot to the rule of any set of laws.) In the second place, no law is ever enlightened. The process of legislation is inherently messy, and involves regular trade-offs. Some part of the good aim has to be bartered away, and some bad aims have to be accepted like barnacles encrusting the side of a ship, in order to get the most important parts of any good idea actually legislated in practice. Otto von Bismarck is said to have said that "Laws are like sausages. It is best not to see them being made."

What is more, be a law never so perfect, its execution still requires that it be applied and administered by fallible and interested human beings. So the way it is enforced may have nothing to do with what was intended when it was written. People may file suit, and some court may declare that a law which appears to say This in fact means That.

Finally, enforcement by fallible human beings means that any large program inevitably generates clumsiness and mistakes at the local level. Every large spending program (whether championed by liberals or conservatives) generates visible quantities of waste, fraud, and abuse. That's not to say that the spending program is necessarily bad, or necessarily worse than all alternatives. But it is a clear and known risk. 

The worst political program is not the end of the world

The political process is too clumsy to allow even good measures to be wholly good. But in the same way, it is rare that bad measures are wholly bad. Of course it's possible; but to insist that victory by the Bad Guys necessarily means disaster gives them more credit for single-minded evil and focus than anyone can deserve under normal conditions. 

Everyone can think of extreme examples. What about the Holocaust? And of course the Holocaust was horrific. Let me be clear about that. 

But most of the time we are not dealing with the Holocaust, nor anything like it. Most of the time we are dealing with ordinary decisions for or against this or that element of mundane policy. And the end result of any such decision is that things are a little better for some people and a little worse for others. Of course I have my opinions about which way the balance swings. But I also know that sometimes I'm wrong. So when the Bad Guys come to power and enact a decision I don't like, my first reaction is to sigh and grumble and figure out how to live with it. But I am open to the possibility that I might come to see a hidden benefit I had not noticed before. Or perhaps the harm that I expect might be offset by some unexpected side-effect that no one anticipated. I am not justifying the evil of the world by saying, with Doctor Pangloss, that sometimes the bad brings about the good (though of course that is true). But I am describing how I console myself when things don't go my way.  

Am I, then, unreliable?

At this point I joked to Marie that I should never have admitted all this, because when the Revolution comes she will tell her comrades that I'm politically unreliable.

She laughed, and retorted, "Well aren't you?"

So I tried to clarify that there are two senses of the phrase politically unreliable.

• Someone might appear politically unreliable because you cannot rely on him to do the things your party wants him to do. In that sense, yes, I suppose I am politically unreliable. Since I don't align with any party, I probably can't be trusted to carry out partisan tasks.
• But in another sense, someone appears politically unreliable only if you expect him to do harm to your cause by acting to undermine it. Generally this kind of danger requires him to be aligned with your enemy—which is to say, with another party. Those who fail to align with any party, those who try to lead quiet and peaceful lives amid the hubbub of conflict, should pose no threat to either side. This is where I'd like to find myself. 

Of course, it can be hard to maintain your neutrality if the warring parties around you will not recognize it. If someone decides that "You are either with us or against us," then you may have a problem staying unmolested. But there is plenty of good that you can do while unaligned. By doing your own work honestly and faithfully, by helping your neighbors and offering kindness to everyone around you, you make your corner of the world a better place. And both sides need shopkeepers to sell them groceries or gasoline; both sides need postmen to deliver their mail, firemen to put out their fires, and street repairmen to fill their potholes; both sides need clerks who can cash their checks, secretaries who can file their papers, and accountants who can balance their books. When the fighting stops, those jobs are going to go to people who can carry them out reliably, not to people whose only virtue is party loyalty. And that means there is a kind of reliability available to the politically unaligned.

Both sides buy boots

After a while, I asked Marie whether she had ever read Dorothy Bryant's book Anita, Anita, her novel about the life of Anita Garibaldi. She said No, which may be just as well. There's a character in the book who seems to share my perspective: Manoel Duarte de Aguiar, a cobbler, Anita's first husband. He stays out of political discussions, because both sides buy boots. So he works for any paying customer. This is how much I tell Marie. 

But I don't tell her what Anita—who leaves him in time to take up with Giuseppe Garibaldi—feels about her first husband. There is a scene at the party after their wedding. The men are sitting around arguing politics. Some of them want their little province, in a small corner of Brazil, to declare independence; others reject the idea. Manoel is the only man who does not take a side in the argument. A few minutes later, while the new couple are dancing, Anita (still called Ana, at this point) challenges Manoel:

"Why didn't you say anything?"

Manoel shrugs and swings Ana briskly outward to arm's length.

"You were the only man who said nothing."

He waits. … Then he pulls her close and, as they spin together, speaks into Ana's ear. "I need to make boots for all of them."

"So you are afraid to speak?"

"I make my living—our living—from all of them."

[A few minutes later, Ana asks] "Well, what do you think?" …. 

He pulls her close and says, "I think good and bad people will take both sides and kill each other until the government puts down the rebellion."

"And what side do you believe in?"

"I believe that peace is best for a man to earn a living."

"But which side is right?"

Manoel shakes his head, …. 

Ana revises her opinion of him. He is not easy-going. He has a crushing will. He is death itself, refusing to feel, smothering the spirit, comfortable in the grave. A chill of loneliness, the chill of being buried alive with him, shakes her. She turns away from him and kicks off her sandals, whirling desperately.

I hope Marie never thinks of me as "death itself, … comfortable in the grave." But I absolutely recognize Manoel's assessment of what goes on in any political conflict: good and bad people take both sides and kill each other until it stops. Or until it is stopped. Political engagement may be heady and exciting while it is going on, but in the end it leaves behind a ruinous waste.

Somehow as I have been writing this, I have been feeling that there is a connection with D's accusation that I spend 95% of my life hiding.

Maybe Anita was right about Manoel. Maybe D was right about me. I don't think I'm actually unreliable, but there it is.