Against Political Advocacy

For this first week I am arguing in the negative and Joseph is arguing for the affirmative.

So, let us begin with some definitions. When we say political activism, what do we mean? There is a question of degrees with this, though that comes up more in the affirmative than the negative. This degree question would ask whether it is enough to simply live our lives in support of a position, or would we have to be vocally supporting or demonstrating for a viewpoint, perhaps risking arrest, legal trouble, or loss of employment. I however am arguing for the negative, in opposition to political activism. There is still a question of degree it just does not seem as prominent on the negative side. Having said that, let us get to the spectrum of definitions. Merriam Webster defines activism as a doctrine or practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action, especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue. This is closer to the more extreme definition I defined so I will go with that.

I will be coming at this from a Christian perspective. One can be a positive or negative activist without Christianity with a specific set of causes and results, often focused on self, community, or country. For a Christian, whichever side of this you are on, I would argue that the causes and results are different for a Christian, with a likely focus on the Great Commandment. Additionally, considering this is for a class with a focus on philosophy and ethics from a Christian perspective, it would be absurd to make an argue without a faith component.

I am arguing against political activism, arguing that it is not a positive influence on the faith or life of a Christian. In summary, if we are focused on politics, we are not focused on God. The Great Commandment is hard to live out with too much focus on political activism.

If we consider this in today’s society it looks different from previous generations. It used to be that political activism would take the form of street demonstrations or perhaps letter writing. These things still happen today, but in addition we also see the Internet as a tool by which tools of various forms are used, with the net result being that activism happens on this platform via these tools. This is not the only way which activism happens, but it is a common way currently.

Let us begin with an idea which should be very easy to see; political activism is a distraction. If we are focused on activism this takes our hearts and minds away from God. Instead of living out the Great Commandment, we will be thinking about the other person; specifically, can we change the opinion of the other(s) and if so how. We can get really focused on dialogue with others with opinion swaying goals in mind, political evangelism if you will, as opposed to Biblical evangelism or discipleship. We can be spending hours staring at our phones or computers, interfacing via social media or email, again with goals of changing opinions in mind. Especially in these electronic device based realms, we can get very focused on what we want to see and hear, approaching this like a think tank in a way, so that we spend time responding to others whom we either agree with or wish to argue or debate with. Again, the end goal here is one of opinion change, as opposed to discipleship.

The above homogenous perspective leads us to the next reason to oppose political activism; it can cause us to only interface with people who think like us. I was a fairly heavy Twitter user in the past. My current job limits my usage of it, but here is one of the best ways to argue from this perspective. With Twitter as well as other social media platforms we can very easily see this in action. Folks who are politically active on these platforms often have friends lists full of people who think in a very similar way. President Trump is a very polarizing figure, though certainly not the only one. People will do all sorts of things to find more followers who either support or oppose him, depending on the agent’s perspective. So, there are at least two issues with this. One is that we cannot be stretched from a philosophical perspective if we only interact with others who think like us. The other is that the above audience limitation is going to result in us being less able to evangelize, meet, or dialogue with others who do not think like us, since we will simply not have as much opportunity to dialogue with those who think differently.

Political activism may cause a potential future believer to not listen. Many folks I know who are passionately in favor of an issue typically know their side well. This can show up in at least two different ways. In one scenario, folks simply decide to not listen because they believe the person speaking or communicating is so different or wrong in their belief that the listener decides the speaker or argument is not worth listening to. Another way this shows up is that the speaker wears out the listener. We can be such strong advocates for a topic that we wear people out, to the point where the person hearing is unwilling to actually engage in active listening, in a sense living down to the stereotype of the young child with their fingers in their ears unwilling to listen. A former pastor of mine referred to this as not taking care of the soil.

Focusing on the above-mentioned difference between hearing and listening, political activism can cause both us and others, to hear but not listen. Let us examine the difference. In the hearing case, we can tell what words are being said by the speaker or writer. We may know what is being spoken but are not really processing or taking in the information. Conversely, in the listening case, the hearer is more involved, not only receiving the words, but taking them in, mentally processing what they are hearing. Likely next steps for this include thinking about the probable truth or falsehood of what is being spoken, why the speaker believes what they are proclaiming, and/or why he or she is proclaiming it. When Scripture tells us he who has ears let him hear I believe it is referring to this latter type of input.

So then, how do we put this all together? One answer to this is self, taking the form of pride or idolatry. In all of the above scenarios, people are making choices focused on self, comfort, people, or argumentation, as opposed to thinking in a Great Commandment or Great Commission way. It is easier to hear what we want to hear, think what we want to think, and do what we want to do, than it is to listen, think, and do as He commands us. The question is, will we. I have heard it said that sin is remaining in our lives in places we are not willing to cede control to God; this idea seems very true here.