Politics is not enough: on the gamesmanship of all political discourse

Stephen Freeman's piece, The Violence of Modernity is very well-worth reading. I am in complete sympathy with his view, and especially with his 10-part answer to the question, "How should we live?"

BTW, I found Freeman's article via Matt Redmond's recent post, "What's going on?" she asked. 

Violence is the theme of both of those posts, as it was my theme in yesterday's post. Sometimes we justify certain violence while we rhetorically condemn violence in theory. In other words, we make special exceptions. One might hear justifications for police violence, and also, lately, justifications for the violence in many cities in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder. 

The people behind these justifications are not generally pro-violence. They're just making exceptions. In this case, they fear that to condemn the violence is to play into the hands of the enemy. To condemn police brutality, for example, sounds like you're giving in to the libs, or perhaps even to the criminal elements. Someone might think you don't believe that "blue lives matter." Or to condemn the riots might seem to be giving in to the racists. Intellectual justifications for violence soon follow.

It's all gamesmanship, which follows from having chosen a side and committed oneself to that side's victory. Perhaps your side is a political party, or perhaps it's a social movement. Once you choose a side, all expression gets caught up in the need to score points, own the opposition. This subjection of communication to the interests of partisanship happens so quickly in our electronically mediated social discourse that we come to believe it is the only way.

Movement-mentality must sweep everyone, or as many as possible, up into the movement's concerns and values. We must all be reading the same books, and have the movement's concerns uppermost in our minds. We must all be "enlightened" in the same way, along the same lines, and getting our news from the same sources. In that atmosphere, having different concerns uppermost in one's mind will soon be thought of as awkward, perhaps even shameful. I mean, really, who's side are you on?

Getting back to Father Freeman. I mentioned that he provides ten answers to the question, how should we live? I want to finish by quoting that entire list. It is not meant to be exhaustive, by the way. Perhaps we will come back to some of these suggestions in the next post.

• First, live as though in the coming of Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of God has been inaugurated into the world and the outcome of history has already been determined. (Quit worrying)
• Second, love people as the very image of God and resist the temptation to improve them.
• Third, refuse to make economics the basis of your life. Your job is not even of secondary importance.
• Fourth, quit arguing about politics as though the political realm were the answer to the world’s problems. It gives it power that is not legitimate and enables a project that is anti-God.
• Fifth, learn to love your enemies. God did not place them in the world for us to fix or eliminate. If possible, refrain from violence.
• Sixth, raise the taking of human life to a matter of prime importance and refuse to accept violence as a means to peace. Every single life is a vast and irreplaceable treasure.
• Seventh, cultivate contentment rather than pleasure. It will help you consume less and free you from slavery to your economic masters.
• Eighth, as much as possible, think small. You are not in charge of the world. Love what is local, at hand, personal, intimate, unique, and natural. It’s a preference that matters.
• Ninth, learn another language. Very few things are better at teaching you about who you are not.
• Tenth, be thankful for everything, remembering that the world we live in and everything in it belongs to God.