Comment on Why is lemmy so political?!
Gorilladrums@lemmy.world 3 weeks agoThat’s a wild assumption to have based on nothing. The reasons why someone spends so much time or very little time thinking about politics could be radically different. There are a lot of people who make politics their lives but are willfully ignorant, selfish assholes. This site is a prime example of that. At the same time there are very kind, well meaning people who don’t think about politics. This isn’t something that’s black and white.
MangioneDontMiss@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Those very kind / well meaning people would take more of interest in their civic duties if they were truly well meaning.
Gorilladrums@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The issue with this take is that you assume that there is a direct correlation between kindness and civic engagement, which is not true. Someone can be genuinely kind but disengaged from civic duties due to a bunch of reasons ranging from personal to societal. Your take also equates passivity with malice, suggesting that if someone isn’t politically active, they’re morally flawed, which again isn’t true. The people who are the most politically obsessive, engaged, and vocal in the country are MAGA Republicans, and they are clearly not people who are kind… especially when you compare them to someone who’s apolitical but spends a lot of their time volunteering in their community.
But that’s the issue, your take is inherently flawed because you draw your moral superiority from two assumption. The first is that you assume that your views are objectively correct and are superior to others, and the second is that you assume people who are politically zealous or choose to be as such will end up having your views… Both of which are absurdly arrogant assumptions to have. Your views are neither objectively moral or superior, nor do politically active people share your views. In fact the vast, vast majority of people do not see things the way that you do.
There’s really no way you can justify your take because your digesting the world in absolutist terms. To you people are either politically active and share your views, thus are morally correct, or they’re inactive and are intentionally because evil or hostile. It’s such a polarizing and out of touch way to look at people and the world. If you are an example of the chronically online person who obsesses about politics 24/7, fine, but you have to acknowledge that the vast, vast majority of people do not think about politics 24/7, and that’s perfectly okay. Not only that, but just because most people aren’t zealots that does not mean they’re morally flawed or inferior. This holier than thou attitude is shows that your worldview is quite myopic.