Some people don’t have the luxury of being apolitical. There’s literal five year olds in dentition camps for things completely outside their control. People get upset with apolitical people because their indifference feeds the status quo. I don’t find your religion comparison to be apt for that reason.
I think that’s a distinction without meaning. Apolitical people support the status quo, and anyone that says “oh you were mean to me so now I support putting children in concentration camps” wasn’t ever going to be an ally in the first place.
apolitical people don’t even know what the status quo is dude. that isn’t supporting it.
but again, if you had empathy enough to think about how an apolitical person would interpret your beliefs about them… you’d not be shocked why they would not want to be political at all. because they often see political people as raging assholes who want to browbeat them for not getting upset about what’s on the news.
Ignorance in and of itself isn’t sinful, but willful ignorance is. Any adult in a democracy has a duty to be at a minimum mildly informed and vote and anyone not doing so is abdicating their responsibility to our society. You don’t have to have knowledge of something to indirectly support the conditions that perpetuate it.
There were plenty of Germans that said “we didn’t know” in 1945 despite living very close to concentration camps and having over a decade to witness the persecution of Jews, socialists, gay people, Roma, etc. I don’t find it absurd to ask people to pay attention to what is going on in the world in which they exist and have an opinion. I’m not even asking for them to hit the streets, just to be aware of what is going on rather than burying their head in the sand.
You should really read MLK’s letter from Birmingham jail. Your arguments somewhat mirror his frustration with what he called the “white moderate” who prioritized comfort over justice.
so what do you suggest, we fine people for not reading the news?
the issue here you are glossing over is you want to control people. you want to force them to do things they may not want to do. how would you feel if you were forced to say, play sports, or do some other thing you hated?
I was forced to play sports as a kid and it just made me angry and resentful, but it was for ‘my own good’. my folks even went so far as to verbally and physically assault me anytime i suggested I didn’t want to play anymore, and socially not playing sports in my community made you an outcast.
You can’t force people to care about anything, and if you think you must and you can, well, are you sure you aren’t the fascist? are you going to physically abuse in jail people for not reading the news, or voting, or various other forms of political activity you feel they must participate in?
I have read many of MLK’s writings, but even he was very ignorant of what was going on in the world around him. Nobody is perfect, we are all limited beings with limited time and resources. You choose to spend your time and resources on political stuff, that’s fine, but who are you to demand other people do so, let alone that they do so in the same way as you do?
You find it absurd… but I bet other people find aspects of your life equally absurd. Maybe you don’t care about fashion, or sports, or popular tv shows, or cars. or lots of things like that that are very important to other people. I don’t care about fashion and I regularly have gotten lectures from folks about how ‘stupid and ignorant’ i am for not following fashion trends or buying $500 pairs of jeans.
The truth is you just want people around you to reflect the things you care about back at you, and you are angry when they don’t. And that’s how most everyone else is too. I care about obscure 19th century literary works, should I browbeat everyone around me into reading that stuff because I do? Are they stupid and ignorant and ‘sinful’ for not wanting to read Mikhail Lermentov? Or would I be the stupid person for demanding that they do so?
I never said people should be forced to do anything, but if they refuse to do the bare minimum to educate themselves then they have earned my contempt. There is no measurable harm in not being interested in sports; I would argue that the harmful consequences of political apathy are all around us.
I’d love to hear you elaborate on what specifically MLK was ignorant about, shy of his infidelity.
The 19th century books you like aren’t resulting in people getting separated from their families or deported to countries they’ve never lived. They’re also not an immutable piece of your identity; your argument doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
I’ll leave you with this, which brings me back to my original point that being apolitical isn’t a privilege that everyone has. Do you think a black person drinking from a whites only fountain in Mississippi in 1960 was able to just tell the cops “oh no need to arrest me, I’m not political”? Did a Jew residing in Vienna in 1941 have the privilege of saying “oh no need to evict me from my home and shove me into a ghetto, I’m not political”? I could go on. The ignorance and indifference that people have to their privileged status is what drives my contempt.
Right, so you’re simple mad people don’t behave the way you wish they would?
Lots and lots of black people are apolitical man. 40% of black people who are eligble don’t vote. which is about the same as white people or other ethnic groups. Are those black people who don’t vote evil too? there were black people during civil rights who didn’t support the movement, or who didn’t care. lots of people simple don’t care, and it’s not a matter of privileged so much as is preference.
The world is not as simple or black and white as you seem to wish it would be. You simple think anyone who doesn’t agree with you is wrong and bad and contemptuous. And frankly, why would they want to be political like you then? so they can also hold that attitude towards the non believers?
Some people don’t have the luxury of being apolitical. There’s literal five year olds in dentition camps for things completely outside their control. People get upset with apolitical people because their indifference feeds the status quo. I don’t find your religion comparison to be apt for that reason.
So what is worse, being apolitical, or being political such that you support 5 year olds in detention camps?
Asking people to be political, and asking them to be on your side of politics, are two different things.
Your need to browbeat people into being political is more likely to cause them to become political against you, than for you.
And thus you work to defeat yourself. Harassing and calling people names doesn’t bring them to your side.
I think that’s a distinction without meaning. Apolitical people support the status quo, and anyone that says “oh you were mean to me so now I support putting children in concentration camps” wasn’t ever going to be an ally in the first place.
apolitical people don’t even know what the status quo is dude. that isn’t supporting it.
but again, if you had empathy enough to think about how an apolitical person would interpret your beliefs about them… you’d not be shocked why they would not want to be political at all. because they often see political people as raging assholes who want to browbeat them for not getting upset about what’s on the news.
Ignorance in and of itself isn’t sinful, but willful ignorance is. Any adult in a democracy has a duty to be at a minimum mildly informed and vote and anyone not doing so is abdicating their responsibility to our society. You don’t have to have knowledge of something to indirectly support the conditions that perpetuate it.
There were plenty of Germans that said “we didn’t know” in 1945 despite living very close to concentration camps and having over a decade to witness the persecution of Jews, socialists, gay people, Roma, etc. I don’t find it absurd to ask people to pay attention to what is going on in the world in which they exist and have an opinion. I’m not even asking for them to hit the streets, just to be aware of what is going on rather than burying their head in the sand.
You should really read MLK’s letter from Birmingham jail. Your arguments somewhat mirror his frustration with what he called the “white moderate” who prioritized comfort over justice.
so what do you suggest, we fine people for not reading the news?
the issue here you are glossing over is you want to control people. you want to force them to do things they may not want to do. how would you feel if you were forced to say, play sports, or do some other thing you hated?
I was forced to play sports as a kid and it just made me angry and resentful, but it was for ‘my own good’. my folks even went so far as to verbally and physically assault me anytime i suggested I didn’t want to play anymore, and socially not playing sports in my community made you an outcast.
You can’t force people to care about anything, and if you think you must and you can, well, are you sure you aren’t the fascist? are you going to physically abuse in jail people for not reading the news, or voting, or various other forms of political activity you feel they must participate in?
I have read many of MLK’s writings, but even he was very ignorant of what was going on in the world around him. Nobody is perfect, we are all limited beings with limited time and resources. You choose to spend your time and resources on political stuff, that’s fine, but who are you to demand other people do so, let alone that they do so in the same way as you do?
You find it absurd… but I bet other people find aspects of your life equally absurd. Maybe you don’t care about fashion, or sports, or popular tv shows, or cars. or lots of things like that that are very important to other people. I don’t care about fashion and I regularly have gotten lectures from folks about how ‘stupid and ignorant’ i am for not following fashion trends or buying $500 pairs of jeans.
The truth is you just want people around you to reflect the things you care about back at you, and you are angry when they don’t. And that’s how most everyone else is too. I care about obscure 19th century literary works, should I browbeat everyone around me into reading that stuff because I do? Are they stupid and ignorant and ‘sinful’ for not wanting to read Mikhail Lermentov? Or would I be the stupid person for demanding that they do so?
I never said people should be forced to do anything, but if they refuse to do the bare minimum to educate themselves then they have earned my contempt. There is no measurable harm in not being interested in sports; I would argue that the harmful consequences of political apathy are all around us.
I’d love to hear you elaborate on what specifically MLK was ignorant about, shy of his infidelity.
The 19th century books you like aren’t resulting in people getting separated from their families or deported to countries they’ve never lived. They’re also not an immutable piece of your identity; your argument doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
I’ll leave you with this, which brings me back to my original point that being apolitical isn’t a privilege that everyone has. Do you think a black person drinking from a whites only fountain in Mississippi in 1960 was able to just tell the cops “oh no need to arrest me, I’m not political”? Did a Jew residing in Vienna in 1941 have the privilege of saying “oh no need to evict me from my home and shove me into a ghetto, I’m not political”? I could go on. The ignorance and indifference that people have to their privileged status is what drives my contempt.
Right, so you’re simple mad people don’t behave the way you wish they would?
Lots and lots of black people are apolitical man. 40% of black people who are eligble don’t vote. which is about the same as white people or other ethnic groups. Are those black people who don’t vote evil too? there were black people during civil rights who didn’t support the movement, or who didn’t care. lots of people simple don’t care, and it’s not a matter of privileged so much as is preference.
The world is not as simple or black and white as you seem to wish it would be. You simple think anyone who doesn’t agree with you is wrong and bad and contemptuous. And frankly, why would they want to be political like you then? so they can also hold that attitude towards the non believers?
You’re trying to put a lot of words in my mouth. We’re clearly just talking past one another at this point, so have a good one, I guess.