Your politics are boring as fuck

I've read this some years ago, I think it's an exaggerated and simplistic yet an interesting and worthwhile short read. I especially like these parts.

For how many of you is politics a responsibility? Something you engage in because you feel you should, when in your heart of hearts there are a million things you would rather be doing? Your volunteer work—is it your most favorite pastime, or do you do it out of a sense of obligation? Why do you think it is so hard to motivate others to volunteer as you do? Could it be that it is, above all, a feeling of guilt that drives you to fulfill your "duty" to be politically active? Perhaps you spice up your "work" by trying (consciously or not) to get in trouble with the authorities, to get arrested: not because it will practically serve your cause, but to make things more exciting, to recapture a little of the romance of turbulent times now long past. Have you ever felt that you were participating in a ritual, a long-established tradition of fringe protest, that really serves only to strengthen the position of the mainstream? Have you ever secretly longed to escape from the stagnation and boredom of your political "responsibilities"?

It's no wonder that no one has joined you in your political endeavors. Perhaps you tell yourself that it's tough, thankless work, but somebody's got to do it. The answer is, well, NO.

You actually do us all a real disservice with your tiresome, tedious politics. For in fact, there is nothing more important than politics (...) But the politics of our everyday lives. When you separate politics from the immediate, everyday experiences of individual men and women, it becomes completely irrelevant. Indeed, it becomes the private domain of wealthy, comfortable intellectuals, who can trouble themselves with such dreary, theoretical things. When you involve yourself in politics out of a sense of obligation, and make political action into a dull responsibility rather than an exciting game that is worthwhile for its own sake, you scare away people whose lives are already far too dull for any more tedium. When you make politics into a lifeless thing, a joyless thing, a dreadful responsibility, it becomes just another weight upon people, rather than a means to lift weight from people. And thus you ruin the idea of politics for the people to whom it should be most important. For everyone has a stake in considering their lives, in asking themselves what they want out of life and how they can get it. But you make politics look to them like a miserable, self-referential, pointless middle class/bohemian game, a game with no relevance to the real lives they are living out.

I think this kind of captures what I've been sensing for a long while, and why I've been dissatisfied with orthodox politics. I've been interested in politics since my preteen years, and it's because it seemed super interesting to me. These "bigger than thou" ideas and causes were really interesting for me. In some form, this persisted for all my life, and it is one major reason I'm still attracted to politics. I don't see it just as a necessity, but also as an active area of enjoyment, wonder, exploration, excitement. Sure, it's often frustrating, but I try to take the bad with the good.

I think, in partially Nietzschean terms, "the bad consciousness" of politics misses this. It makes it solely about responsibility, obligation, duty... in other words, boring. It doesn't show people the positively exciting parts of it. I mean, I disagree with the essay that politics should only be exciting. Sense of responsibility, etc. are not bad things by themselves, and in fact they are important parts of pro-social behavior. However, if they are the only motivations, they will lack that spark. One needs both Apollo and Dionysus—both a sense of shared duty and order, and a sense of excitement, curiosity, imagination.

I would add, though, the essay also has anti-intellectual undertones. Academic research and debates aren't necessarily boring, and in fact they are often very interesting, imaginative, and impactful. Critical theory, critical race theory, and gender studies are some more widely known examples of academia being both interesting and impactful.

It's also not the fault of academic pursuit that these were partially co-opted by the status quo, because that eventually happens to every major movement. I think leftists have a tendency to blame themselves a bit too much for failing to change everything radically, when in fact it's always an uphill battle. Recognizing the massively inequal nature of this struggle, without scapegoating the other side, is important, and works to dissipate a lot of bad consciousness and shaming.

Last of all, sometimes important politics aren't about immediate impact but about equally or even more so important topics. Climate crisis is a major example. It's been known by the doodoo academics and other farsighted people that it was an extremely important crisis, but since its effects weren't immediately visible, it was harder to convince the wider public. As the changes became more and more apparent, public's opinion shifted. Extreme focus on immediate concerns was a net negative in this case.

P.S. Sudden thought, but maybe making politics interesting is even more important for neurodivergent people. As an ADHD haver, I find it extremely hard to persistently participate in something if I don't find a way to make it interesting for me.