EVENT
After writing at excessive length on Global Warming and American Idol, I think I can express my thoughts more directly here. Because they are simpler. I’m involved in politics (et al.) in the sense of thinking about them, writing a letter or four, and voting. It’s rarely gone much further than that.
DC characterized my own self-reservation as a sort of liberal guilt. I don’t know objectively whether to agree or not. I always thought liberal guilt had to do with “who you are”… ie. a liberal desire to improve/enfranchise the world coupled with dismay at ones own relative prosperity, equals upset tummy. If that is the case, I’m safe. I don’t feel guilty for my circumstances, because I am as little to blame for them as I am to credit, in a meritocratic sense.
My own self-reservation about political involvement has to do with effort not kind. I’m not under the misguided notion that showing up and protesting is much better or worse than other forms of action. It serves a purpose under some circumstances, for example, to provide an emphatic example to the rest of the world of American dialgoue and dissent, and the conditions under which they occur. But alan1 is also right that protests are too effectively corralled and regulated to accomplish their loftier goals. I also think that is correct.
So sometimes I wonder if maybe I should be doing more, regardless of where and how “more” takes place. My typical excuse is that my writing is politically vigorous, it is my protest, and my perfectionism in that regard is activism.
We’ll see.
But is that another breed of liberal guilt? I’m not sure.
END OF POST.