Category: Personal and Introspective

conservative-liberal-socialist-democrat-leftist-anglican-anabaptist-christian

I’m working on a longer piece for my newsletter (which you should subscribe to!) in which I try to account for my political and ideological wanderings over the last couple of years. But, a couple of shorter pieces have come across the radar in recent weeks that I identify strongly with. First, as pointed out by Kevin Drum, is this piece by Ruy Teixeira at Politico. Teixeira is formerly of the progressive Center for American Progressive, but is moving to the conservative American Enterprise Institute, mostly because of his disillusionment with the identarian left and its illiberal proclivities. Drum highlighted the line that really hits home for me:

I’m just a social democrat, man. Trying to make the world a better place.

Ain’t that the truth. Progressives would be a lot better off if we remembered what kinds of policies put food on the table for most people (and thus what policies most voters actually care about.) It points me back to Alan Jacobs’ short and helpful reminder from a couple months back:

Your periodic reminder from Leszek Kołakowski: It’s possible to be a conservative-liberal-socialist. 

I resemble that remark. It feels nice to be seen, amidst a progressive left that seems in many ways to have left me and some of my fellow travelers behind. Its for that very reason that I don’t really claim the term “progressive” anymore, but instead float somewhere between “leftist” and “classical liberal”, with a smattering of social democrat sprinkled in, and floating above it all (and really, superseding it all), “Christian.”

nuance

I’ve been thinking about why writing publicly has become so difficult for me recently. I struggle to get coherent ideas down that I feel are ready to share with others, and stand up under the scrutiny of a reader. I have lots and lots of half-formed ideas (you should see my draft folder.) But stuff that makes it past the “Publish” button is rather rare anymore.

I really think this is because I have embraced a set of worldviews and ideas that require a lot of nuance and parsing, that aren’t easily applied in a quick way to the events of the world. And that fact, alongside the danger of being very quickly denounced or branded in some way as an undesirable based on a misunderstanding of the nuance I am embracing, has put the brakes on my desire to share much out in public anymore. I’m trying to overcome that fear.

I recently read this piece at Persuasion by Yascha Mounk, about the dangers of what he calls “180ism.” This is the tendency to set our opinions not based on fixed principles or virtues, but rather in opposition to what the “other side” thinks about an issue. Thus, if the person I perceived as my opponent believes X, then I must believe Y, because I surely couldn’t believe X if they do. This worldview doesn’t leave much room to explore options Z, or W, or V, because a key component of 180ism is that once I’ve committed to Y, then everything else becomes the X I know I hate. And this really captures where I am. Most of positions and ideas have swam into areas outside of that X-Y dualism, and I worry about alienating old and important friends and allies and being labeled as dangerous in some way. So, I choose to not opine nearly as much anymore.

Anyways, like I said, I’m trying to overcome that worry. I hope I’ll be given a fair hearing if I do.

informality

As I so often am, I have been thinking (agonizing) about writing this blog, mainly on the question of “what is it for?” One only has to click on the Housekeeping or Personal and Introspective category tags here to read a whole litany of navel gazing and reformulations and resets on this blog over the last couple of years. Such are the wages, I guess, of a really intense intersection of imposter syndrome and delusions of glory and insecurity and a drive to write.

So anyways, I’m constantly reexamining my purpose in writing a blog, to the point much of the time of paralysis. I’m trying to remedy that, and I think that means more informality and less planning and polish. Too often, I think I envision this blog as some part of a larger, professional publication, when its really not. Its more of a journaling exercise, or at least it should be, with the possibility of some reader interaction. Trying to write a professional type blog here is not sustainable, and it takes away from my opportunities to write for publishing elsewhere (because I’m constantly posting that kind of stuff here.)

So, here’s a public commitment to more informality and meandering and journaling. And to checking my page views a lot less, or at least to not stress about those numbers as much.