A few months ago, someone told me, “You know too much about politics”. I stared at him, a bit puzzled, wondering how someone can know ‘too much’ about something. How could that possibly be a bad thing?
I responded with, “Yeah, that makes sense considering I take HL Global Politics and do MUN and Debate” and brushed it off. At least I thought I did.
It lingered in my mind for a while, and as I sat through Glo Po, Debate and MUN, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe I did care too much about politics. Was I too political, and was it evident in the way that I acted and spoke?
The same guy less than a week later had a similar remark, but this time about UWC, “this school is too political. Why do we have to learn about politics in literally every single subject? Who cares?” This also struck me as odd, because I personally didn’t feel that our school overly politicised everything, but then again, maybe from my point of view, it just seemed normal. So, in true TOK fashion, I tried to see it from his perspective. And to my surprise, I realised that he may be right.
Not about the ‘who cares about politics’ part, but politics was more heavily integrated into our school than I had initially thought.
I saw it in my other subjects: English, TOK, Glo Po (obviously!) and Econs; though I imagine it's also quite prominent in other subjects too. But also in my day-to-day conversations with friends or teachers, PSE sessions, posters in the Tent etc.
I guess this was not necessarily a significant realisation, it didn’t really change anything for me. I didn’t suddenly lose interest in politics or anything, but I suppose it was just an interesting observation. Perhaps the more important takeaway from this is the question of whether or not politics deserves or needs to be so integrated into our school.
I can more than empathise with the fact that some people are simply sick of hearing about the news, and about politics. After all, I sometimes find it hard to read more than a headline as now, I feel that the news is becoming increasingly depressing and just leaves you feeling defeated and powerless. However, I also think that it is incredibly necessary for people to have at least a rudimentary understanding of political literacy, and being educated on the world around you and current affairs isn’t necessarily a negative thing. That being said, over-politicisation can be frustrating and negatively impact our well-being, so it’s really all about finding a healthy balance between the two.
For example, many subjects talk about global affairs as part of an explanation of certain events. Subjects like Geo, Glo Po, and History, all rely heavily on politics as a means of explanation, whether those are current or historical affairs. But subjects like English, also need some level of political understanding in order to effectively analyse texts. There is no denying that politics is heavily integrated into our school, as even in things like PSE sessions we often learn about certain political events, for example on Women’s Day.
For me, the frustrating part is when people take something that isn’t inherently political, and try to force it to be. Even though I’m usually more than happy to talk about something that interests me, sometimes, I don’t want to talk about the fact that millions of people are dying, the global economy is in a recession, or another tragedy. It reminds me of the girl who, when my friend talked about enjoying golf, asked if she knew how much water went into maintaining golf courses and how that was killing the environment. She was met with dropped jaws from the rest of my friends, and even though she’s technically correct about the severity of the climate crisis, it seemed like an unnecessary addition to what was otherwise a normal conversation. I feel like this logic could apply to anything, I could take anything that anyone does and find something wrong with it. But I don’t. Instead, I enjoy having mindless conversations about dumb things. Perhaps that’s selfish of me, but in all honesty, it gets pretty exhausting to be around people like that. Especially because of the way that they discuss these issues.
I feel that a lot of people (myself included) lack nuance when discussing political issues, and fail to take into account that many issues are indeed multi-faceted, and often should not be boiled down to a debate between, ‘good’ and ‘bad’. It’s human nature to be tribal and to protect your stance, but many people are incredibly hesitant to explore different points of view and perspectives because they’re scared of being proven wrong. This is true for both teachers and students, many of whom are quick to argue but not to listen.
At the risk of sounding like a millennial, I think that this can largely be attributed to the increase in political labels.
“Oh you’re a Communist”, “you’re a Fascist”, “you’re a Republican”, “you’re a Liberal”, “you’re a Democrat.”
These labels become more and more annoying when you realise that many people use them incorrectly. Wanting redistribution of wealth does not make you a communist. Similarly, wanting to retain wealth doesn’t make you a fascist. These words have lost all meaning, and are used as a convenient excuse for evading actual, meaningful conversation. The connotations with these labels are also much different when used here at UWC, than they are in the real world. Labels like ‘Republican’ and ‘Democrat’ have a much more limited definition here, in comparison to what these terms are used for in the real world. In reality, there is not such a clear distinction between what is considered morally 'good' and 'bad'.
Last year, a boy asked me if I was a feminist. I paused. Yes, obviously I am a feminist, I believe in equality and equity, and I believe that women are just as capable as men in all regards. But at the time, I hesitated. I bit my tongue, shook my head ‘no’ and laughed it off.
Why?
Because I knew if I had said yes, he would have made fun of me, chalking me up to some radical feminist maneater. Feminism isn’t a bad word, but at that point, I viewed it as one. Looking back on that interaction, I feel embarrassed. I feel like in hindsight, I played into this whole over-politicisation thing because I politicised something which doesn’t have to do with politics, but rather morality and equality. Looking back, maybe I should have agreed, because feminism isn’t really a bad thing, but at the time, I was scared of how people would view me.
I suppose my point with this whole article is that politics is needed, to some extent in our day-to-day lives. It’s prominent in many subjects, and as our world changes, I think it becomes clear that different subjects become more and more intertwined, and it’s hard to look separately at different areas of study. My Econs teacher once told me that, “you can’t learn economics without also learning politics” which I feel is just so true. In order to have a nuanced and comprehensive understanding of many fields of study, it's important to have some level of political understanding.
However, this doesn’t mean that every conversation you have has to be about saving the world or dying children, because often when we force ourselves to have these conversations we lack knowledge and nuance which in the end, leaves us feeling counterproductive. All in all, finding that equilibrium between being insufferable and ignorant is crucial, and that starts with us as individuals changing the way we view politics.
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