How Political Should One Be? Part 1: Politics, the Real Work & Me

How political should one be? In the age of Trump Two, where I live in way-politicized New England the answer to that question is "plenty." We're wall-to-wall Black Lives Matter signs, In This House signs, and Pride Progress flags around here. I myself had a Free Leonard Peltier bumper sticker in the 90s, having read Peter Mathieson's stupendous investigative book on the Peltier case, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. Even went to a Peltier protest in D.C. It was also around then, in the mid-to-late 90s, that we started visiting Miami Beach on a regular basis. And it really struck me as weird at first, and for quite a while after, that there appeared to be no political signs or bumper stickers at all anywhere to be seen. How was it possible to be apolitical or at least not in-your-face about it. Don't you care? Now I don't find it weird at all and rather like it. I'll explain how arrived here with a two-part essay. In part one I'll share some capsule personal political history, with an emphasis on doing "the real work." In part two, I'll dig into why it doesn't make sense to become too politically invested, looking at the matter many different angles.

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In some households intense debates are conducted around the dinner table, and the children are trained early in the ways of political reasoning. Ours wasn't that. In fact, politics rarely were spoken of. In our very white, very middle class milieu of the post-war baby boom years it was assumed that households voted Republican. And that the wife took her cue from her husband. When my mom died a couple years ago it dawned on me that I had never heard her express a political opinion even once in her lifetime. Was she naive? I don't know, but I do know she had enough sense to chuckle when I told her about a friend whose sister wouldn't talk to him since he voted for Trump. It struck her as absurd, which was interesting and indicated a hierarchy of values. And if I don't know how my parents voted, I do remember a noteworthy demonstration of integrity on my father's part. News got around that a black family was looking at a house for sale on our block and, well, the neighbors didn't like it. It's not easy to do, but my dad called them on it, saying that we should welcome them. From my vantage point now I think that took courage and shows a way of being political that doesn't have anything to do with what elected officials do or do not do, or, indeed, how my parents may or may not have voted.

When I think back to my collegiate years in the mid 70s, it's striking how apolitical we were. By then the cataclysmic 60s had subsided, the dust had settled, and all that had survived from those years — from the protests, the riots, Vietnam, the impeachment, the free love, the Diggers, the expansion of consciousness — was smoking pot, wearing flannel, and listening to all sorts of cool music. Yet we were not without an ethos, if largely unspoken. We were non-frat and non-corporate and hung with the musicians and nonconformists. Actually, the one explicitly political person we knew was our roommate's friend who was an activist in the marijuana legalization organization, NORML, which makes sense. But I'd have to say that our studies themselves were prosocial and my roommates and I all ended up with careers that were contributive to the world in interesting ways. Two roommates ended up working in environmental fields, two in horticulture and landscaping, and I have worked and still work in education. One more thought on my studies before moving on. My major was history with a concentration in international relations. I had one especially bright and charismatic professor who was a big proponent of realpolitik, and by extension Henry Kissinger. Being impressionable, I developed sympathies in that direction. Naturally I have had time to reassess that position and to consider it in new contexts over the course of my life, but that's not the relevant factor in my discussion here. Rather, the point is to remember that all young people are impressionable, and their politics frequently represent the politics of someone else, someone whose identity and outlook holds sway, be they a parent, a sibling, a teacher, or a friend. Thus, as maturation proceeds the opinions of youth often prove evanescent, which is not the same as saying they cannot contain truth.

As for my post-collegiate years, essentially the years of my 20s and early 30s, which I spent in Champaign-Urbana and Denver, I can't remember if I even voted. If I did it certainly wasn't after doing a deep-dive into issues. Put simply, I wasn't a political guy, and often found political people to be angry and focused on what were to my mind lower matters. I remember that a close friend announced he was a Republican and it meant absolutely nothing to me; or, rather, it did not color my impression of him or affect our relationship in any way. Now, my apathy about the voting booth wasn't because I was a "voting only encourages the bastards" guy. Rather, I was a romantic concerned with the arts and unorthodox spirituality, the classic concerns of bohemians everywhere throughout time. A vignette comes to my mind as I reflect back on what were for me very exciting and fulfilling years. In the early 80s, soon after Reagan's election, I was walking in Champaign and came across a protest. I asked one of the protesters what the issue was, and she said the firing of unionized flight traffic controllers. When I explained that I wasn't familiar with the particulars of this, the vibe of contempt and condescension she aimed at me was quite palpable. Same thing happened a couple years later at another protest I encountered in Denver. In both cases, I was, like, okay and you need to settle down.

I wasn't completely oblivious. I just really didn't look at things in terms of issues and voting. For example, I well remember being appalled at Reagan's and the Republicans' jingoistic form of patriotism. It seemed like a joke, and a dangerous one at that. It reached a crescendo at the '84 Olympics in LA, where rooting for our US team came across as rehearsal for war. Now, my larger milieu of artsy friends and associates included those who were explicitly, politically left-wing, and I was comfortable with that in a general sense, though I remained skeptical about political consciousness. Tellingly, I did appreciate Jesse Jackson's formulation of the Rainbow Coalition, speaking as it did to something bigger. Like we all did then I listened to the Clash's Sandinista, a triple LP mash-up of dub, punk, and funk. I loved the music and the vibe of it all, but the actual cause of the Sandinista rebels was murky to me, as it likely was to the Clash themselves. I certainly was not passionate about that cause like a friend of mine was, who once, when we were together, got in a very heated public argument — shouting and pointing and red faces and the whole nine yards — with someone who was demonstrating in support of the Contras. All these decades later, it still strikes me as difficult to tease apart all of the strands of what was happening there, though I do know the whole Iran-Contra scheme from the Reagan team was a hubristic betrayal of democracy.

I guess I would say that for me it was the sentiment of things that mattered, a basic and pervasive way of seeing and engaging with life. I was part of the jazz and reggae music scenes in Denver, and I loved that these were decidedly interracial. We were anti-racist in the old-fashioned sense, not the current "critical theory" sense with its checklist of required political positions. That is, we hated racism and advocated for harmonious interactions and relations among people of all ethnicities and types. It was the being together, the creating together that counted. That, and chilling with some ganja, naturally — a true statement that isn't as trivial as it sounds on the surface. The reality is that, in retrospect, I view that experience of getting high together as more meaningful and constructive for me (and I suggest for society as well) than all the diversity and anti-racism trainings that I would be forced to endure a decade later in the 90s, trainings I should add that only seemed to separate rather than unite people, a topic we'll get to in due course. 

Put another way, then, as now — though not for many years in between — my politics were "small p politics" situated within a larger spiritual and aesthetic framework that was for me primary, the place where, as Gary Snyder phrased it, the "real work" happens. To consider what this means, let's consider the role of Biblical references such Babylon and Exodus within the music of Bob Marley and the other reggae prophets, the music that so inspired me back in my Denver days. I'll never relate to the Haile Selassie bit. It's awfully particular with some wild claims attached. "Almighty God is a living man," asserts Bob in "Get Up, Stand Up." Yet, in "Exodus," he urges, "Open your eyes and look within. / Are you satisfied with the life you're living?" If Babylon was a literal place of captivity for the Jews, and by extension for the Africans enslaved in the New World, it also is a place of internal spiritual and intellectual imprisonment. And if Babylon was a literal oppressor in Biblical times, today and everywhere it can be understood as the larger systems and worldviews that rely on violence, domination, and dehumanization as ways of dealing with conflict and difference — a destructive mode of being and seeing that has never been the sole province of either Left or Right, a truth that political parties typically deny as they point at the other guy. In such a world as this, true liberation becomes the quest for mutuality and creativity. "One love," as Marley so memorably phrased it.

Around then I also received a lesson in doing the real work when I joined a twelve step program to deal with addiction issues. Or, stated more fundamentally: to finally get my shit together. There I encountered a place where people were engaged in vital endeavors of fundamental importance that not only were not in any way political but which in fact would be compromised greatly by inserting politics into it. Imagine asking someone to be your sponsor and they say, No, I don't like your politics! It was a lesson in what really matters, a lesson I've thought a lot about in recent years as the Left has become devoted to a brand of identity politics that denies the ability of "races" and groups to understand one another and which denies there are universal truths and commitments that might transcend those differences. Could it really be that the twelve step truths are something that's just for white people since they aren't "anti-racist" in framing?

But soon enough I did in fact become a Leftist, replete with aforementioned Leonard Peltier bumper sticker. It was an instructive interlude. Inspired by my experiences in Denver, including much spiritual seeking, when it became time to further my education with grad school I chose Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, seeking to dig into matters of religion and alternative spirituality, a prescient-enough decision as it still forms the basis for my work today. It was here that I encountered a talk from Howard Zinn on the radio, and he knocked my socks off. His "people's history" reversed the typical perspective and told the story of America as a concerted effort to keep poor and nonwhite people in their subordinate place. It was compelling and it functioned as a come-to-Jesus moment for me. How could I have been so unaware and apolitical? Soon I was imbibing not only Zinn but all the Chomsky I could get my hands on. I mainlined The Nation and Z Magazine, the most radical publication of them all. In those days, as the Peltier connection suggests, I also was interested in Native American history and the story of both their appalling treatment at the hands of the Europeans and all the things that made and make their cumulative culture so interesting — and I'm still interested in that. Looking back, it seems that I was edging up to the perimeter of what might be called high-end conspiracy theories, though defining in that manner involves distinctions that are hard to make.

At any rate, this "progressive," proto-woke period lasted from about '93 to '97 or so. That's when I became the guy that lost his political religion. And it shook me up. I remember reading a novel around then and the author described the bruised and melancholy aura of a priest who no longer believed in God. That's quite a position to be in, and it was mine. A lot went into how I got there, but I'll just share three episodes here. The first is a truly sad tale. After grad school I went to work to work at a peace education nonprofit. I had masters' degrees in theology and education, but was happy to take a more or less entry level position there so I could begin building career in that field. When all of the trainers — the vast majority of whom were women, including several black women — would gather for large meetings, I would bring them coffee and bagels, which is not something I ever thought about, because why wouldn't I do that? It wasn't until later, after we started in on the diversity and anti-racism trainings, that I realized something was amiss. The trainings hinged on the notion that there is a strict and well-defined hierarchy of power in the US with the straight white male (me) at the top. As such, I was expected to examine how my participation in patriarchy and white supremacy had disadvantaged our female and black staff members. It was mind boggling. Didn't my actual behavior matter more than this abstraction? The second was pretty straightforward. I was reading a book on practical spirituality and a central message was, simply put, you will see and find the world you want to see and find. I quickly became convinced. Yes, Zinn wove a narrative that was not untrue. But there are other narratives. Thus when one of my coworkers proclaimed, "If you aren't angry you're not paying attention," I responded, "If you're not happy you aren't paying attention." The third is even more straightforward. Once when I was going on about injustices and the malign influence of the US on our world, my wife said, "I think it's a mistake to go looking for a villain that's the cause of our problems." Hmm. "Shit. You're right," I thought.

Well, I ended up getting so burned and disillusioned by the race, diversity, and social justice industry and their diktats that it led me to vote for W in 2000. Yes, I did. That quickly soured when I realized what a deceptive and needless atrocity the Iraq invasion was. Like I would say back then, you aren't a "war president" if you are the guy that started the war. And further, a war of choice is by definition an unjust war. This is when I realized what I needed to do was not reject my old ideals but reconstitute them in more fruitful form, a process I still work on today. One thing I did to make sure I wouldn't become a reactionary was to give money each year to the organization that I had felt so betrayed by. I did that for 20 years, and it really helped me appreciate all the good that happened for me there as well as all the good they did in the world. Soon enough, Obama came along, and I became a huge Obama guy. Maybe it was just because I related to him. But I loved having a president who was a fluent speaker and thinker. Now I can see that not everything he did was great by any means, not least helping to plant the seeds of misguided woke with some of his policies. Does this mean that I shouldn't have supported him? No. But it also means that supporting him or not supporting him may not have been anywhere near as crucial as I thought.

Then Trump descended the golden escalator. He was the wrecking ball that was desired by a lot more of our fellow citizens than many of us suspected. Thus the post-election state of shock that settled over the liberal precincts of the Northeast. I'll never forget my bewilderment when I gazed upon the massive bold headline in the Boston Globe: TRUMP WINS. I used to do regular posts about the abuses of Trump here, and my basic take was, "with Trump, it always gets worse," and I was rarely proven wrong. It all was inexplicable to me then (though clearly explicable to me now) and I quickly became as much of a Democratic partisan as I ever had been and, I'm pretty certain now, ever will be again. No need for a blow-by-blow, but everything culminated with Trump's refusal to engage in a peaceful transfer of power, a betrayal of an essential principle of democracy, one of those things that makes everything else function.

And yet. And yet, during that whole first term of Trump, something was brewing on the Left, something not good at all. What it was was the return of the anti-racist, social justice beast that had so vexed me and so many others during its 90s incarnation. I remember being caught off guard because I thought the Left had gotten that out of their system, having destroyed so many relationships, organizations, and communities through constant internal conflict back in those earlier days. Wrong. Now the beast was back, and hungrier than ever. Based on critical and postmodern theory, the whole worldview is profoundly pessimistic. Having determined that King's hopeful vision had failed, seeing how racism still exists (the extent of which they compulsively overstate), they determined that cooperation is a mug's game and that racial and other groups need to be concretized and treated as power entities which one can either support or oppose, elevate or demote. Along those lines the "anti-racist" guru Ibram X. Kendi (formerly Ibram Henry Rogers) informed us that every action or thought is either racist or anti-racist, no other options. This transparently simplistic and wrong-headed notion was enough to gain him many tens of millions in funding and book sales. 

This all played out in a litany of discouraging events, which I won't itemize here. Perhaps one example will suffice. It was the summer of 2020, the summer when we experienced the confluence of Covid and George Floyd. In blue states such as my home state of Massachusetts they took a maximal approach to masking, distancing, and lockdowns. Thus, all in-person gatherings were off limits, including church services. I mention this because after the disturbing killing of George Floyd, tens, even hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets for mass protest, especially in blue states. And suddenly, just like that, the tight proximity of so many people was no longer considered a no-go. A special dispensation was granted by blue state officials and thought leaders, given that these gatherings were in their view essential and of existential importance. That conservative church goers might perceive their in-person worship to also possess these qualities was utterly lost on blue America. The double standard was not lost on red America. 

As woke continued during the Biden years it got pretty difficult for someone like me to persist as a partisan Democrat. (And yes, woke was real; the insistence on the part of liberal media that it wasn't was pure gaslighting.) I remember a friend being so disturbed by it all that I began to think he might vote for Trump. The way I put it to him was, "First let's get rid of Trump, then let's deal with illiberal progressivism among Democrats." In other words, we'll be the loyal opposition. Good in theory but not in reality as the loyal opposition was either quickly cancelled or portrayed as somehow synonymous with "the far right." Maybe most Democrats weren't fanatical like this but they sure did "go along to get along." As for the Biden administration, they weren't the moderating force I had hoped for. Instead they leaned way into woke. (I often wonder if Biden was so out to lunch that he let young staffers, all the products of our elite indoctrination factories, make the policies. Well, no matter now.) Thus, when the recent election came around I was less than enthused. It looked lose-lose to me. My framing was that if Harris wins, given her commitment as a loyal Democrat to identity politics and the politics of division as advocated by The Groups, it will be very difficult for us to live together as a people. And if Trump wins, it will be very difficult to have a functioning government based on democratic principles. Well, I judged the Trump threat worse and blackened in the oval for Harris. Was I happy about? No, I was not, even though the choice at this point appears to have been the right one. Or maybe not! Time will tell. Oh, and let me add that while I voted D this time, precisely zero percent of my identity has anything to do with the Democratic party.

So here we are in 2025 and I haven't felt this apolitical since those early days. Might I have been onto something back then? I do know that one thing that has carried through from the early days is my commitment to the real work. The work we need to do is always deeper and less fleeting, and certainly less counter-productive, than politics. Sometimes I think it's as basic as defeating the us-versus-them mindset. That's pretty worthy and it focuses my endeavors, both in my personal and professional lives. Then there's the matter of challenging the end-justifies-the-means mindset and its attendant refusal to consider trade-offs and unintended consequences. It's that whole "you've got to break some eggs to make an omelet" thing. As George Orwell asked in response to that trope: "Where's the omelet?" The real work is to realize we are all in this together. Getting rid of the bad guys won't help because each of us is involved with creating those we perceive as bad and as the source of our problems. And I would say that politics has a tendency to intensify this dynamic, which can infect even the best and most "successful" efforts. 

My thinking here has been greatly influenced by an insight offered by Lama Anagarika Govinda (born Ernst Hoffman in Germany in 1898) in his vivid account of his life in Tibet in the years before the Chinese, The Way of the White Clouds. In it, he recounts his guru's teachings on the essence and foundation of the spiritual path from a Buddhist perspective, including this beautiful statement of the real work:

"As long as we regard ourselves superior to others or look down upon the world, we cannot make any real progress. As soon, however, as we understand that we live in exactly that world which we deserve, we shall recognize the faults of others as our own — though they may appear in different form. It is our own karma that we live in this ``imperfect" world, which in the ultimate sense is our own creation. This is the only attitude which can help us to overcome our difficulties, because it replaces fruitless negation by an impulse towards self-perfection, which not only makes us worthy of a better world but partners in its creation."

I might quibble with the "self-perfection" wording since perfection isn't a human possibility, but we know what he means. It's vital to get your own house in order as opposed to trying to get someone else to get theirs in order as defined by you. Certainly we need politics to the extent that we have to sort things out and get things to work as fairly and effectively as possible on a community- or society-wide basis. But since there will never be mass agreement on how to define and achieve those qualities, well, I suggest we practice some non-attachment in the political realm. That's the subject of part two of this essay.