(Pandemic Diary - day 221)

From my journal: 5 October 2020 (Monday)

I didn’t post my response to the news that Trump was sick (and now it looks like he’ll be out of the hospital in the next day or so, and the whole episode will be just another blip in this endless nightmare time).

I wanted to, and I almost did, but I hesitated, and now I’m glad I had restraint (I think). I stand by what I wrote, but that doesn’t mean it was appropriate, or that it would have been good or even remotely helpful to put it out there.

So maybe the specifics of my reaction aren’t the story here. Maybe the story is how I dealt with that reaction.

Or maybe the real story is this larger question: should I (and do I want to) write publicly about politics?

My first reaction to that question is that yes, I absolutely should and do, that silence on important issues is functionally equivalent to acceptance and consent, and that it’s wrong to construct some arbitrary barrier or draw a line I’ve decided not to cross when it comes to the topics I write about.

But at my core, I’m a nice person who doesn’t want to needlessly offend anyone, especially my friends. In general, I believe Thumper’s father (“if you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothin’ at all”) has a sound policy.

And there’s the pragmatic side of me that says I want the largest audience possible, that the things I really care about writing aren’t inherently political, and that by writing political things I risk alienating part of my potential audience. At the same time, I risk pulling politics into those other subjects and into communities that also aren’t inherently political.

For example, I write things for the trailrunning community.

There’s an uneasy, unspoken and unwritten agreement within that community (or at least among a majority of the members of that community) that we don’t talk about that here.

In the Before, I made the assumption that most trailrunners thought roughly the way I do. I assumed that most of us were environmentalists at heart, and were therefore Democrats or Greens or Green Libertarians (that’s me, by the way).

I knew there were outliers, but they were savvy enough to recognize themselves as outliers, and so the topic never really came up. But now it’s clear that there are far more of those outliers within this tribe than I ever would have imagined.

Anyway, the point is that I could take a neutral stance (and be “nice”) and not allow politics into my writing, or I could include it as a topic along with everything else I want to write about. It fits right in there under my “Nature of Man” heading, and if I’m writing about the nature of man it would be artificial to leave it out, right?

I should also acknowledge that, whatever other aspirations I might have, at this point in my life the real audience is me — I’m writing for myself, I’m writing to learn what I think about things [see my post “Let me think about it”]. I’m writing to gain clarity, and to see the evolution of my own understanding of complicated things.

If this also reaches other people that’s great, but I can’t be willing to contort or limit myself so as not to alienate or offend anyone.

After I worked my way through all that, I found a quote that amplifies the question (and clarifies the answer):

For those who are telling me to keep my mouth shut, I can’t do that. I’m against segregation at lunch counters, and I’m not going to segregate my moral concerns. And we must know on some positions, cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” Vanity asks the question, “Is it popular?” But conscience asks the question, “Is it right?” And there’re times when you must take a stand that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but you must do it because it is right.

—Martin Luther King, Jr. (from speech “America’s Chief Moral Dilemma”, 1967)

So yes, I do write publicly about politics.

When I do, I’ll try to be both open and honest about what I believe (and how I got there). I’ll try not to take gratuitous shots, but neither will I pull my punches (at least not much). I’ll try to be respectful of others, always fair and as civil as I can be while still making my point.

And most importantly, in this arena as in all my arenas, I approach my philosophy scientifically (“strong opinions, weakly held”). I’m always open to correction, to new evidence or better arguments, and I welcome engagement and conversation (rational conversation — a rare treasure).

This is a policy I can accept, a solid resolution and a good way forward.