On Politics, Tim Hardin, and the Half-Light
Although I have kept voting, sometime in the 90s, an internal gear began to slip, as in “Why am I doing this?” No doubt I believed in my duty and also enjoyed being flattered—I the voter making a decision and participating in the great democracy. What I suspected, as the nation seemed to veer between a Bush and Clinton and then another Bush, was that there was no veer and that I was just another sap looking for a reason to believe. The Tim Hardin song struck me hard when I first heard it, way back in 1965, and has never left me—the harsh tang of truth, the cold mirror held up to foolishness. Yet all the hoopla insisted otherwise as did the endless punditry as did the never ending news broadcasts as did the wheedling, cliched, turgid speeches occasionally lit up by malice and ornery deception. Could I sit in the same room with Newt Gingrich? All this while the main story—the relentless growth of a military empire mired in ever-growing arms production and pointless wars—played out no matter whom I chose. Nor did the economic dog show any signs of coming around to anything like compassion or simple recognition of the lives of actual citizens such as single mothers. “Trickle down” and “Just say ‘No’” should have clued me in. Maybe they did. But what was dawning on me was that politics was irrelevant. And then there was the matter of the earth and what all the busy people with their busy machines were doing to it.
Emerging into the half-light of possible wisdom I have sought a shred of truth. I had examples, however ancient. In that shrewd yet groping sense, a Buddhist teacher and Socrates are on the same page: each presses you to see the insufficiency of your answers to the most basic questions. Each offers a way to live in the sense of being engaged with the process of questioning. With Socrates one feels a passionate engagement with the world around him. With the Buddhists, the questioning moves toward silence and a letting go of beliefs about any society: it’s all made up and we’d best acknowledge that. Socrates knew it was all made up, too, but he believed in the civic virtue of getting people to understand that. Of course the powers in Athens didn’t consider it a civic virtue at all. Just the opposite. Ceaseless seeking makes for the feeling that nothing can get done, whereas the hustle and bustle of politics is predicated on things getting done, however worthless they may turn out to be. Too many questions spoil whatever credo is leading people forward, questions such as: What are the ends of power? Why are we trapped in either/or responses? What are the limits of security? In rejecting such skepticism, politics never changes. It makes a virtue of partiality.
Accordingly, it encourages certain behaviors at the expense of others. The United States was treated to a festival of blame during the Trump presidency but that inclination is nothing new in the realm of politics. The inclination to ostracize and demean has always been there, the signature of one group holding power over another group. Politics may make a show of recognizing similarities—we all live in the same country—but it is differences that excite people and give them a sense of their imperishable rectitude. One understands the allure of politics in that it treats each political day as, at once, ultimate as far as whatever issue is concerned, (particularly so in a Protestant society where the millenarian impulse is strong) and as part of a seemingly never-ending skein of elections, speeches, and legislation. The issues vary wildly according to the manias and fears of the moment. How many of these issues are truly pressing is never considered because politics needs some fuel to throw into the fire of contention. Thus, so-called cultural issues have played a large part in recent American elections because a good deal of agreement seems to exist about the prerogatives of capitalism and importance of the nation’s defense. Nothing apparently to talk about.
Somewhat ironically it turns out that many cultural issues don’t need politics. They take care of themselves. I can cite marijuana and gay marriage as examples of phenomena that have developed according to how people have come to feel over the course of decades. Politics may ratify such matters but it doesn’t lead. One may say that the pretension of politics is that it leads anything, or, more accurately, the things it leads tend to be dubious—wars and restrictions on the rights of individuals. Politics speaks to the human capacity for grandstanding while being wholeheartedly devoted, at least in the United States, to the status quo of moneyed principles. Hence the feeling of a charade, though one recently upset by Trump, a man who frankly would be glad to be king.
The shame of politics is that it absorbs an enormous amount of attention and accomplishes so little. Society tends to take care of itself as far as services are concerned—schools, police, hospitals, libraries, parks, roadways. Though any social endeavor is fraught, such services are very much finite endeavors—what people need in order to get through their days. Politics, however, pretends it is infinite in its reach and duration. The moment, particularly when defined by some crisis, is vast and needs our ceaseless attention. The rub is that there is no end of crises. Nations seemingly exist to foster crises with one another, particularly “superpowers” whose reach is all-encompassing and whose goals are—no matter what—benevolent. Weapons of Mass Destruction! War on Terror! The Border Wall! Another hysterical exclamation point is always in the wings.
However understandable, looking for salvation in politics is a dead-end. Spiritual practice has to do with matters such as self-reflection and loving-kindness, neither of which has anything to do with politics, which emphasizes assertion and posing. In 2024, the overriding issue that faces humankind is: How can we live simply? The economic system we live under is very far from simple and as a way of living promotes mindless consumption and waste, the unhappy genius of “more.” Wanting goads most of us each day while we continue to take the abundance of the earth for granted. Worse, we have appropriated and apportioned the earth, used resources profligately, made wealth an end in itself, and acted as though we do not depend on the earth. Nor do we want to face up to anything if it means giving up anything. Politics has nothing to say to any of this beyond a few gestures in the name of business-as-usual. Progress will save us, whatever “progress” may turn out to mean. Meanwhile, endless economic growth spurred by endless technological innovation is the only forecast. Manipulative optimism may be the strongest drug of all.
The task is spiritual and resists any political agenda. One challenge of spirituality rests in trying to be honest: Do I need this? How can I practice conservation and stillness? The desperate hoopla that will surround the coming election does not speak to these matters but there is no reason that it would. Our civic responsibility turns out to be about taking the foot off the pedal, which is to say practicing disbelief. Expecting politics to deliver what it cannot deliver is a mistake that all our virtue—right, left, or center—cannot undo.
The shame of politics…it’s a crying shame…for shame…on and on it turns, accomplishing nothing. You’re right, going within is the only way.