There’s something to the way we talk about the tit-for-tat of politics that deeply confuses us. The danger for us is how it narrows our understanding.
We can find easy examples of intentionally hurtful politics.
Many use political language, legislation, and argumentation with the intention of causing real harm to individuals and groups of people.
It is wise to remember that these people do this on purpose. Perhaps because they themselves feel hurt. After all, this seems to be precisely how some people define what counts as political. Anything that makes me feel bad.
However, when people attempt to hurt people because they feel hurt, we shouldn’t treat them as fully defining what is political any more than we believe bumper stickers are the last word on political speech.
These aren’t actually counter-examples but common attempts that intentionally narrow the word political. By precisely narrowing the scope to their exclusive grievance.
Take for example “Religious Freedom” laws.
When originally composed in a bipartisan manner, they granted different religious groups more freedom. It was a movement which broadened freedom to include a greater sense of spiritual use. In other words, it didn’t just expand freedom, it expanded what constitutes “religious.”
Over the last decade, however, newer iterations of these laws have privileged some groups over others. And they also narrow the terms of the debate.
They say we, evangelical Christians feel attacked, so we must be protected. Hence, the world has gotten “too political” and they are aggrieved. So they use the advantage of the government to advantage a group and target other groups for discrimination.
This narrows what is political to only what that privileged group feels and ignores the effect on others.
While this certainly shows the fluctuation in politics (and its partisanship), it also shows the linguistic power of persuasion. Especially in the narrowing of the scope of the debate.
They narrow it down so tightly to the individual, which privileges a certain logic. It’s hard to debate with the idea of wanting to protect everybody and this one person is part of the everybody…
But this logic actually narrows the focus disingenuously precisely because it turns the everybody into a specific somebody. And at the same time, countless other somebodies are losing their freedom.
The allure of grievance
In the scope of politics, grievance affords us the chance to see the somebody amid the everybody. Which makes it a powerful tool. And one that is very much political.
And part of how we understand politics is systemic. So political is also the system itself, its political actors, its political laws which are written by elected representatives.
Even as these are laws are written within our system of government, they work against that sense of common partnership. They obfuscate the rest and diminish our relationships.
And worse, they diminish our law, our way of being together, our politics.
For we have so little precedent for affirmatively declaring a right to discriminate and much precedence for declaring a right to freedom from discrimination.
Narrowing a message may be effective, but it also distorts. So while it may be tricky to keep the conversation broad, it is often at the level we need it to be.