The Great Passive Endeavor
Morning Thoughts #178
My argument: The better the political system, the more it creates an apolitical surrounding culture. To be apolitical implies a baseline level of peace; it is an honor and a privilege to live and think in such a manner. In societies without stability, forever subject to one upheaval after another, no cultural project will ever rise above political theater. Without consistent peace, there is only politics.
High culture and high order (the best fruits of humanity!) are what happen only after all the battles for succession have been clearly decided. A peaceful transfer of power may suffice, but ideally, it seems to me, the fewer the transfers, the better. Why keep disturbing the soil once viable seeds have been planted?
To speak entirely theoretically (I have no desire to ever write directly about contemporary politics on this blog), this is one major advantage of monarchy. A stable (and this is a big qualifier) monarchy moves the competition elsewhere. Arbitrary as a ruling family/group may end up being, if a society at large agrees upon it, the most talented and ambitious members of any given society will be forced to find a field other than politics to make their name. And they certainly will; the ambitious will grow towards the sun of the heights in whatever part of the sky it happens to be in. Such is the nature of ambition! The form of their ambition, however, is culturally constructed! How enriched any society is when its best ambitious energies are incentivized towards artistic and scientific channels rather than political ones!
Whatever keeps talk of contemporary politics out of our daily conversations, to my mind, should be considered a great and noble good. When a decision has been made, you stop talking about it. The problem in our society is that any pecking order we decide upon always remains provisional. There’s always another round to the fight—one promising media exposure and potential influence and power! Humans will always be drawn toward such things, but I’d prefer we set the bait with a different kind of hook.
Great art is great when it transcends (but this does not mean entirely forgetting either) the contemporary political and cultural squabbles of a given historical moment and speaks to something greater within us, sketching some limb of universal human experience. But when daily politics floods a society, many a prospective artist will be drowned before development. What is it to blaspheme if not to talk politics in all seriousness while completely neglecting the ultimate, the unnameable and unknowable, the mystery and wonder of existence itself?
My pity to those who waste their intellectual gifts reheating others’ ideas and slogans when, in a different environment, they might have been given encouragement and space to set themselves apart and create their own words. Their activism is a passive sinking to the depth of the pond they’ve been thrown into without reflection. The mirror is drawn on. Oh, political activism: the great and tragic passive endeavor of our times!