Cultivating a Politics of Care; Tilling the Soil for Democracy

In posts from September 7 and September 10 on this blog, I explained why I think it's important to use the word 'fascism' in our current political climate as well as how we might consider using it in ways that are both meaningful and consistent.

Aside from fascism, the other main purpose of this blog is to explore democracy. In this post, I would like to explore the ideal of democracy by considering a 'politics of care.'

A lot of authors who write about politics have a tendency to use the phrase "the politics of..." to describe a set of language, behaviors, and policies undergirded by a particular value. For example, Henry Giroux often writes about a "politics of disposability" in order to describe the sort of contemptuous language, behaviors, and policies guided by an underlying idea that some human beings have no worth - that we ought to see them as disposable.  

I think authors use the "a politics of..." phrase to help us see beyond tired notions of right and left. People in both major US political parties engage in a politics of disposability, and there are others in both parties who don't. By using this phrase, it helps us see and make better sense of nuance. It also helps us think about our own values with better clarity.

This post is about a politics of care and how it relates to democracy. But before delving into what a politics of care might be, let's flesh out the idea of politics. 

Politics is a word that we are rapidly eroding, almost to the a point where it's no longer usable. This is a problem nationwide in that it causes unconscious communication breakdowns in which people intend meaning that's not received and hear meaning that's not intended.

I like to think about the idea of 'politics' in two ways, one that's more broad and one that's less broad. In the more broad definition, I think it can be useful to think of politics as any behavior the reflects our beliefs about the world. In this sense, literally everything we do is a form of politics. There is nothing we can do that is not political because even when we choose not to act we're making a statement about who we think are and how we ought to be. 

In a more specific and maybe more useful sense, Masha Gessen invites us to think of politics as the way we negotiate our lives together in the world. Even in this sense, we could imagine that everything we do is politics to some degree, but some things are definitely more explicitly political than others. In this version of the word, the most political things we do are often the things that are not related to what politics has generally come to mean. 

If politics is the way we negotiate how we live together, then a conversation about how to divide bathroom time in the morning with someone with whom we live is among the most political things we can do. And the way that we approach conversations like that, those that often involve the willingness to compromise, is essential if we're interested in developing a truly democratic culture. On the other hand, putting a bumpersticker on your car in favor of this or that candidate is clearly less political. 

Gessen warns us about the danger of devaluing the idea of politics by assuming that its definition includes power maneuvering in congress or sharing snarky internet memes that represent our thought bubbles. When we imagine that these behaviors are political, we lose touch with what politics could be: the noble and intentional effort of living with others. This is dangerous because as the more democratic definition of the word is replaced, we risk forgetting that there ever was such a possibility in the first place.

What about care? What does it mean to approach a negotiation, or politics, with care.

To my mind, care is partly built on the understanding that each of our individual perspectives is limited. It is also built on the wisdom that we are aided in our growth when others are aided in their growth. 

At a deeper level, care stems from healthy social and emotional environments that offer individuals the opportunity to practice empathy, which is not so much a cognitive skill as it is a social-emotional practice. In general, humans who are capable of empathy have been raised in environments in which empathy was offered to them. The more people experience empathy, the more they become capable of offering it. It's very much like giving a gift, except that when you give empathy, you don't have to let go of it the way you would a material gift. When you give empathy, it grows both in you and the other person.

Too many of our conversations about important events in our country and world display a lethal lack of empathy. They can be identified by the way in which people give up on understanding others by resorting to the final judgment that others are just too lazy, crazy, stupid, or evil to do the right thing. I tend to think of this kind of language as the point at which we find others' behavior so utterly confusing and frustrating that, in order to save ourselves from a meltdown, we fall back on tired judgments in place of curiosity, as if the lazy, crazy, stupid, or evil explanation were any sort of explanation at all. 

In making this case, I don't mean to imply that the behavior and language of some people isn't an extraordinary threat to others, or that we should all just try singing Kumbaya and holding hands. My point is that we are living through a time in which a politics of disdain is increasingly visible and has a tendency to erode our capacity for care. As the capacity for care erodes, we all become more lethal to each other.

We are also living through a time in which a great many people are courageously engaging in a politics of care that is so inspiring it's impossible to do it justice with words.

A politics of care is not only the most evolved form of human politics, it is a politics of life and living. Its opposite, which I called a politics of disdain above, is a politics of death and dying. 

The worst political actors among us, those who believe life is about imposing their power and ideology on others no matter the cost, are toxic to us all. They do not understand their perspective to be limited and lack the life-sustaining capacity for empathy. When we're not cautious, their language, behaviors, and policies seep into our consciousness and behavior without our awareness, and we find ourselves acting similarly despite our best intentions.

A politics of care is an effortful antidote to that. It is particularly effortful when others engage us with the politics of disdain.

A politics of care is undergirded by the assumption that it is noble and reasonable to aspire to become something closer to our best self. It understands that this is only possible in relationship with others, and in that way, begins to offer us a working definition for freedom.

A politics of care does not imply giving leeway to unhealthy people who spread their toxicity as a coping strategy. It knows that this is, in fact, the opposite of care, the opposite of responsibility, and the opposite of integrity.

A politics of care is basic to the belief that democracy, among the most extraordinary challenges humans have ever decided take on, is possible. It is the project of seeing ourselves in others within whom it is difficult to find a mirror - trusting that that mirror is there, and refusing to give up our search for it. Simultaneously, it has become more and more apparent that this includes the project of engaging those who've become addicted to the politics of disdain.

The way a politics of care engages a politics of disdain will always depend on the circumstances in which they meet, but there are spaces in which a politics of care is more capable of showcasing its ancient wisdom. Democracy, if it's a viable option for our future, depends on humans engaging fully with their humanity. Among other things, this means that people need real time to have real conversations, that they see each other face to face, that they know how to listen, and that they trust in others' care. Habits and norms for doing these things are part of creating a politics of care, and most of us have opportunities for growing them multiple times a day.

Democracy grows out of a certain type of culture rooted in certain types of beliefs that encourage certain types of politics. It can be easier to practice when we can see how personal and local democracy is. While I've written only about big national politics in previous posts on this blog, my purpose here is to bring it home, so to speak. To say that the deterioration in democratic norms, habits, and beliefs at a national level will only be indicative of that same deterioration in our personal lives and in our local politics. When we understand this, it can be easier to see how much agency we have, even when that agency is in the simple act of noticing the way we think about others.