What’s wrong with being apolitical?

[hello1234]

More and more people nowadays claim to be apolitical. I wanted to hear your thoughts on that? Is being apolitical a sign of selfishness? 

[aurum]

@hello1234 I’d it’s a sign that people have lost trust in politics to deliver.

Which is an issue because the more people tune out, likely the more corruption we will see. We need more engagement, not less.

It could also be a sign that people are feeling overwhelmed with their personal lives and don’t feel they have to energy to care about collective issues. Why should I care about fixing the justice system if I can barely put food on the table?

Stage orange cares about its agenda first, collective issues second if at all.

[Husseinisdoingfine]

There is no such thing as being apolitical, as not participating in politics is supporting the status quo by default.

I don’t see the purpose of being apolitical, voting is super easy and doesn’t take much time at all, and it happens so rarely. All you have to do is vote for the highest conscious and most selfless candidate on the ballot and that’s it. After you vote, you get to go back home and forget you ever voted, and go back to your normal life. It’s so simple to do! By not voting, you are automatically conceding power to the least conscious of the society who do vote, and they (MAGA, Nationalists, Oligarchs, war contractors, neoliberals etc…) get to pick your leaders.

Stay informed with high quality news outlets, I prefer AlJazeera, it’s in my opinion the most high quality news outlet there is. If you don’t like reading the news, then just reduce your info intake to once a week.
 

Although I have read a good book which had rather good arguments about why conscious people should not be involved in Politics.

 

And don’t subscribe to any ideology btw…

[Yarco]

If you can manage to be apolitical, I think you remove a lot of stress from your life. Focus on your immediate needs and creating a satisfying life on the ultra-local level (neighborhood/community, below municipal even.)

I think a lot of what makes people neurotic is stressing about trying to control things that they have no power over.

Politics is fine if your views are mostly in line with the status quo and you just want things to move 10% in either direction.

If you're a leftist, social justice, environmentalist, progressive type, you'll never be happy with any of the choices that have a shot of winning.

If you're a based and redpilled alt-righter, you'll never be happy either.

Even governments in US and Western Europe are too corrupt to reform through regular political means.

Plus the majority of people are just too stupid. People are too comfortable with food delivery and Netflix, things will have to get way worse before any meaningful change can take place.

Just focus on improving yourself, making a little bubble of community. Play within the rules of the game that are already set, it's futile to try and change them.

Just look at Trump vs Biden. Sure Biden is marginally better in some areas than Trump, and worse in others. If you're a Bernie-or-Bust type who gritted their teeth and voted for Biden, are you really any happier or better off right now than if Trump was still in charge?

To change one single policy, you have to basically devote your life to it full-time. Imagine being someone trying to get weed legalized in their state where it's currently still illegal. Imagine working on one stupid issue like whether you can ingest a plant or not full-time and getting nowhere, watching states all around you legalize but where you live go nowhere.

I tried to get my city to allow backyard chickens. I did a big study about cities larger than ours that allow them, I explained how they could do it in a way that addressed all the concerns people had about noise, smells, animal cruelty, etc. It was still just an immediate no. They shelved it and they have a policy where they won't even consider the same issue again for at least 4 years. It's IMPOSSIBLE to make a change at any level.

As you can imagine I'm getting pretty blackpilled. I'm pretty much done with the system. I'm just going to try to take as much from the system as I'm legally allowed, while contributing as little to it as legally allowed. That even means earning less money and having less luxuries, just to deny the government their extra tax revenue. Maybe if enough people do that we can collapse the system. I don't see any other way except just opting out.

I mean, now with covid-19, mail-in ballots seem like they're going to be a standard thing going forward. So maybe I'll request a mail-in ballot and drop it off if I happen to be going to a store near a mailbox. I'm not gonna go wait in line for 30 minutes somewhere though, my time is worth more than that. I also have no illusion that I'm going to actually bring about any kind of change. It's more just an F-U to vote for the most far out-there party than anything.

[WiseOldOwl]

@hello1234 

Different strokes for different folks (as seen by the previous comments).

Some are disillusioned with politics.  Their attitude is "Why should I bother getting involved when I have no influence over public policy?"  And they're not wrong.  A study once done by Princeton University basically revealed that public opinion has "near-zero" impact on U.S. law.  In its current state, our democracy is a facade.  At best, we're living in an oligarchy.

Some who want to get involved don't know what to believe.  In a world of information overload and disinformation, separating fact from fiction isn't always easy.  Like Denzel Washington once said, "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed, if you do read it, you're misinformed."  Is it possible to get to the truth instead of believing everything you hear?  Of course.  But it takes time and we live in a fast-food, fast-car, fast-internet, instant gratification world where time is a menace.

Others have too many other day-to-day concerns to worry about.  Some parent who's trying to get insurance to cover their child's chemo treatments may have a caring heart but little time to fret over the crisis between Russia and the Ukraine or net neutrality.  How much can one person fit on their plate?  Some would say it's better to simply focus on your sphere of influence and not burden yourself with such a heavy weight.

And still others would argue there's no such thing as being apolitical.  They'd say things such as this: silence is complicity.  By not taking sides, you're siding with the status quo.  By sitting on the sidelines, you're supporting the system "as is".

I'm not sure the question "is being apolitical a sign of selfishness" has a yes-or-no answer.  It depends on the person and the situation.  If it's someone who has the power and influence to effect change and aren't because they "just don't want to work that hard" or "as long as me and mine are comfortable, who cares", then perhaps.  If it's an average joe who's only going to live 80 years (sitting aside non-duality for a moment) and doesn't want to spend 40 of those years fighting for backyard chickens in their city, perhaps not.  It depends on your perspective.

Edited February 23, 2022 by WiseOldOwl
fixing typos