I was suddenly wondering why I rarely wrestle with Great Items of Public Interest in my writing. Something about my bloggiting just reminded me of the Russian claim that Women are of the household, the earth, survival, the body, and Men are of the epic, the struggle, war, politics, etc. Wow, way to fall into stereotypes.

That is: am I apolitical? Or at least, an apolitical writer? The thought was shocking, and made my little heart wilt. I don’t like to think of myself as apolitical or lacking in intelligent perspectives on things…

…but really, it’s not that I’m lacking intelligence there, but that I’m lacking information.

I recently read an article from the New Yorker about a conservative radio pundit who’s pushing blogs as the next big wave of unabashedly subjective media to the masses. The article discussed how conservatives love shouting about liberal media bias, and how they claim that this liberal bias is hidden under the rhetoric of objectivity. Therefore, according to this radio dude (sorry I couldn’t find the article online), the solution was to openly admit your bias (which he seems to have mistaken for subjectivity) and freely talk about issues… what better way than in the blogosphere.

[Random thought I had today while walking down the Art Institute stairs: what’s great about blogs is that they are a public private space. They are a little sidewalk corner that you get to stand and scream whatever the hell you want. You are not inside your apartment screaming with your head shoved into a pillow, but rather you are right on out there defending a little territory of you. And you get to set up the rules of this little public private space. You can market like mad, or have multiple writers, or comment all over the underbellies of other people’s thoughts, or limit your audience by not handing out the address to your little space, or maximize by creating links and important key words and so forth. It is a little fortress where you can keep the gates open, set up kiosks, toss chamber-pot contents out your window, and have festivals. And what you can’t entirely control, although you can modify, is who is going to enter your space. But no matter what, it’s still a space that you get to define and redefine and redefine again without ever truly risking the fall into complete isolation… because it’s a public private space.]

Back to the point: What it felt like this radio pundit was saying—gleaned from some of his quotes—is that we should be free to opinion-monger rather than vigorously and openly search to find as large an understanding of the facts—-both the causes and the current / long-term effects—-as possible.

Which gets at an idea I taught in all my classes that felt like one of the most incredibly important items I could teach a group of students:

The difference between opinion and perspective.

The difference between something that is absolutely unverifiable, completely lodged in the subjective and inaccessible to the public, something that “everybody is entitled to” (sorta like shitting, breathing, eating, a house, etc.), something that can be freely dispersed by anybody with any kind of language capacity – and the perspective, which is just slightly more complex…

The Opinion:

“Hey Tommy, you like that candy I gave you?”
“yeahhhhhhh,… gnarrrrrrr,… more,…nerrrrrrrrrerereer, good!”

or,

“Hey, J, what do you think of our President?”
“I think he’s a complete and utter bunghole. I think his IQ is so low I’d probably have to lend him a dictionary to stand on in order to converse. I think he’s a fascist totalitarian who gives American politicians a deep deep stain not unlike all the fascist bungholes who reigned as kings in the past just because they happened to be pulled out of X woman’s crotch, when X woman happened to have fallen into O’ situation which enabled her to wed Y ruler. I.e. Election via simple mathematics and American Dream gravity.”

So, now we have some understanding of the machinations of opinion. And yes, everyone is entitled to one, not because it is some inalienable right protected in our constitution (as most people seem to think…), but because it is completely unavoidable if you happen to have an interest, stake, reaction or curiosity about something. We naturally form opinions, and it happens so goddamn fast that one usually has an opinion the second she encounters something. For example, how long did it take you to react to the question, “what’d you think of that movie” last time you saw one?

So, if opinions are naturally formed (like doo-doo and grey hairs), why the hell should they be given free Arena in journalism? Sure, blogs are places for opinions; that’s one of their quirks – an inherent flexibility of purpose, form, content, and audience. But should they be epicenters for journalism? For politics?

Oooooh, a question with no clear answer, but I will venture the following tentative assertion:

Yes, if that’s what their purpose is.

But the purpose of journalism should never be allowed to fall into the type of subjectivity that it frequently does. Fox News is not more admirable for having unabashedly chosen patriotism over the struggle for an objectivity that never can be achieved, but can at least be distinguished from opinion. Neither were the propaganda machines of any other civilization more admirable for having embraced their “subjective” adoration of all-things-their-way.

Back to the second thing that I teach my students. I teach them what an opinion is--because years of being allowed to write “opinion papers” has warped their conception of exactly what an opinion is--and then I try to teach them the difference between this and a perspective. Woah, you’d think I was trying to convince a bunch of kids that the moon is made of Gouda rather than Swiss.

Perspective: a claim, a subjective standpoint that is based on an analytical assessment of information. It is entirely arguable, and that’s the point. Try arguing with the opinion that “chocolate is the best ice cream.” You can’t argue, you can only opine differently. Whereas perspectives open the field to a series of counter interpretations or merely different interpretations.

For example: Banning gay marriage jeopardizes our constitutionally given rights.

For example: The US has not protected the interests of the lower-class by rushing into Iraq; rather, it has once again sacrificed workers—through both bombings of other countries and the dispatching of soldiers—to the short-term desires of the middle and upper-echelons of the United States.

Arguable, both ways—through inclusion of evidence, counter-evidence, and complicating evidence.

And this is just what is sacrificed when any news station or radio pundit suggests an open embrace of our “subjectivity” (tr. capacity to make opinion) and the denial of “objectivity” (tr. striving for multiplicity), which I think no journalist who is even vaguely familiar with postmodern theory or theories of objectivity truly believes is possible.

It’s just that there are two forms of subjectivity in journalism (maybe more, I’m ranting) and one is opinion—-an enclosed state of solipsistic masturbation and denial of other people’s lived experience—-and the other is perspective—-the acknowledged state of always being a perceiver of information, of there always being a filter, even as there are ways of still hearing and interacting with others rather than just digging in the heals and saying “nyaaaaah, nyaaaaah, everyone’s entitled to their opinion.”

I’m not saying that I’m going to change my opinion (although I claim the right as a fickle and irrational being), but that I’m willing to entertain alternate perspectives.

Okay… where this all gets back to in terms of politics… is that in order to have a perspective, I believe, firmly and subjectively believe, that you have to understand something. You have to have researched it, read about it, discussed it, chewed it over, sought out its history, felt it inside you! And, yes, there are varying degrees of expertise. For instance: a) the type of expertise that allows me to feel that I can go out on an anti-war protest, to vote, to speak to others, to write my contemplations of the spaces I walk through, and b) the type of expertise that allows me to feel comfortable writing an article or political commentary on something. Maybe some people feel comfortable pulling stuff out of their asses…

[An aside: Partially out of morbid curiosity, the interest in seeing what is out there and what folks are saying, and partially to defend the line, I do spend some time each week reading blogs from people who I opine are f-ing crazy, like the “anti-feminist,” and who distinctly operate in a political realm that does not represent my interests. Some of this has generated this little rant and made me come to the conclusion that less people should be writing political blog-entries instead of trying to use writing to sort out their twisted little minds.]

…but I don’t. There’s already a proliferation of misinformation without me adding to it. I like to read things that appear to be based on either a) lived experience of the most profound kind – see “Baghdad Burning,” or b) well-researched analysis and information looking at causes within causes and their potentials effects and various interpretations; in short, experts – see “Informed Comment.”

These two types of political blogs speak to me, and also tell me why me not writing politics does not mean that I am apolitical. I mean, I care. Maybe I should talk more, or at least point things out, but I just don’t feel comfortable talking about stuff I’m unclear about. The Meirs entry below is an example. I had a gut reaction… and now that I’ve been reading more about her/Bush, I’m going to stick with it… but I’m not going to add to it, or to make it the focus of my tongue thrusts.

But the truth is, I’m writing this rationale because I feel guilty, and I guess I have something to think about in terms of political involvement in writing. Regardless of my experience that I can only write about what comes, I feel guilty about writing deeply personal things in which I play a major role and the things I see play the other major role. I feel guilty for not revolutionizing the world and fixing all the fucked-up shit that I see.

And I keep thinking about the term: “the personal is political.”

I don’t entirely buy it. Isn’t it just a potential cop-out, a line to draw in the dust about why I’m sticking over here and minding my own business when there’s injustice in this world?

But on another level, I do buy it. I think that the feelings I’m sorting out are the same feelings that plenty of people in this world have to sort out. I think dealing with exclusion, sadness, anger, and also powerful connection, joy, and the sensory, is in a way a great striving towards construction. I have to believe in this, in my voice, and continue to offer what I have to offer while still challenging myself to grow. And what I offer right now is not political brilliance, rhetorical savvy, or theoretical intricacies. I think it’s simply the experience of Being, that’s all. And trying to Be as bravely as I can. How apolitical can that be?

[Okay, you were just completely subjected to my inner guilt-tripping monologue, and the now vocalized rationale for why I’ll never claim to be a Political Mogul.]