Are most political talks performative?
This is a thought I had, and I'm not saying it's necessarily true, or at least cynically true. But I think it brings to the fore an interesting point, and I want to emphasize how it feels like.
I feel like people are mostly interested in politics from a distant and uninvolved point of view. For example, in more progressive spaces, there's all this talk about fear of climate change, deteriorating international politics, rise of right wing authoritarianism, populism, nationalism, etc. However, I feel like people expect others to do something about it. There's this passivity and inaction, and no real effort to combat such changes. I feel like debates, talking, ruminating and such perform a theatrical function that makes you feel as if you've contributed to "doing good", but you actually don't do anything. This is what I mean by performative.
This is not to say talking is unimportant. It's a major component of politics, and it's a core value and function of democratic and egalitarian approaches. However, it feels to me like doomscrolling and dreading or being angry about political things is seen as being politically conscious and active, while political consciousness can't exist without action.
What are your thoughts about this? Have you had similar thoughts, or do you think differently? How do you emotionally handle this?
I certainly have had the same kind of thoughts. I dont know if Id say "most" though, I think there is a vocal minority that falls into a specific pattern.
You know how sometimes a group of people will do a big disruptive protest that blocks a street or something? Some people will say "these guys are being counterproductive, being a nuisance will only drive people away" and other people will respond "you dont get it, being disruptive is necessary to force people to pay attention to you, this is the way you get results".
The underlying rationale here seems to be that because these protests are in service of some greater good, that outweighs the minor amount of bad that comes from intentionally trying to bother someone. The problem I see with this is that this justification reaches into the future and assumes success, and then uses that presumed positive effect to compensate the real time negative effect they are subjecting people to. Which is maybe justifiable, but in practice a lot of protests dont succeed in achieving any kind of change. So for a lot of these protests, it really ends up being a net negative that youre putting out in the world. A minor negative, but a negative.
But wait, not really. Because these people are not doing a one off thing are they? They are part of a cause and a movement, so theres no such thing as failure. Its just one small contribution to the larger effort that might eventually pay off. This acts as a kind of ethical loophole where as long as the cause you are fighting for is magnanimous enough, it justifies all sorts of minor transgressions.
I would liken it to how some Christians are really shitty people, but because they define goodness as synonymous with being a christian, as long as they keep going to church that justifies looking down on everyone less religious than them. At least in their own eyes. And because they have that justification that they are already a good person, they never bother to reflect on their bad behaviors.
This is where the performative aspect comes in. If you are a bit of an asshole, adopting these broad reaching worldviews gives you an excuse to indulge in your worst tendencies. If all the problems in the world boil down to just capitalism, or just religion, or just the other side, then by fighting that one problem you are fighting every problem and ummediately have the moral high ground in all sotuations. You can be obnoxious and sanctimonious and look down on people for not being as good as you are and still tell yourself you are a good person.
I think this is the core of the problem. People want to be seen as fighting for the right causes, but that perception is the goal, not solving problems.
Im not trying to accuse everyone who has strong beliefs of this. I think there are people who do this, people who do this unconsciously but believe they are being sincere, and people who are genuinely sincere. But the people who are sincere will eventually fall out of getting into arguments with strangers and eventually start committing more to direct action once they fins a community with shared values. But the people who just want the clout of fighting for the right causes have no incentive to ever do that. This group of people has the most incentive to loudly and publically talk about politics without really doing much. And because theyre trying to hard to be loud, they stick in your mind. So when you think about the political discussions you have had, you mostly think about those ones.
I wouldnt say I have a good answer of what to do about it. Ive been getting put off by this for a while and its really frustrating. Like people are constantly trying to force me to engage with their various opinions, but its all ultimately a waste of time. My only solution has been to try and disengage from politics and just try to make sense of things on my own without external influence. I know that wouldnt be acceptable for a lot of people though.
This really resonates with me, especially what you said about net negatives and self-assurance. I used to engage in online shouting matches all the time, but eventually I realized that I'm not really contributing to anything - at best I've alienated whoever it was I was arguing with from relating to my viewpoint, without ever intending to see theirs.
I'm not really content with the apathy I've since adopted, but I'm not really sure how else to be. I don't think I could ever commit enough of my life to take whatever action I would need to in order to actually contribute meaningfully, so I guess I'll just vote for X color every few years and call it a day?
Most people engage in politics as a consumption activity in the ways that make them feel good rather than ways that are actually effective at achieving stated goals.
Political scientist Eitan Hersh calls this “political hobbyism” in his book Politics is For Power which you might find an interesting read.
This is exactly the thing I was thinking of. Thank you for the suggestion!
Are you thinking about performative activism, virtue signaling, and bystander effect?
Social interaction encourages virtue signaling. Sameness. Groupthink. It used to be, you were only really performing for your inner circle and a few locals, most of the time. Your town, your local council, the people you saw at the bar or the track or the store. And they knew you, and could talk to you, and more importantly would see you regularly; all of this acted to moderate things. It's a big reason why it was much rarer for all hell to break loose over (insert some issue).
Now though, social media connects the entire world. Someone who has five followers on Twitter or whatever can post something, but somehow some "stranger" comes across it. That stranger doesn't think of you as a person, you're just some basically imaginary construct on their screen. If they knew you personally, they'd have some level of moderation in how they react. As someone who's not quite real though, they can flame on and indulge in their desire to use you.
So if that stranger likes/dislikes the post, they can amplify to their followers, and so on, and so on. All in the same fashion. Going viral is when the amplification keeps multiplying. A bunch of people bandwagoning behind other strangers who they don't really think of as actual people, just "things" on their phone.
That amplification is enormously magnified when you factor in virtue signaling. No one wants to "stand out" or "be different." They certainly don't want to "be wrong", or get "called out." Particularly not by strangers, and definitely never by many, many, many strangers. Which is what social media does; enables the mob to pivot in minutes, as the links and retweets and shares zip around the world at the speed of light.
So you have the virtue subjects, which right now include things like climate or identity. There's only one "right answer", "right thing to say" in those areas. With no nuance because social media with its limited space encourages soundbites rather than discourse. None of that encourages, or even tolerates, nuance.
So, for example, some guy who does Instagram posts of his heavy equipment business will be fucking crucified if he were, say, to post a picture of a pile of tires he's left on a job site. Maybe the caption is something like "rain started, my truck's already full, and my (heavy machine) needs fuel. I'll leave these for another day."
That's perfectly reasonable, if you stop and think for about two seconds. But social media doesn't encourage nuance. So someone comes across it and decides to ham it up for their audience, and say something like "how fucking dare you leave tires polluting the environment, don't you know how damaging that is you evil asshole?"
A bunch more jump on signaling their own virtue, because there's no nuance and they definitely don't want to be the one going "well, I mean, he said he'll be back" or something similar. No, they all just pile on with "yeah" and "fuck that guy" and "evil polluting bastard" and so on, because those posts will get likes and agreement and they want that validation, rather than becoming a target.
It all multiplies, until when that guy wakes up the next morning and checks his feed, he's become a trending topic where millions of people are like "fuck you asshole."
All because he posted something that someone else decided to virtue signal over, and it caught the gestalt just right to begin multiplying. The same way a nuclear reaction multiplies; atoms smashing into each other. Only instead of atoms, it's people with smartphones and time on their hands looking for validation from invisible online people who will like and thumbs up and retweet when they join the mob and dump on one poor guy who ran out of time on a job site.
That kind of thing happens all over social media, all the time. Most of what they pile on about isn't a big deal and isn't someone who's a cackling mustache twirling villain. But it's online, and can be retweeted and shared and commented on, and everyone wants that dopamine hit of others agreeing with them. So they pile on whatever today's, or this hour's, pile happens to be, and shit just keeps turning into huge mountains of more shit.
Politics already worked like that once mass media became a thing. Reporters had national audiences with editors who needed content and "stuff to talk about." So newspapers, tv networks, radio, whatever, they needed that stuff. Scandal and conflict and "problems" are more interesting than "everything's fine, all is well." So you started seeing reporters angling for problems rather than facts, and the problems or potential problems were what led. Until, in the era just before social media started, media considered politicians content and politicians considered media the enemy.
That transferred to social media because in the earliest days, traditional media amplified other traditional media as it began to appear on newfangled social media. The reporters covered each other, mentioned each other. Then they started realizing they could get comment from "the people" via social media cheaper than sending a reporter/crew (who they have to pay for) out to get comments. Which is why you see every news whatever leaning on Twitter and Facebook in their stories. They just sample the gestalt mob's reactions and report that as fact.
Which just amplifies the virtue signaling aspect. Drawing in more people who hear about whatever's going viral, whatever opinions the mob is amplifying, and thinking "I don't want to be different."
Basically, most people are terrified of not being accepted. They need everyone else to accept them. They can't disagree with the mob because they don't want the mob to turn on them. So everyone, online or off, normally just teaches themselves to hew to the groupthink line.
You only see chaos and social war when two opposing groupthinks clash, because both sides are investing their identities into their chosen groupthink. Each has their own segment of people they're virtue signaling to, who they don't dare offend. And, usually, offending those who aren't in their group is just an added bonus that their group will applaud.
A lot of the "hot" political topics are pushed up like this, and act in this fashion. It's why you'll see left and right sides playing to their own audiences, which is just another example of amplification of this whole trend. MAGA people can't be seen as soft or weak on liberals, and liberals can't be seen as tolerant of intolerant MAGA assholes, and that multiplies atop the actual issue, and turns into the shitstorms we call "politics" and "societal discourse" today.
And when there's a schism, not across party lines but within a large groupthink faction, that's where the hell really burns hottest. They're all virtue signaling amid their own kind, but now there's a disagreement over which virtues are best.
Do we allow for some variation in how we deal with some issue? Maybe one side thinks single occupancy bathrooms is the right way, but others think that just avoids the real issue they consider more important. So they start virtue signaling within their own faction, and people struggling to figure out which side they don't want yelling at them start panicking as they begin to get caught up in the fighting too.
Before you know it, you start seeing those schisms begin to solidify into breakaway factions as feelings get hurt and the dopamine stops flowing to be replaced by adrenaline that fuels not satisfaction but fight-or-flight. Then reporters pile into it, covering the splits and chaos, and people start to shift to virtue signal over the fighting rather than the issue. Accusing each other "you're a bad liberal" or "you're a Republican in name only" and so on.
Basically is everyone would just be more self confident, and look inward for gratification rather than outward for pats on the head, we'd all be better off. There'd be less chaos and discord. Confidence would replace desperation.
Instead, we have a global playground no different than a school playground. With factions and lines being drawn for reasons just as stupid and petty as those kids did when you were in school. Jenny wore the wrong kind of shoes, shun her. Jimmy is making the rest of us look bad in front of Coach, shun him. Felicia doesn't separate her recyclables from her trash, shun her. Frank drives a diesel truck instead of a two-seater electric, shun him.
Depends on your definition of politics. To me, politics starts with belief but does not require action. The average citizen doesn't have enough energy or time to practice what we preach, and the power structure doesn't make it as easy as posting comments online. If it was, I think we would have a much different political climate.
I'm not sure, the bare minimum is voting in my mind, so I lose it when someone talks about "protesting by staying home". I couldn't care less if they don't want to vote in one race because "both candidates are the same." Just showing up and making yourself heard in races that matter (because politics is both local and national) feels like a very low bar to clear.
In the world of sales, there is this thing called the Marketing Funnel. Basically, based on the funnel metaphor, it's the realization that each potential costumer starts out with zero interest and then gradually gets drawn in. They may see an ad, and within 1.5 seconds decide if this is interesting enough to warrant a closer scrutiny of, say, 15 seconds. And based on those 15 second, they may decide to click and watch the 2 minute trailer, or at least some of it. And based on that, they may skim a review, and maybe, when the thing goes for sale, they may actually buy that shitty game.
But cynical as it is, this doesn't judge those not yet buying the games as being "performative" or whatever. Rather, it sees them as one step closer than those having zero interest.
Most people, even those with ever so much priviledge have messy, imperfect lives. they go from childhood to the hormone overload of the teen years to trying to pass as adults to realizing that their youth is fleeing to trying to coming to terms with being old. So a lot of them ends up just doing "performativity", rather that devoting their life to the cause.
The claim of lack of autencity is often weaponized to attack the character of those who, you know, are at least doing something. They just want attention, donchaknow, they're wannabees, doing it for the likes. But does this even matter?
Personally, when I get outraged about something, it's not about me; it's because I geniuly feel that, for instance, Israel doing genocide is pretty horrible. But this is always met with an accusation of lack of autencity, that we're uncool. But we're not claiming to be cool. We're just criticizing genocide. But somehow, the claim that we're uncool is seen as some sort of counterargument to what we're actually saying.
Still, I think there is some truth to the feeling of performativity. There is a lack of organization. If we follow the funnel metaphor, there is a lot of surface level ways I can show some engagement. For instance, I could buy some games at the Palestinian Relief Bundle. This collected $578,565 all in all, which I guess is okay. But if I wanted more than that, where would I go?
Also, I can't help but notice that in the same thread (this one) where people are criticized for doing "performativity", there is also the EXEMPLARY dismissal of the people who "do a big disruptive protest that blocks a street or something". So between those two moderate extremes which are either too much or too little, there doesn't seem to be room to do much.
I think this is the wrong characterization. It’s not too little or too much, it’s too little and counterproductive.
There are lots of actually productive things to do, but they are hard and involve more than just being loud or irritating.
Join a political party. Research actual solutions. Influence policy. Volunteer on the ground. Do serious journalism. Write articles that are designed to change opinion rather than rage farm. Donate actual money. Meaningfully engage with people with opposing political views.
I'm not sure if they're all "performative" in the negative sense you use here. There are certainly those who seek to demonstrate their moral worth to a group by making political statements. However, a large amount of those conversations serve to exchange reassurances and reinforce bonds. Some interactions are neither debates nor call to actions. The objective is a form of catharsis, mental regulation through the purification of emotions. Even when they fail to achieve that.