Politcal Ignorance

Is it OK, from a humanities point of view, to not have strong political ideas or engagement?

I came to this realization recently. I was interested in politics, followed all the news, thought about it deeply, voted and so on. I'd spend hours a day arguing about it online. But about a month ago, I came to the realization that:

(a) its not my area of expertise, and both me and the people I argue with weren't providing sources, spending more than 15 minutes doing research on the shit we're arguing about, and trying to argue and solve problems that have been around for decades, if not centuries and

(b) I really don't care enough to invest a lot of time in it. I have my own shit to worry about, I'm interested in science, video games, art, history, philosophy and literature. Those are things I *enjoy* doing, and can have a conversation about confidently without getting involved in petty squabbles.

So, is it really OK, would the world fall apart, would Britain sink beneath the waves, if just one person, me, said "you know, I really don't care about the NHS, or immigration, or austerity, I don't know enough about them and I'm probably never going to"? Most of the philosophies that attract me focus on the stability and morality of the state being built from the individual upward, not the state downward anyway.

So if I didn't vote, and many other people chose not to vote on issues they don't know a lot about and just focused on the shit they do, would that be sociologically damaging? Or is it too dangerous for individual not to worry about these issues these days, with climate change, mass immigration and capitalism having huge effects on our lives? I ain't asking this on /pol/ by the way, because first I'm asking this from a broader perspective than politics, I'm asking it from a philosophical point of view, and second I already know their answer will be.

You do you, after all, you are an individual. Is it in your self-interest to have strong political ideas or engagement? No? Then it's fine not to partake in it.

There's a difference between centrism and not having an interest whatsoever in politics.

I feel like it's my civic duty to be read up on politics (which you can argue is a moral obligation).

However to have a balanced and fair viewpoint when it comes to politics is completey ok and normal. Only people with autism deal in absolutes or believe the world is black and white and that there are no grey answers for grey questions.

>tfw can read the most ridiculous radical philosophically disparate political treatises from sjw critical theory stuff to ancap stuff to communist stuff to ethnonationalist fascist stuff and still be able to recognize validity in all of the arguments presented on some level while also thinking of the flaws
either I am very very smart or very very gullible

I understand I don't *have* to, but I do care about society and the well being of others, just not to the extent that I'm going to read every economic paper, every paper published by think tanks and spend a very long time looking at statistics and figures. To is it ethical to accept, being only person, not everything is in my sphere of knowledge and therefore in that shameful self-proclaimed ignorance, its best not to trifle and lecture on matter you yourself admit you're not going to give much consideration?

I'm not advocating centrism, I asking if accepting one's ignorance is ethical to society. My main problem is that I don't have an ideology, I can kind of see where most people are coming from. But further than that, I honestly don't know what's best on net for society and if any of the options presented to us can fulfill that, so with that knowledge, maybe its best just not to vote?

I can to. Especially if you read what the academics who they get their ideas from are saying rather than just the peons on the internet. Even more so since the modern "alt-right" and SJWs often use the same basis and structure for their arguments.

I never voted because I'm fundamentally against the right to vote.

How much of the stuff informing modern day "political debate" on CNN or fox new or *insert source here* is even real? There is all kinds of intrigue going on behind closed doors, we only see the mist or the tip of the ice Berg. Theoretical political philosophy is interesting but day to day politics is just a pass time for the rubes desu. Running for the local condo or school board is far more meaningful than reading 29 services about geopolitics from Reuters a day vis a vis politics desu

I can relate to you OP.

About 3 or 4 months ago, I decided I should completely stop caring about politics. Maybe just enough to be able to vote with my conscious (knowing what each party wants to do is enough).
Completely avoiding politics is impossible. But if I have to argue about something, I'd rather argue it from another perspective (education, economy, moral, etc.) and keep it to that perspective.

Just ignore activists : they will always try to bring everything to it. There is no room for discussion with them anyway, so it's not a big loss.

Considering half the US doesn't vote anyway, you're not exactly the first person to reach this point.

Centrism user here.

>My main problem is that I don't have an ideology, I can kind of see where most people are coming from. But further than that, I honestly don't know what's best on net for society and if any of the options presented to us can fulfill that, so with that knowledge, maybe its best just not to vote?


Here's the thing user you say you can agree and see the benefits of all sides of the political spectrum (what you said to the other user), and that you have no hard and fast ideology. Still means that you have one, just because you don't strictly adhere to the left or right or up or down doesn't mean you shouldn't vote. My only advice is that you choose a candidate that you feel the best about it or who has more of the same viewpoints you have.

>My only advice is that you choose a candidate that you feel the best about it or who has more of the same viewpoints you have.
What if that's no one?

Then don't vote.

[spoiler]I haven't voted in the past two elections[/spoiler]

Spoilers dont work on this board

I've spent too much time on /tv/ lately.

Daily reminder, Stirner was a anti fascist and pro communist philosopher

I dont believe it.gif

>In short, the property question cannot be solved so amicably as the socialists, yes, even the communists, dream.
>The egoist is owner, the socialist a ragamuffin. But ragamuffinism or propertylessness is the sense of feudalism, of the feudal system,
>Even socialism and communism cannot be excepted from this. Every one is to be provided with adequate means, for which it is little to the point whether one socialistically finds them still in a personal property, or communistically draws them from the community of goods. The individual's mind in this remains the same; it remains a mind of dependence.
Neck yourself

...

>The communists affirm that 'the earth belongs rightfully to him who tills it, and its products to those who bring them out'." I think it belongs to him who knows how to take it, or who does not let it be taken from him, does not let himself be deprived of it.

Well he's not wrong, if literally everyone just went on strike tomorrow the system would just stop like a comedic record skip.

>This 1 quote regards to Anarchism/Individualism means he is a Communist
>Let me just ignore everything else he said criticising Communism
Fuck's sake it's in the first pages of his translated book, you nigger:
>It contains an enduring, and strikingly written, critique of both liberalism and socialism from the perspective of an extreme and eccentric individualism
>When the proletarian shall really have founded his intended 'society' in which the interval between rich and poor is to be removed, then he will be a ragamuffin, for then he will feel that it amounts to something to be a ragamuffin, and might lift 'ragamuffin' to be an honourable form of address, just as the revolution did with the word 'citizen'. Ragamuffin is his ideal; we are all to become ragamuffins. This is the second robbery of the 'personal' in the interest of 'humanity' . Neither command nor property is left to the individual; the state took the former, society the latter.
Wanna know how I know you didn't read Stirner?

This, just cause he said that doesn't mean he's fucking communist. Holy shit his entire view on "property" is pretty much the most anti-communist thing ever, see And if I need to spell it out, he believes the right to own a property is if you can defend it. No redistribution, no nothing.

Stirner always comes across as an irl version of the strawman that people make of libertarians/ancaps.

He is a post-left pet now

The context of that quote is in his mockery of the revolution and how it has come too late and is folly when wrapped in the same bullshit as the fascists and liberals. The Ego is both a philosophical treatise and a grand poetic narrative simultaneously.

How dare they lump him in with those commie scum, fuck those who toil, I take.

Made for future use.

He is a ancom now

I still find it hard to believe how an eccentric individualist would become one of the mascots for /leftypol/, it'd be like if someone used Mao Zedong to represent Traditional Conservatism, so wacky tbqh.

I think they use him for edgy shock effect

I suppose. I mean I don't consider myself centrist, I consider myself mostly undecided because I don't think either side really has more merit than the other, and maybe there's unexplored paths.

You guys do know I only posted Stirner in OP because it was a funny image, and I'm not actually an egoist right? I've The Ego and Its Own, and the ghost of Stirner is probably laughing his head off about you arguing whether he was Communist or Capitalist right?

>you arguing whether he was Communist or Capitalist right?
I never argued he was a capitalist, tho. I just stated he wasn't a Communist just because of some random 1 meme quote that was taken out of context primarily. Stirner is basically neither.
Anyways don't be surprised since most threads do get derailed often, now that the Stirner shit has been clarified, let's get back on topic.

Yes. Ask yourself, what do these ''political'' types actually do to manifest their view of how things should be? What power do they even have to manifest these lofty ideals? Vote? Propagandize their view in order to get more people on their side? Does this not sound like a virus? What occurs, is that this ideology becomes their personality, it owns them, for they think that they are aligned with truth. The psychology behind it is very interesting. Look at the current political ''cultures'' which have emerged in america. And they are cultures. They have their own rituals, symbols, songs, memes... etc. If you were to strip away this aesthetic preference, what is left? Would they still be possessed by these things if it did not attract them based off of their own conditions, likes/dislikes? And they will always ask ''What should we do then?'', they never ask ''what can *I* do?''. Furthermore, they never seem to question why they do anything at all, their ideology will dictate that. Is it not the case that they are empty without it for it has come to posses their entire being?