When the phrase "the personal is political" first gained traction in the 60s, it was a succinct expression of the newly-energized left's idea that an experience of individual oppression, when shared by many different individuals within a common class or social station, indicated that a societal framework was responsible for that oppression. This idea came to the fore in the feminist movement, but was also applied to civil rights and gay rights. It shifted some of the burden of responsibility for one's lot in life away from the individual and towards "the system," a transference that has had mixed benefits, at best.
That's sort of the "embedded" meaning of the phrase. A discussion about this post from yesterday brought a slightly different interpretation to mind, having to do with the intersection of personal experience and overt politics, as opposed to a personal experience of oppression and political structure.
At various points over the past two years, I've made short-lived attempts to avoid politics entirely...I find the current political climate both poisonous and infectious, and I caught myself indulging in the same sort of snark and facile sarcasm that was so tedious on other sites. It seemed to me that if I couldn't avoid the sort of writing that I found boring, I should just keep quiet. This is, incidentally, what accounts for most of the "breaks" I've taken from posting on the site.
But, eventually, I always seem to end up commenting on one political issue or another, with varying levels of sophistication, and in an election year it's probably impossible to avoid having something to say.
This election year, however, seems a bit different. Maybe it's because I bought a house last year, which I suppose makes me an "adult" of some kind. Maybe it's because I'm finally at a point where I can think about investments and IRAs and suchlike, which is also a fairly grown-up thing to be doing.
Or maybe it's because, one clear Tuesday morning two years ago, I pedalled my bicycle straight into an event of historic proportions that changed the political landscape of America and the world.
As yesterday's post (and others like it) indicated, for me--and, I assume, for many thousands of others--that event, that experience, is ongoing. Everything about my life was affected by it: I moved out of New York and bought a house, and I now spend a significant portion of my week in a tiresome commute to and from the city. I experience the lingering effects of trauma, and I participate in a benefits program that helps to pay for the resultant counselling. I've even, it could be claimed, gotten fatter: now that I travel to work by car, train, and ferry, I no longer benefit from the regular 8-mile bike commute from Queens to downtown Manhattan that made exercise so easy to integrate into my life when I lived in the city.
Not that I'll be suing the Saudi royals to get liposuction money, but that's the level of effect that I'm talking about, here, and I am among the least affected by that day. Not a scratch on me or anyone I know. Nonethless: everything has changed. It's all different. It would be bad faith to say that I'm a different person now than I was on September 10, 2001, but my worldview has been irrevocably altered. My tolerance for intellectual bullshit is nil, and my awareness of the foundations of my own thought (and my own piles of cognitive compost) has grown.
In this political season, straightforward politics--who's saying what in order to get elected--has a direct impact on my immediate, daily, personal experience. When I walk through the mall and notice the spidery automatic weapons held by the on-duty security teams, I wonder what John F. Kerry or George W. Bush is going to do about it.
Kerry says that Republicans are "the most crooked ... lying group I've ever seen"? So what. What's he going to do about that massive open grave with the new PATH station in it that I walked past this morning?
Bush says that Kerry's a flip-flopper? I don't care. So are you, George. What are you going to do to improve our intelligence gathering so we can take the fight to the enemy?
They say it's going to be a nasty campaign, as though this is a strange and shocking new development in the American political landscape. That's a squirt of piss in a ditch to me. What would the candidates do to pressure Saudi Arabia? How would they enourage the fall of the Iranian mullarchy? What are their options for stabilizing Pakistan? How are they going to contain North Korea? What are they willing to spend to secure our ports? What would they do to track down stray nuclear material in the former Soviet Union? How will they secure the future of a free and prosperous Iraq?
And, most importantly...most personally...are they going to do absolutely everything in their power to ensure that I never have to go through another day like Tuesday, September 11, 2001?
That, for me, is why the personal is political. Not because I'm oppressed, but because even the finest details of my daily life have been irrevocably changed...and, in this case, it is reasonable and proper to expect the next President to deal with the reasons for that change.
