This is a 9500-word essay, (divided in three parts) that I submitted for a course in EFL University, Hyderabad.
Neil Nagwekar
H00MAELI20190056
Political Philosophy (APH 235)
Professor Sayeed Syed
13 May 2020
The Necessity of Apoliticism - Part I
A close examination of the validity of the commonest of counterarguments that concern this controversial term, stem from the word denoting it. The general counterpoint to the act of conscious distancing from the truths, themes or discourses that constitute the political domain, are instead sourced from conclusions that are derived from its terminology. If, therefore, it is asserted that the ‘apolitical’ stance is in fact the ‘most political’, what is being interrogated here is not the stance itself, but a paradox in the constructed world of signs and symbols commonly known as language.
If one assumes—from voting rights to interpersonal relationships—the pervasiveness of political life to be everywhere, then any concept, including that of apoliticism, cannot exist even as the yin to its yang. It must necessarily reside within its all-encompassing domain. For the individual who assumes such a stance, the very wording of this argument would become a political act, thus undermining its sincerity.
However, structuralism may note the difference between denotation and connotation and, consequently, assert the word ‘apolitical’ to be merely the arbitrary placeholder for what it is meant to signify. While, granted, the term suggests an existence in a shape and form antithetical to and/or aside from the political realm (being impossible within the current definitions of ‘political’), in truth, when one considers some of its salient features, it becomes clear that apoliticism is happy to reside as a small subset within the political sphere. It is, therefore, both necessary and profitable to separate the wheat from the chaff by attempting to identify the salient features which this term is meant to connote.
It may be reasonable to assert that the apolitical-minded do not have a natural (if not principled) predisposition toward engaging in political news. Here, ‘political’ refers less to the daily intercourse between humans within which power transactions have been identified as inherent, and more toward the functioning, interrelations, and effects of governmental institutions on a local, national or international level.
This, as aforementioned, means that the apolitical man cannot (or, in some cases, is not permitted to) forego all of the bouquets and brickbats that percolate from the political. Thus, he may consume entertainment news, read political philosophy, suffer the ill-effects of an oppressive law. He will not distance himself from daily conversations and interpersonal relationships. It goes without saying that when someone declares themselves to be ‘apolitical’, they do not mean that they wish to renounce from all forms of human intercourse or abstain from all forms of life, for the only means of that is death.
Once this twofold character of ‘political’ is acknowledged, so too is the singular nature of apoliticism. Individuals who draw a line between these two realms of political and consequently abstain from certain discourses, allegiances, protests, etc. whilst retaining their complete liberty in engaging in daily intercourse with society—not to mention, at all times attempting to comply to their fundamental rights and duties as allotted by their state—may be said to be apolitical.
To conveniently distinguish from the twofold character of the political, henceforth the word political or the phrase political realm will denote those power transactions and interpersonal relations as they are understood in its universal and social sense. The word politics will remain restricted to news, discourses, activities, etc. specifically relating to governments, ideologies, parties, etc. For the sake of clarity, it must be noted that the words apoliticism, apolitical, etc. are, then, a renunciation from politics; not of all political life.
This subjective line of apoliticism—which, while it may be approximated by taking the averages of all apolitical individuals, can never be set in stone—indicates that there exist different degrees of apoliticism. If those degrees remain unacknowledged, even the apolitical individual who plants a sapling may be accused of duplicity, in the context of the pervasive discourse of global warming in politics. Should any acts related to global warming, then, be part of the political realm, or a part of politics?
By that same token, it is clear that similar questions may be laid at the feet of other humanities or social sciences. Can the license agreements of a videogame be constituted as literature? Why is the law of Diminishing Marginal Utility a greater part of economics than of psychology? There has always been a conscious separation of human sciences, and those separations have later developed into institutionalized schools of thought—partly, to further their own conceptions, and partly to prevent what occurs when interdisciplinary studies are taken to their absolute extreme i.e. the dissolution of all the aforementioned schools of thought.1
What at first appeared paradoxical to apoliticism now appears paradoxical to all human sciences. Any further discussion of its intricacies, as with other fields, would necessarily lead us down the path of infinite regress, wherein deriving the essences behind any concept would become an impossible task, and therefore any discussion futile. However, amongst all this, that the apolitical man acts in his distancing from words and actions that they constitute as part of politics, can neither be in dispute, nor can it be recognized as an unreality. It must be acknowledged that, not only it is their activity and its manner that must be our object of analysis, but also that this argument is, contrary to being abstract, a defence of those real, concrete decisions.
This is not to say that a defence of apoliticism must come at the folly of the person engaged in politics. Without their feats, it is likely that the world would have failed to abolish slavery, recede from colonialism and acknowledge the chains of patriarchy.2 Politicism, like apoliticism, is a choice with its pros and cons. Amidst this argument it must not be forgotten that neither of these two conceptions—although they may, on the surface level of language, appear to be at odds—must be considered objectively hierarchical to the other.
The historical argument
The concrete actions of those engaged in politics are a reasonable starting-point of analysis. An earlier argument3 explored in great detail what will here be revised; on how the goals of civilians, volunteers, employees, heads of states, etc., while widely differing in their means, appear to be converging to a similar end. Irrespective of whether the governing structure advocated is monarchy, democracy, fascism or capitalism, its end-result appears to be arriving at a hitherto abstract stage of an absence of all conflicts; meticulous management of possibilities by the government; the satisfaction and compliance of the governed; the subsequent healthy development of the land. It would, thus, not be unreasonable to assert that the most ideal state for each participant includes a state of continued peace and prosperity (which, of course, is reliant on their own definitions of the term). The term ‘continued’ here is important, since the most ideal situation would entail one that cannot relapse into disorder and conflict.
The primary issue with such an objective may be best articulated in the Hegelian philosophy of the cycles of history. If history is condemned to the stages of thesis, antithesis and synthesis, how can humanity succeed in finding steadiness in their promised land? Just as the oppression of the bourgeoisie merely replaced the oppression of feudal lords, if a group of people engaged in politics deem an existing structure oppressive and succeed in their overthrow, is there any historical grounding to support the claim that these new structures will live up, in permanence, to the ideals that they fought for?
Let us take the example of the global response to COVID-19.4 It is apparent that, due to the increasingly infectious nature of the pandemic, the fatality rate in countries where it is prevalent, the clogging of healthcare systems, etc. that the most rational manner to counter it is to self-isolate and prevent its spread, until experts can reach a position wherein the virus can be eradicated. The metanarrative5—as Lyotard understands the term—then, has been derived from science. It manifests itself in governments, celebrities, families, etc. urging the entire population to remain at home and practice self-hygiene whenever possible.
While I, among others, believe there to be no lapse in logic in the metanarrative, this has not stopped the countercultural rise of those subverting or protesting this change in lifestyle. It must be clarified from the outset that some concerns, such as of the cruelty of policing, issues with income, etc. are understandable, while concerns about the larger state of the economy are debatable. Our object of analysis must, instead, focus on those who cite infringements on civil liberties, those willing to play the odds of contracting the virus, or those who do not believe in its seriousness, nor of its existence.
That there exists in the 21st century a situation that may be analogous to the Black Death and is still not enough reason for the masses to collectively unite and place their trust in the state, a medium of their own good, is a validation (if not an outright proof) of the chasm of a gap there exists between real and ideal politics. The rise of this antithesis, especially in the context of the gravity and the extraordinariness of the situation, highlights the inevitability of conflicts in a society when each individual perceives themselves as a participant of politics. How long will it be before these subjugated discourses assume the position of the dominant, and how long before it begins to tangibly impact humanity’s conflict with the virus?
It is easy to dismiss the claims of the protestors as those of the unlearned or the selfish—and that may have a basis in rationality—but these remain real issues presented by real human beings who, regardless of what one may think of their stances, are equal members of the political sphere. If the majority of the global population has consented to the terms of their governments in battling this virus on the basis of rationality (offered by science), why can that rationality not be extended to the dissenters?
Rationality, by its very nature, suspends certainty in any supposition6; which is to say that there is an acknowledgement that any conclusion on rational grounds is not necessarily conclusive. Yesterday the rational conclusion was that the earth was flat; today, it is spherical; tomorrow, it may all be a computer simulation. To dismiss, therefore, a counterargument as irrational, propagandist or troll-like is the opposite of the true spirit of debate. Are not those following the protocols of the government, going beyond their mandate of rationality by openly dismissing or mocking the claims of those that believe COVID-19 to be a hoax, the delusion of the liberals, or the suppression of civil liberties?7
It is necessary for the ‘self’ to note that those on the opposite side of the proverbial fence, are equally willing to tout the positives of rationality. Claims that people deserve their right to haircuts sound irrational in light of the current situation, yet it is a claim that has naturally arisen from members of the political sphere. They have used their own observations, experiences, contexts, cognitive faculties, etc. and presented what happen to be opposite conclusions in the sphere of politics; a conclusion that their existence deems logical.
However, the natural reaction of a mind—that has validated their own beliefs and principles with their own limits of rationality—to the other mind expressing and practicing a worldview completely alien to the self, is not always to engage in a calming or moderate manner of discourse. Perhaps it may be the case that—after a detailed, rational argument by both parties—the protestors of the current government directive are convinced of their folly and agree to the requests of the majority; or vice versa.8 Instead, the natural reaction9 is likelier for the person to stand aghast at, argue with or mock the wishes of the protestors.
This inability to truly impress upon another individual of the logic behind one’s own beliefs (while, at the same time, refusing either to manifest the realities of others in one’s own self, or to accept its validity) is, I think, at the root of the angst of politics. It partly explains why the logic of the Marxists will remain perennially pitted against the capitalists, or the Tories with the Whigs. It traps people into their own subjectivity under the guise of freedom of thought and speech.
This is why suggestions for transcendence from the cycles of history that focus on structures or ideologies—e.g. debates on whether, on balance, communism is superior to capitalism, or whether monarchy must be abandoned for democracy, etc.—are, in my view, a moot point. While, in comparison to each other, one may discern certain governmental structures to be objectively better than the other10, in truth history has shown that none of these forms of governance are, on their own, capable of achieving these goals while at the same time standing the test of time.
The cited argument Trust: Centre of Transcendental Politics does not find its potential solution in any structure, but instead in the emotion of trust. Any system can operate with the determinants of continued peace and prosperity, if each participant of the polity11 simply places faith in it to function. A brief explanation of the argument may be found in this excerpt:
…trust must gain priority over other elements. Trust itself is transcendental. Trust fosters camaraderie on a micro-level which can then be built upon a larger scale. Of course, it must be informed and influenced by the aforementioned determinants of context, rationality and probability, but it must never be sourced from them; otherwise, trust will lose its nature. If trust is two-way, inherent and consistent—which is to say, if a minister believes in his king as a leader, and the king believes that his minister is someone who can be relied upon—then all conspiracies, ulterior motivations, subversions, resistances, revolutions and wars become an impossibility... (Nagwekar 5 – Trust: Centre of Transcendental Politics)
Suffice it to say, this absolute and idealistic precondition for the realization of any form of abstract paradise suggests, understandably, its impossibility in present practice. The very existence of discursive battles even during a time as unique as COVID-19 validates that.
Apoliticism is a necessity, then, because it permits the acknowledgement that to reach the stage of transcendental politics is impossible.12 It is a realization that there is nothing particularly unique to the present, in relation to the past or to the future. While the protests of today will be forgotten—or, worse, doctored—by the propagandists of tomorrow, the discriminations of today will also be mitigated by the activists of tomorrow. Injustice, as well as justice, has and will continue to exist.
Were the sensuous Romantics not a product of the Age of Sensibility? Did the Victorian Age not succeed the age of Romantics? Was it not the emotional, existentialist loss of order found in the modern man that was the consequence of the suffocating norms of the Victorian England? Why, then, (the apolitical person is within their rationality to inquire) must an individual be compelled to actively attempt a change in circumstance, when they must at the same time reconcile their efforts with the comprehension that, after a given period of time, history will undo their work?
When such a perception is naturalized, then the unscrupulous machinations of a governor, protests to an oppressive law or the starving child of Africa appear both trivial and natural to the larger design of history. Just as nobody but a lover of drama would watch the same Shakespearean tragicomedy, directed by the same person, and with characters reciting the same script—the only difference being a change of cast—so must the person engaged in politics increase their scope of rationality, to acknowledge that the apolitical person is not interested in these minor characters and their motivations, which appear trivial in the face of the larger forces of history.
Footnotes
Digression: Of course, it is not only humanities, but also distinctions between scientific streams such as chemistry and biology that may be identified.
In the interest of balance, it is equally certain that, without the political-minded, the rise of Nazism would not have occurred either.
Nagwekar, Neil. “Trust – Centre of Transcendental Politics”. 2020.
It must be noted that the peculiar set of possibilities that have followed this pandemic—specifically, the possibility that it is in the best interest of humanity as a species to eradicate this virus—which appeals to the universal survival instinct (and, therefore, a situation that should ideally foster unity) makes this an apt example to use.
Metanarrative is often understood in a hegemonic and negative sense, but here the intent is neutral.
This aspect of rationality has been explored in greater length in Trust: Centre of Transcendental Politics. It will be later circled back to in this argument.
The counterargument that the dissenters of the temporary suppression of civil liberties are, themselves, claiming the others as irrational, is perfectly valid. Of course, one party claiming the other as irrational must not give the other party license to respond in the same fashion.
I do not assume this to be true. Indeed, my earlier argument [Is Skepticism Healthy in Religious Dialogue?] explores the pitfalls of a purely rational form of dialogue. This shall also be explored anon.
This is based not only on the reaction to COVID-19 protestors, but also on innumerable conversations, social media posts, etc. (if such an apparent observation even requires a basis)
'Objective’ is not used here to describe philosophical but material conditions i.e. the relation between structures of politics and decentralization of power, distribution of wealth, income inequalities, corruption, bureaucracy, etc.
The meaning of ‘polity’ is not to be confused with the unique meanings we have ascribed to ‘political’ or ‘politics’.
Later, we shall consider the situation of people who agree transcendental politics to be an impossibility, yet choose to engage in politics.
Date of publication: 13 May 2020
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