The concept is simple. So much of what we read, watch, and listen to in society is designed to stir up our emotions. Not because it is a moral good, but because it increases engagement, and engagement is the lifeblood of the vampires in charge of our media and social discourse these days.
Over the past several years, I have stopped posting much about politics at all. It isn't because I don't have opinions. It isn't because I think those opinions aren't valid or that I'm not fit to discuss those matters publicly. It's because somewhere around the last election, I began to realize that our political discussion tends to be warped. People actually identify as being on a political side more than they identify with other vocations they may have. As if it is politics that defines them. And that ends in a reductionist worldview where if I am "this," then people who aren't "this" (or worse, people who are "that") aren't like me.
But I'm more than a set of political opinions. I'm a musician. I'm a Christian. I'm a lawyer. I'm a father, and a son, and a husband. I'm a hunter. I am an occasional fisherman. I like good bourbon and good cigars. I like baseball, football and basketball. So I figured -- rightly so it turns out -- that if I posted more about that stuff, I'd have less conflict with people who share those things in common with me, and more camaraderie. Meaning, I'd find my neighbor again, because I'm neither putting them off by assuming their political views should match mine, nor being put off by them because their political views do not always match mine.
A lot of my friends did not do as I did. I see political posts left and right. I see other types of posts that aren't overtly political, but which are provocative, modern "edginess" being substituted for thoughtful discourse. As one might expect, the more outraged one is, the higher the volume of such posts. I don't fault my friends for this -- my choice is mine, and I don't expect others to necessarily do what I did. But I do observe, and as I observe, I have a question: Is this healthy?
I tend to think it is not. If all you ever post about is politics, I tend to tune you out. That's not a partisan issue -- I don't like overtly political posts from people I agree with either. But neither is it simply distaste on my part. I actually think it's bad for the person doing the posting. Outrage is no basis for change. Outrage is not inspiring. Literally nobody cares about your anger, except those who are already angry alongside you. So what may feel to you like a call to action ends up being a performative fiction, one reason the rise of the phrase "virtue signaling" came alongside the phrase "outrage pornography." Again, this is not a partisan issue. Everybody is mad about something these days. The thing is, I have changed my mind on a lot of political and social issues over the years. But I've never done it because someone I know was very, very angry that I didn't agree with them.
Two of my former priests told me, at different times, that if you want to change the world, you should be working to acquire holiness. I cannot say that was the catalyst for me posting less about political issues on social media. I had already begun doing that before the first one told me that. But I can say that this encouragement strengthened my resolve to post less about that stuff. Why? As Father Paul put it, we should come to the Church to receive the gifts of God, and then go out into the world having received those gifts, and stay out of the way so the light of Christ can shine through us. I tend to think, based on observation, that one way we stand in front of the light is when we place our politics and our opinions over our neighbor. If we define our neighbor by how much or how little they agree with us, then we make ourselves and our opinions to be idols. Instead of seeing Christ in our neighbor, we see someone opposed to Christ, because we have identified ourselves as the God-figure in this scenario, and someone else's disagreement with our politics is now apostasy instead of simply a different perspective.
This is of greater concern as I view the Church today. We have quite a lot of people seeking the Orthodox Church. Some of them are seeking refuge from theological rigorism and quasi-fundamentalism. Most are seeking refuge from relativism and antinomianism. In either case, the Church has an answer, and a good one, but only if you seek the Church on her terms, not your own. The Orthodox Church is not a Republican institution. It is not a Democratic institution. It certainly is not identified with one of the micro-parties in America, and it isn't identified with any party of any other country either. The Orthodox Church claims allegiance to a Kingdom which is not of this world. Trying to cram your own political whims into that Kingdom is an exercise in folly. But if you can let go of that and let the Church teach you, you will find that politics doesn't seem all that important anymore. You will learn the meaning of "put not your trust in princes." And you will begin, ever so slowly, to realize that government, like any other human institution, can be good or bad from a Christian perspective, but it is never overtly Christian, even when (perhaps especially when) it pretends to be.
The other danger is people who think in binary political terms tend to use their opinions as a litmus test. I cannot say how many times I've had a conversation with someone and they interject their political opinions as if I should naturally agree with them. And if I don't, the conversation takes an uncomfortable turn. Which is to say, people who tend to stay outraged over politics and bond with others over sharing that outrage also tend to think that everyone else should share their outrage. It's not enough to just not want to talk about it. Silence is violence or some such nonsense.
We can do better. We should do better. My non-Christian friends can get a pass on this, even though I think they would be happier if they took the approach I suggest. But I hope to encourage my Christian friends to consider whether overt, biased and partisan political views are consistent with what my former priests encouraged. Is this holiness? Or is it something else? If it is something else, perhaps it is to be tempered instead of amplified. We are more than our opinions. And we ought not submit to the temptation to be outraged. And if the culture refuses to go along with us, then perhaps we will learn what it means to be Christians. The Church should bend the culture, not bend to it.
