Beyond Political Ideology
Or: Embracing the “M” Word
I joined tens of thousands of other Chicagoans this past Saturday for the “No Kings” protest downtown. The protest was electrifying, as only being in a sea of 75,000 people who are fired up to fight fascism could be. Though, I’m not entirely convinced that these periodic, large marches will accomplish much without also having sustained, disruptive protest that obstructs the administration’s ability to carry out its work. But that’s maybe another post.
Anyway, the most moving part, by far, was when we marched past the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a federal prison in downtown Chicago, and we could hear inmates banging on the walls. The prison is a towering, triangular building scored with thin, long slits for windows, through which the inmates could see us marching. As we walked past we heard the loud tap, tap, tap rising from somewhere above us, and it dawned on us that it was coming from the correctional center. We cheered and waved and held our signs up for them to see, the best we could do to acknowledge their humanity, participation, and presence. I was moved by the inmates’ insistence on being heard, on being a part of the fight for freedom for all of us. I was also moved by being around people who responded to the inmates not as criminials, but as people and fellow comrades in the struggle. Sadly, it’s not everyday you’re around people who are willing to see prisoners in their humanity, who are compelled by the simple, moral imperative that all people deserve dignity.
I’ve been thinking a lot about political theory and political ideology these days, and their limits. When I wrote a piece about capitalism recently, I made a throwaway joke about not having read Marx. That led to quite a few comments suggesting I read Marx. I’ve got nothing against reading Marx, or any other political theorist, per se. But I’ll admit, in recent years I’ve grown tired of the fights about ideology and theory that plague the left in the U.S., and that shape our political discourse more broadly. The biggest reason for my weariness is because, whatever political ideology you subscribe to, there’s a good chance it’s based on something articulated by a long-dead White guy for a world wildly different from the one we’re currently living in. Whether it’s Marx, Trotsky, Kropotkin, a founding father, Adam Smith, or a grab bag of Greek philosophers, so much of our political culture and discourse is framed within relatively narrow parameters given to us by White men of a different era.
Call me crazy, but I just don’t feel a strong desire to look to an old-timey White guy for guidance right now on how to build a new society that works for everyone. You know, one that’s capable of responding to the climate crisis, and AI, and psychotic billionaires who want to upload their consciousnesses to the cloud and rule the world through corporate fiefdoms while colonizing space.
This is not to say that it’s not at all useful or valuable to study these guys and their ideas. I’m just finding myself far more interested these days in something we seem reluctant to talk about: morality. Maybe it’s because we on the left have let the right claim the ground of “morality,” because we equate it with religion, most specifically Christianity. Maybe it’s because it’s uncomfortably adjacent to concepts like “family values” or black and white narratives of innocence and guilt. Morals are slippery, and one person’s “moral” is another person’s “moral abomination.” But I still think it’s worth having the conversation, because when we cede the moral ground to the right, and try instead to argue solely from a materialist and theoretical standpoint, we lose people, we lose the soul of our arguments, and then we fight amongst ourselves. There’s room for more philosophical, or dare I even say, spiritual, explorations about how we live with each other.
And I think we need that. Because we live in such profoundly morally bankrupt societies, with profoundly morally bankrupt leaders and an increasingly morally bankrupt media landscape. Outside of church (or the mosque, synagogue, sangha, etc.), where do we turn to discuss right and wrong, to discuss how we live with each other? And what do we do when religion, our go-to source of morality, is so rife with moral bankruptcy itself?
I don’t need dead White guy theories to tell me that occupation, apartheid, and genocide are wrong - wrong all the time, under any circumstances, with respect to any human beings. I don’t need political theory to tell me that caging, terrorizing, and disappearing immigrants is wrong - always wrong, no matter their perceived “guilt” or “innocence.” I don’t need a founding father to tell me that taking away people’s basic rights - yes, even if they’re trans people or Black people or they committed a crime - is wrong. (As an aside, maybe a bunch of slave-owning, rich, 20-something White guys didn’t actually have the perfect government figured out?) I don’t need Al Gore to tell me that treating the Earth and its living beings like possessions to be exploited, destroyed, and disposed of is wrong (this is not how Al Gore nor almost any White guy environmentalist frames this issue, anyway).
There are occasionally voices of moral clarity out there, a journalist or writer with the moral fortitude to just say “this is wrong.” This is not to say these voices belong to people who are, themselves, infallible. It’s simply to say that I notice when someone’s moral compass is strong enough to make a moral argument with assurance and clarity.
I also notice when someone’s actions don’t align with their supposed moral compass, and more importantly, when they don’t seem to even care about acting in alignment. This is perhaps the biggest problem in this morally bankrupt society, where certain ethical or moral principles are held only up until we think they may have negative consequences for us. Living in a liberal community full of well-meaning White people, I see a version of this a lot. Someone supports equity in the schools, but not if they think the program is negatively affecting their kid. Someone is a staunch environmental advocate, and a staunch supporter of Israel, including its planet-heating, ecocidal assault on Gaza (and now, the whole goddamn Middle East, apparently). Someone supports immigrants, but doesn’t want them in our community, using our precious tax dollars.
It’s not easy to stand firm in a moral framework when we feel like it may require some sacrifice. It’s even more difficult when we live in a society where there’s no place to discuss our moral common ground and hold each other accountable, because we can’t get past theory and ideology.
This is also not to say that there aren’t questions that are truly morally thorny, no matter how strong your moral compass. If, when, how, why, and to what extent to use violence in a struggle against violent, oppressive forces and systems, is a good example. But whether or not all people deserve access to things like food, clean water, healthcare, education; whether or not all people deserve to be treated with dignity, no matter who they are or what they’ve done? Not a difficult moral question, in my mind.
So when it comes to building power and coalitions to fight fascism, create a more just world, heal the planet (and ourselves), and free ourselves, I’m less interested in what “-ism” someone ascribes to or who their favorite political theorist is, and more interested in the basic moral foundations that underpin their decisions and actions. I don’t have a strong fealty to any specific political ideology. To the extent that I study theory these days, I tend toward Indigenous, non-Western, and/or non-White thinkers. Because, boy, could the West stand to have some non-Western perspectives in the mix. And I’ve found that the non-Western theories I’ve encountered so far, be they political, social, or economic, have tended to be more comfortable wading in spiritual, or at least less materialist waters.
I also find fiction to be a great, generative stomping ground for much more creative explorations of the political and moral questions that shape society. I’ve learned as much (or more) from Ursula Le Guin as I have from any old White guy.
There’s room for secular morality in our movement building and our political imaginations. There’s room to explore larger questions about our responsibilities to each other and our non-human communities. Democrat, Republican, MAGA or Marxist - we’ve gotten used to applying lazy ideological identifiers rather than doing the harder, but more valuable work, of asking ourselves how we share the difficult, complex, beautiful experience of humanity together.
I’ve been a bit quieter here, recently. I’m working toward a 10k word count goal for my book manuscript this month, and also trying to find ways to work more meaningfully to resist the ever-increasing horrors of this fascist police state. I meant to write and publish this yesterday, but ended up heading to immigration court in downtown Chicago, where ICE raids have been taking place nearly every day. A small, autonomous group of protesters has been gathering outside the building to try to prevent detentions, and I went to lend whatever support I could to some intrepid indie journalists who’ve been working hard to cover the situation. I suspect, as things become increasingly volatile this summer, that I’ll continue posting here only twice a month so I can make more space to support my community. I deeply appreciate you all being here, despite my inconsistency, and engaging with me on these tough questions as we work to reshape and repair this broken world.
Here’s a scene from immigration court yesterday, which shows just a taste of how things have escalated in recent weeks:
I totally agree that we need to move past the theories of straight, white, mostly affluent men who lived centuries ago. We are in a different world and their views are irrelevant to our current reality.