Every decision a person makes is political, especially in modern times.
Recent federal administrative decisions, global conflicts, and local concerns for the safety of our international friends have been a source of anxiety for everyone in our communities and our country. This being the case, it can be really frustrating to look around and see people making decisions in their lives without ever thinking about the political consequences. Political, in this case, meaning anything that affects government decisions or the economic progress of a state, country, or the world.
Political progression from ancient to modern
Once upon a time, politics and general life could be kept separate. This was a time when the government was mostly controlled by a small group of people – certain nomadic native Asian cultures having their own laws within their group without worrying about a constitution or economic fluctuation (because, simply put, there weren’t economics to start with). But populations started expanding, and civilizations began growing so the need for an economy became essential. People established rules of trade and barter, and thus, the ability to separate the personal from the political became increasingly difficult through the years of development.
Nowadays, just about anything you do can be linked to politics. Everything from where you eat to what video you choose to scroll past on TikTok is inherently a political decision.
One might have the opinion that “waffles suck,” and that could still be traced back to politics. Perhaps by connecting the sale of waffles in restaurants to consumerist behaviors and unnecessary spending, or waffles being a “stolen” food from Germany. Cultural thievery has been a massive historical issue, as exhibited by the British Museum, which still houses many stolen artifacts from 10+ countries around the world. The U.S. has also had its own history of claiming foods from other countries as its own.
Regardless, even the most trivial opinion is political because human beings, as a whole, are inherently political.
This idea is far from new; it has been around for centuries, tracing all the way back to Aristotle in ancient Greece and beyond. As Aristotle said, “man is by nature a political animal.”
As for the choices we make in our personal lives, everything counts. Simply choosing to shop at a small business instead of a major corporation can make a massive political impact, because, as most of us know, major corporations are huge powers in the government of the United States and beyond.
To lower it down to a local scale: for a morning coffee, anyone could go to Starbucks, thus funding a corporation that refuses workers’ rights through union busting, and has a CEO who makes roughly $50,000 an hour. OR you can go to a local spot like Milagro’s or The Bean to support the local economy and overall get a cheaper and (in many cases) better coffee without funding a multi-million-dollar company.
As students, it can seem inconvenient to make conscious decisions about the things we do, but we must in order to build the world we want to see. Think “treat others how you’d like to be treated” on a much larger scale.
We live in a society where everything from marriage to our majors, to even choosing to get out of bed in the morning, is political. The worst decision you can make in politics is to abstain from it, because by choosing indecision, you are resigning yourself to the life that others choose for you rather than choosing your own.
Indecision is the enemy of progress, especially now.
Historical web intertwining past and present
Scholars, people in the media, and political commentators have noticed the similarities between the rise of fascism from the late 1920s to early 1930s and the current US political climate. Berkeley University and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) have written articles comparing the two eras, and the similarities are terrifyingly uncanny.
Some historians are even going as far as to compare the Trump Administration to the uprising of Hitler and his regime before and during World War II. People have found similarities in everything from campaign slogans to direct actions taken in public policy, and now, with the new laws regarding the rights and responsibilities of ICE and FBI agents, the concerns keep growing.
Everyone knows the story of the holocaust and the atrocities that were a result of what can now be seen as Hitler wanting to “make Germany great again,” but what many people fail to think about are the number of people who were not directly in support of or against what Hitler was doing. The number of people who would look at the Nazis and say, “They are just doing their jobs.”
Sounds familiar, right?
These people watched the persecution, entrapment, and murders of their Jewish or “non-traditional” Germans or other nationalities without speaking up. The lack of pushback, fearful compliance, and overall indifference allowed this regime to turn into the wide-scale terror that it was.
Karl Marx said, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”
Take meaningful action
We spend a lot of our time watching people suffer, disappear, or die on cell phone screens, scrolling past them without even taking a moment to process how heavy that is. Many people don’t even want to process those feelings, because it’s much easier to pretend we are above politics when it makes us uncomfortable.
Conversely, people who think far too much about politics and history can tend to spiral into bad places. It can be extremely overwhelming to be actively political, but in order to protect our futures and the futures of others, we have to be careful about our choices, large or small.
This doesn’t have to mean changing your major to something sustainable or making any other big life decisions simply based on what aligns with your values. Just making tiny choices on where to eat or what to say to someone in public can make a difference.
That in mind, here are a few easy ways to make conscious choices:
Stay informed.
Even if it means scrolling through national or global news sites once a week, make sure you are at least acutely aware of the current political issues that people care about. Five minutes on a certified impartial social media page just to be aware of what people are fighting for or against is better than complete ignorance.
Vote with your dollar.
It isn’t always possible to shop at small businesses, but analyze your personal situation to determine if it’s possible. Need a pair of jeans? Maybe consider going to a thrift store instead of buying from Walmart or Target. Stop by Lorenzo’s instead of Olive Garden, or find a gift for a friend at the downtown artisan market.
Take a break, have a mental health day, go out with friends.
Possibly the most important decision you can make is to take care of yourself. Whatever it is you do for self-care is about as political as you can get. No one explains better than American writer and philosopher Audre Lorde, who coined the term “self-preservation as warfare,” suggesting that staying alive, well, and thriving is the easiest form of resistance. Society is controlled heavily by burnout culture, as John D. Rockefeller would love to see.
Famously, he said, “I don’t want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers,” beginning the lengthy tradition of beating students into submission to make them into mindless worker drones in factories and offices.
Reclaiming your mental and physical health instead of complying with labor exploitation is by far the easiest and most effective way to show massive powers that we are in control of our own lives, and, per the Declaration of Independence (Para. 2), in control of them.
Be aware.
Only knowing that every decision you make has a larger impact is a great start. Maybe, if you have the chance, open the idea up to others. Awareness is the first step in every large change.
In short, we, as the citizens of our country and our planet, are all responsible for what happens to us and our surroundings. So, when faced with adversity and trying times, it is important to be aware of your actions and how they matter. Every person and every person’s actions are inherently political, and the sooner we accept that as a society, the sooner we will find our footing in making collective positive change.
“Political action is the highest responsibility of a citizen,” – John F. Kennedy
