My Ideology
This led me to register politically for the first time, as a Republican. It was right before the 2000 election and I was going to go against the grain of liberalism here in NYC. I started listening to Sean Hannity (it was only a local show at the time), and I visited the Rush Limbaugh website frequently to get articles that might support the things I was starting to believe.
Fast forward two years to the time when the US was ramping up for war in Iraq. I believed in going to war, more for humanitarian reasons than WMD, but WMD gave good cover as a reason to go. I can remember meeting a friend for lunch to discuss the issues of the day, and I actually printed off UN Resolution 1441 and shook it in the face of my friend to further make my point that going into Iraq is was the right thing to do. That was the last in depth conversation that we had. I have since apologized for that.
I believe that my search was sincere. I wanted to be principled, certain, strong, and well-informed. I also loved to talk politics and current events so discussing these things, even if my opinions were in the minority was fun.
The first chink in the armor of my certainty happened when Allison and I were having a "discussion" (married code word for fight) about abortion and capital punishment. Allison couldn't reconcile my belief in capital punishment and being against abortion. "Life is life," she said. That was the start of me beginning to think that ideology wasn't all it's cracked up to be.
Five years ago I had pictured myself with solidified answers to life's complicated problems. I was going to be apart of a new Republican party that was "compassionate", disciplined, open, focused, and unified. My faith was going to be seamlessly integrated to my political identity. It was going to be so great standing in reasoned and informed opposition to the conventional wisdom of NYC.
I now am at a place where I view life's complicated issues as - well - complicated. My experience is that ideology rarely takes into account the individual stories, circumstances, and experiences of people. People are complicated, and answers can be as well. The more I wanted to grasp the definitive, the more I was faced with questions of uncertainty.
To be sure I still have things that I absolutely believe in. I believe in a full culture of life. I believe the US should do all in it's power to be just both at home and abroad. I believe in God and His love for His creation. I believe that through Jesus I am grafted into an inheritance promised to Abraham by God. I believe that we are all made in the image of God and are therefore equal regardless of age, gender, status, or sin. I believe that God created the family to be the inspiration for His church in love, worship, and acceptance. I believe that we don't protect children enough from the abuse, poverty, and ignorance of the world. I believe that the US, despite all of it's short comings, does enormous good in the world and is founded on principles that provide greater opportunities for individuals than any other system of government. I believe that a President does both tremendous good and makes big mistakes no matter which party he belongs to.
I also believe that there are problems in this world that ideology can't have the answers to. If abortion was illegal, how do you punish the 15 year old girl who gets one. I don't know how to live in NYC without contributing to it's gentrification. I don't even know if it's bad for NYC to be gentrified. I don't know if being in Iraq is worth it or not. I don't know if gay marriage will do more damage than the no-fault divorce did for our society. I don't know why NICU's are full of babies getting world class care, while other places have children die from malaria or dirty drinking water. I am not sure how to punish and rehabilitate the drug addict while protecting the victim of their crimes. How do you help people be free when their religion teaches them to be oppressed. I don't know why Bush won't say he has made mistakes. I don't know what to do with the paradox raised by stem cell research and believing in a culture of life. I don't know why people insist that God has a reason for everything happening in a persons life and how that should be comforting.
Finally I don't know why God allows the innocent, good, and most fragile among us to be sick, oppressed, and die before their time. There are a lot of things I don't know, but life has become even richer for me this way. I am not saying that I will stop the search, but what I am looking for has changed. Perhaps in seeking greater understanding instead of seeking absolutes, truth can be revealed in deeper and richer ways.
Let's hope so.
5 comments:
Great post, Jason.
I did the same thing a few years back, politically. Unfortunately, my resolution left me anything but resolved. I found despair in our political system because of a lack of a representation of my voice. An utter void, actually. I have no problem making it known that I actively despise both the Democratic and Republican parties and have a healthy distrust of all politicians (anyone who makes a career out of garnering more and more power for themselves over others has to be corrupt in a base way at some level, know what I mean?). My personal political ideology falls into a category I like to call "libertarian, lower case." The L is lower-case because I don't go as far as most of the members of the Libertarian Party on a lot of issues. I'm fiscally conservative (cuz I'm not dumb) and socially liberal (cuz I'm human). But, a problem I've found with coming to my personal political beliefs on my own is that people actually get frustrated with the fact that they can't pigeon-hole me on the issues. Some people have even gone as far as to say that I've chosen to "remain neutral' or even that I haven't chosen at all! Why? Is it because my beliefs make their little, personal, quantified, compartmentalized America more difficult to comprehend? Does a unique position threaten their established conformity? Do more than two ideas just waaaaaayyyy overcomplicate the issues? I keep my politics off my blog because I know inevitably I would say something that could potentially really anger a friend. So I just don't go there. But the reason my opinions about it are so strong is because I came to the conclusions on my own. And quickly discovered that I was very passionate about them because they weren't based on anyone else's thoughts but my own.
The thing about ideologies is that everyone wants theirs to grow, mature and refine itself, but they don't want other people to tell them the actual areas that they could be wrong in. They want to come to the conclusions themselves. That way, they were never actually "wrong", per se, just "growing."
Politics and religion.... two very sensitive subjects. And I really appreciate that you can be so honest about searching for answers, Jason. Precious few can admit that because it calls for an admission of fallibility. And God forbid we should ever admit our own fallibility. :) Funny, too, since that admission is the first true step towards righteousness.
Religiously, my quest for understanding has been a much longer one. Much too long to get into here. Suffice to say, sometimes I find it difficult to call myself a "Christian" in light of my beliefs. I think the closest approximation would be "Messianic Jew." But, if anyone thinks they have all the answers to faith, they're mistaken. Something my dad always told me that I recite like a mantra (or halakhah, if you will):
"The people Jesus spoke the harshest to and about were the ones who thought they had everything figured out."
Word.
Great thoughts. You have such a better understanding of the happenings of the world than I do. Geographically it seems you are centered in a place where you have to be informed about the details of the world. This new Jason is much more wise than the guy I went to college with. I'm Lazy. I fall into the group that cares about what goes on world wide, but on a shallow level, with an ever present thought that I can not change the greater picture so I work on those I am in contact with and in doing so I am limiting myself. This makes me lazy. Maybe you can educate me in beautiful GLENROSE.
As a person who was raised to think that Republican was a bad word, and as someone who lives in Texas, I can say that I can feel for you. I have gone through points in my life that I wondered if my political beliefs were based soley on my parents. I've also always been one to go against the grain, so how would I feel if I lived in NYC? What I've found is that I'm much more conservative than I once thought I was on some issues. As a Christian I've decided that I'm also much more liberal than I used to think. Like J Root, I'm not a big fan of any politician. I think that most of them have good intentions going into politics, but how can anyone with a real opinion get elected? They can't. And so we are stuck with lukewarm politicians who don't really stand for anything. Except now, the Republicans seem to have found a way to rope everyone into letting them have more power and therefore they can exert this political ideology that I disagree with. What can I do about that? Where are those who are supposed to be speaking on my behalf? Politics just makes me mad. Some people love to hate politics, I hate to love them. It's a curse.
Jason - GREAT POST! You should send it in somewhere...you could get paid for this kind of writing... ;)
Thanks for your thoughts. I've been through what you are describing. It is frustrating when your eyes are opened to life's complexities, but it is so freeing to know that you do not have to have a final answer for everything.
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