SURRENDER TO POLITICS

I thought I could manage a blog that was friendly, substantive and apolitical. That was foolish because I already knew the truth in Gloria Steinem’s now famous line, “Everything personal is political, and everything political is personal.” If you think you know of a fairly important arena of social interaction (or lack of it) that is apolitical—that is, meaningfully without political motivation or consequence—please create an argument that supports your view. Give examples.

Here is a questionnaire. I hope you will actually copy and paste your answers and send them along. I’d be very interested to see them, and I’ll most likely post them here if I receive more than a couple. Otherwise, maybe this is a useful tool for self-diagnosis or talking with friends or adversaries.

Though we might like to think we are as individual (and delicate) as snowflakes, and therefore too complex to be labeled, that is more or less, in general, on the whole, almost certainly, a delusion of grandeur. So listen to your heart and identify yourself politically as:

far left, left, center, right, far right


For each sentence below, provide the number (1 is low, 4 is high) that tells how strongly you agree with the sentence.

White Liberals are motivated by white guilt. 1 2 3 4

White guilt is neurotic and illogical. 1 2 3 4

Minority liberals hope to climb
the socioeconomic ladder the easy way. 1 2 3 4

Advocates for strong unions hope to climb
the socioeconomic ladder the easy way. 1 2 3 4

Liberals have a genuine interest in social justice. 1 2 3 4

Conservatives have a genuine interest in social justice. 1 2 3 4

Compared to Liberals, Conservatives are motivated by greed. 1 2 3 4

Compared to Liberals, Conservatives are more motivated by anger. 1 2 3 4

Conservatives do not care about a level playing field 1 2 3 4
in terms of social or economic justice.

The percentage of Conservatives who were 1 2 3 4
born into the lower or lower middle class
is significantly smaller than the percentage of Liberals.

Conservatives do not try to imagine the lives of those
born into a less empowered situation. 1 2 3 4

Liberals do try to imagine that, or actually were 1 2 3 4
born into a less empowered situation.

I have two or more friends significantly more 1 2 3 4
liberal or conservative than I am.

I have two or more friends whose race or religion 1 2 3 4
is significantly different from mine.
(Methodist vs. Presbyterian is NOT significant;
Methodist vs. Muslim IS significant)

This questionnaire was more fun than not. 1 2 3 4

This questionnaire was somewhat or very useful to me. 1 2 3 4



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