Your question is: why am I so interested in politics? But if I were to answer you very simply, I would say this: why shouldn’t I be interested? That is to say, what blindness, what deafness, what density of ideology would have to weigh me down to prevent me from being interested in what is probably the most crucial subject to our existence, that is to say the society in which we live, the economic relations within which it functions, and the system of power which defines the regular forms and the regular permissions and prohibitions of our conduct. The essence of our life consists, after all, of the political functioning of the society in which we find ourselves.
So I can’t answer the question of why I should be interested; I could only answer it by asking why shouldn’t I be interested?
– Foucault
But why do you write? – A: I am not one of those who think with an inky pen in their hand, much less one of those who in front of an open inkwell abandon themselves to their passions while they sit in a chair and stare at the paper. I am annoyed by and ashamed of my writing; writing is for me a pressing and embarrassing need, and to speak of it even in a parable disgusts me.B: But why, then, do you write? – A: Well, my friend, to be quite frank: so far, I have not discovered any other way of getting rid of my thoughts. – B: And why do you want to get rid of them? – A: Why do I want to? Do I want to? I have to.– Nietzsche
I don’t mean “bored” in the sense of a spoiled consumer whining for a new shiny object to play with, I mean in the sense of having nothing penetrating or worthwhile to say about it in any event, and being unable to keep away from the Ecclesiastes-style suspicion that all of this is a predetermined farce. A conservative Democrat does exactly the sorts of things he said he would do if elected President, and a bunch of liberals progressives who refused to believe their lying ears are now upset at him for failing to live up to the fantasies they harbor about him. The wingnuts I know are hooting that global warming is now proven to be a hoax, and I simply have no desire to try to argue against confirmation bias. In fact, misanthropy relieves me of the burden of even giving a fuck. Go ahead, deny there’s any such thing. Maybe now this ridiculous species will seal its fate.
Hell, I even lack the ability to enjoy the quick sugar rush of lamenting the stupidity of mass culture. Yes, yes, the majority of people are unreflective, maybe even stupid, if you want to be harsh. They always have been. Now, due to exploding population numbers, there’s more dimwitted people than ever before. You can only notice this fact a limited number of times before shrugging and moving on to salvage what you can. The Tiger Woods story is only amusing because of how it reveals the universal, irrational mindlessness at the heart of human nature: no matter how rich, famous or unjustifiably venerated you are, you’re still going to think, “If only I could have that, live there, stick my dick in him/her, then I’d be happy.” Other than that, who gives a fuck? This asshole is famous for playing golf, for fuck’s sake. If you want to actually make golf interesting, put some Sarlacci in the sand traps.
But I digress. All I’m saying is: I need to make more of an effort to find more worthwhile topics to comment on. If I don’t post very much for a while, I’m not dead, I’m just trying to avoid wasting time, watching the same old clown cars driving by.
