Why Do I Write about Political Topics?

Five reasons

People are increasingly ‘siloed into’ their positions. I don’t write to change the minds of our political enemies. That is an unlikelihood bordering on the impossible. Why then do I write?

First, to arrive at the truth as best I can for my own edification and enjoyment. People like me like to figure things out. We live to understand. On our good days we who seek to understand approach the blissful self-sufficiency of Aristotle’s noesis noeseos.

Second, I write to provide argumentative ammo to those on our side. Some say that there is no need to preach to the choir. But the choir does need to be preached to, so as to be fortified, and provided with tools for ideological combat. Whether or not Carl Schmitt is right that the essence of the political resides in the opposition Freund (friend) versus Feind (enemy), political action and discourse is almost always, even if only accidentally, polemical.

But if understanding is the goal, why the talk of combat? Because the life of the mind can only flourish in a safe space secured by force of arms. The enemy presents an existential threat, a threat not merely and not mainly to our physical life, but to our way of life.

Third, to persuade fence-sitters, people with open minds who can be nudged one way or the other. Our political enemies are beyond the pale of persuasion. Not so the open-minded. They are within the pale.

Fourth, to let our enemies know that they will be opposed, and their lies exposed. Enough of us protesting loudly, but with wit, style and solid arguments, can have an intimidating effect on our enemies. Winning in a war requires intimidation. To intimidate is to induce a weakening fear in the enemy. But words are not enough. It is ‘lead’ that gives words weight. The ‘lead’ needn’t be deployed to give the words weight. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Leftists are not given to respect anything or anybody as witness their attempted erasure of the historical record, and their partially successful demolition of monuments and memorials to great men. They will not respect, but they can be made to fear. Their utopian conceit is that a total tear-down will lead to the immanentization of the eschaton. It will achieve no such thing, but issue in the collapse of civilization.

Fifth, because I’m a natural-born scribbler who takes great pleasure from writing and re-reading what he has written. The hunt for the incisive formulation that penetrates to the heart of the matter is a source of pleasure. The pleasure is potentiated when the hunt succeeds.