Shutting Up

I sprained my ankle...again.  At least it´s not my knees?  Those will probably come later...

A lot of people have been talking about politics lately which is somewhat disconcerting for me.  I went to college for politics because I was just good at it and it came easy.  I was good at literature and literature came easy to me but I loved to read and I just thought it was taking the easy way out to study literature when I´d do it on my own anyway.  Alas, I went with political science.  And I really enjoyed learning about how countries change, develop, and implement ideas into tangible forms.  I have also always liked learning about the capabilities and frailties of man, and you can see that in probably almost any discipline, but in politics it´s definitely easier to see than in some others.  Any man made institution is inherently flawed, just as man is, and so it´s incredibly interesting to be able to see an institution, understand it, and critique.  So many people skip past the understanding it part though and just head straight to critique...

But it´s hard to listen to people talk about politics for two reason: most people talk out their asses and or talk to show you how much they know (which is usually very little but they think it´s quite much).  Most people talk to show you how much they know.  They have read a book or an article or two or have watched the news recently or have stolen another person´s opinion so they use this as their main basis of knowledge.   This is frustrating to hear because it´s just someone listening to him or herself and having that person think that she or he sounds educated and intelligent.  I studied politics for four years then did a year of grad school for it and read just such an intense amount that sometimes thinking about it I feel inundated.  But I know from all that I read, compared to everything that´s out there to read, I´ve read relatively nothing.  I read the most prevalent and utilized contemporary political books for scholatistic purposes and study and most of them were amazing and I´m really grateful I had the opportunity to be exposed to them, but I know that my knowledge is minimal and I don´t want to take what little I do know and parade it around so as to make myself feel like I´m knowledgeable and well educated and to show off my knowledge to others. 

And people get so intense and aggressive in political discussions.  I think passion is great, but I´m so used to analyzing politics and talking about in classes where people have done similar readings and can have a fruitful or at least semi productive discussion based on what they´ve read and how it coelesces, dovetails, or diverges from their own thoughts.  These conversations from school were usually quite objective, too.  Usually people thought about things when someone pointed out something different in opinion or something another hadn´t seen.  When you do that in a conversation with people in general at the dinner table or whatnot the more you diverge from what they think or what to hear, the more passionate and obstinate they get about their opinion usually instead of considering another side.  It´s horrible.

I guess I´m saying that I pretty much loathe regular political conversations nowadays.  Maybe I´m an elitist or something, but I would really like to discuss politics with someone, anyone, who wants to really discuss things coming from a humble sense of knowledge and not from a need to show off, and someone who wants to discuss things in a more objective manner, not becoming more stubborn or incensed when someone disagrees or says something they don´t like.  Until then, I guess I should keep my own big mouth shut.