Why the Emotional is Political – Isaiah Ritzmann
“I have loved you,
I have grieved
I am ashamed to admit
I no longer believe.”
Sufjan Stevens, America
“Right the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering,
There is a crack – a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen, Anthem
“In everything, in feeling and in action,
it is not easy to find the middle –
to do the right thing, to the right degree,
at the right time, and in the right way.”
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
Complex Feelings
Like many of us, I have big feelings about the American election. And – again, like many of us – these are not only big feelings. They are complex. They are not straight forward or simple.
For despite the fact that I am one person in another country, I am reminded of that timeless and timely wisdom from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: “We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
What has and is happening in the United States has and is affecting me as a person and us as Canadians. This is inevitable and recognizing it as a first step – as many of us have. But then the questions arise about how we interpret what is happening and sift through our feelings about it.
- How do we feel about political democracy in the United States? Are we angry at the corporate corruption, the lack of effective climate action, and the imperialist foreign policy? Or are we scared and sad that something good and rare in American democracy will be lost – maybe forever?
- What parts of democracy in the United States need conservation and what parts need regeneration? If we only see the need to conserve, we won’t name needed reforms. If we see only corruption, we won’t conserve what’s good.
- What can we hope for in the short-term? What problems may take a generation to address? Paradoxically, can feelings of cynicism prevent the kind of hope and patience needed to address these long-term problems?
- Finally, how can civil society organizations in other countries (like Cooperate for Canada) act in light of what is happening? How do we have appropriate confidence – feeling neither powerless nor exaggerating what we can do?
As I ask these questions, I reflect on and share with you my own feelings towards the United States, where they started from, and where they’ve arrived. While your story may be different, I hope what I share inspires in you similar self-reflection and useful insights.
My Story
In my early twenties, I had Adbuster’s Corporate America flag hung prominently in my basement.
This flag spoke to me. It told me a story of who truly ruled the United States. It spoke of a corporate coup, of the capitalists who dominated the domestic and foreign policy of Canada’s southern neighbours. It unveiled (so I thought) that the democratic pretensions of the US were just that – pretensions.
Now that I’m in my early thirties, there are so many things I could unpack in this once confidently-displayed symbol. Most importantly, I was both wrong and not wrong at the same time. A paradox produced by perspective – I was only looking at one side, one dimension of the United States. I wasn’t wrong. But I wasn’t seeing the full picture either.
There are a few different ways to think about this paradox:
- I lacked what psychologists called integrative complexity – the ability to see multiple, even contradictory, dimensions of a situation and the ability to see how these different dimensions relate to each other.
- Some philosophers call this thinking dialectically, the ability to see contradictory tendencies that exist not separately but within the same real life situations – large and small. Tensions, incidentally, which are often generative.
- Finally, despite my grandmother’s advice to have “everything in moderation”, I lacked an experiential sense of how extremes of both action and feeling, of too much and too little, could be counter-productive.
The American election today is leading to some soul-searching. When I look back at my early twenties, I can’t help but think I threw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.
Corporate corruption and regulatory capture in the United States is clearly a problem. It is a problem that should not be minimized. Yet there are also elements of democracy in the United States that are good that need to be protected, preserved, and enhanced. In myopic anger, I did not see what could and should be respected, honoured, and celebrated in American democracy.
Now, of course, my offenses were mild if existent at all. I was young. The young have the right to be young, which means in part the right to be wrong. And I was one person. Perhaps I could have had an effect, but it would have been quite minimal.
But this myopia, at a collective level, is dangerous.
Simply put, it’s hard to imagine that what is good about American democracy can in fact be protected if it’s not also respected, honoured, and celebrated. We don’t protect what we don’t value.
Aristotle talked about having the right feelings at the right time to the right degree and in the right way.
While myopic anger and rejection is one danger, far greater is the false religion of the American right.
Regardless of your own personal beliefs, religious or secular, it seems obvious to name that one of the core threats to American democracy right now is the worship of America.
What is the Trump campaign but the excessive, irrational worship of a country that never existed? A demand for respect and honour that denies, minimizes, and hides all that has been and is corrupt about the United States. A worship that sacrifices both people and truth itself.
So here’s where I stand today, personally:
- I was right, in my early 20s, to believe in and feel everything that the corporate America flag asked me to believe and feel.
- But I was wrong to not recognize the parts of the American democracy that were good, that should be protected, that call for appropriate feelings of respect, celebration, and even vigilance.
For if Trump is defeated, there is still grave corruption in the United States that calls for anger and criticism and organized reform. But if Trump wins, there is going to be great and even greater loss. Loss that rightly leads us to grief, to fear, and to a different kind and perhaps deeper anger.
These emotions are many things. But they are not small. And they are certainly not simple.
Call to Canadians
In the final analysis, what does the American election mean for us as Canadians in how we feel politically? Here are a few rules of thumb:
- Political Feelings Pervasive: All of us have emotions. And all of us have political emotions. These emotions can vary in intensity, in expression, and in specific response (i.e. what makes someone angry, will make another fearful, etc).
- Political Feelings Matter: The feelings matter because they affect what we do. Emotion leads to action. Groups of people make political decisions not simply out of rational calculus – but because of how they feel.
- Avoid Avoiding Feelings: We all know with family and friends talking about feelings is healthy. Pretending we don’t have emotions is not. Why is this not the case politically? Unacknowledged and unaware, our feelings still guide our actions. Just probably not in healthy ways
- Avoid (Unnecessary) Extreme Feelings: Aristotle and Goldilocks were both right. Too much or too little can be dangerous – especially emotionally. Sometimes, of course, our fears are totally grounded. Now might be one of those times.
- Feelings Aren’t Facts: While respecting our emotions, we should also take care to recognize that feelings aren’t always based on fact. We all know in our personal lives that we’ve sometimes experience exaggerated or ungrounded emotions. How much more is this the case politically.
- Complex is Necessary: Finally, healthy emotions are complex. The American situation is showing us the necessity of holding complex and contradictory emotions. Things won’t get simpler.
2025 will be an election year in Canada.
By this time next year, we will have a new federal government. Many of us are rightfully afraid about the prospect of a Pierre Poilievre government. Let’s take time – whether before or concurrent with action, depending on who we are as individuals – to learn from the America case about the importance of naming and acknowledging our political fear.
- Let’s name our fears of what Conservative majority government might mean. To fear too little here will not do us well.
- But let us fear in the right way as well. Let’s take action. For Cooperate for Canada this means spending our time pushing for electoral cooperation. Because we acknowledge the political emergency we are in and how this means business as usual will not work.
- Let us acknowledge our feelings of despair but challenge ourselves to remember feelings aren’t facts. If despair causes us not to act on real possibilities, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
- Let us acknowledge our discomfort at some aspects of political cooperation. Some of us might have political beliefs which make it hard to accept cooperation. Let’s acknowledge this so it doesn’t affect us inappropriately.
- Finally, let us acknowledge the many ways that Canada is far from a perfect country. Canada has often failed on indigenous rights, hasn’t done nearly enough on climate, and is currently facing a significant cost of living crisis. But there are good things about our democratic institutions that are still worthy of respect and protection. Good things that are being threatened.
At this time in our history as Canadians and as world citizens, the emotional is political. Let us take the opportunity the U.S. election is affording us to name, acknowledge, and honour our big and complex political feelings. We can’t afford to avoid them anymore.