Pollux

Elysium
2021-02-16 14:27:13 (UTC)

Politically illiterate

So I was on reddit today and I saw this really funny Bernie Sanders meme and I visited the r/SandersForPresident subreddit. The people there are quite funny actually, not the usual cynicism you find on reddit. And I ended up making a meme of my own. I haven't been doing a lot of photoshop lately, ever since my exams ended a week ago I really haven't done much. I'd do something right now but today was so hectic and I spent a large portion of the day outside (it's getting a little warm here) so I have a bit of a headache. Tbh I would be better off sleeping right now. Fuck that.

I can't mention Bernie Sanders without getting political. So I'll say what I think: I like him, and so far I haven't disagreed with him on most things I've heard him say. This guy is very consistent and has been saying the same things for a while now, it's only recently that he became a meme and SNL started including him in sketches that he's getting the attention he deserves. In fact, I'd feel way better with him in the White House now. But whatever, at least Trump's gone. I see that as an absolute success.

Of course, to agree with Bernie Sanders on everything, I'd have to know the meaning of everything he talks about. And I must admit I have no fucking clue what democratic socialism is. I mean all I know about democratic socialism is from memes, which is not a great way of learning about political philosophy. I mean I'll get around to reading some books on this stuff some day when I'm old, because right now if I try to read about this stuff I'll get bored to death. I've read fiction my whole life, my transition into non-fiction must be at a very slow pace. Two years ago, in an attempt to read "important" books, I tried to read The Fountainhead. What a struggle that was. It's a long book with a convoluted plot with zero likeable characters but after all that I expected payoff and I received none so I was pretty fucking pissed at myself because I thought that I wasn't smart enough to understand the book. But guess what, Ayn Rand is a bitch and I hate her. She brought out the worst in me. I do not believe in Objectivism, which is really just a fancy way of excusing extreme apathy and ignorance. I've personally seen great things happen as a consequence of the collective effort of bright, passionate people and not because of one dumbass, eccentric genius. The real world doesn't work like that. One man is simply not enough to make significant change.

Strangely enough, one of my college essay prompts was about books that influenced me in a significant way and I wrote about The Fountainhead and how much I fucking hated it and tried to disprove Ayn Rand's philosophy to the best of my ability. I got in. I only now realize what a Chad move that was.

Btw I realized that it's okay to not agree with Ayn Rand only by visiting internet forums where people (mostly left-leaning) presented pretty valid arguments which made Objectivism sound pretty unethical. I needed that confidence because I was a kid and I didn't feel smart enough to criticize Ayn Rand. Maybe I'm still not, idk. But whatever, I hate her. I just know that I don't agree with her, and I'm smart enough to do that.

I took one of those political compass quizzes and apparently I'm the same sort of liberal that Gandhi was. Which is cool right? But I'm on the fence about adopting any ideology before actually knowing what they stand for. Because I may spend my whole life believing one thing only to realize there's a flaw with my method of thinking, or there may be something that I am unaware of and by then it may be too late. It's just that educating yourself, especially in politics or philosophy which are very dry subjects takes a lot of time and patience. And that's a lot, for a hobby. Definitely going to vote though. I want to be able to say to myself that I've been voting ever since I was legally old enough to vote. Which is why I've been doing all this stuff. So when the time comes, I'll know what I'm getting myself into.

Most people I know, who are either from high school or college tend to think of politics as something dirty and do not want to associate themselves with that stuff. Which I can't really disagree with. But not taking an interest leads to bad consequences. That's how you end up getting bad leaders and then the people who though they were so pure for not having anything to do with politics are forced to care because it affects them on a personal level. Because like it or not, politics is a personal matter. And while I do not have the arrogance to think I can teach older people anything, it disappoints me when people my age are like this because they're following in our parents' footsteps. But the minority that does care, including this one kid who won't stop talking about 1984, all of them are left-leaning. Maybe that's a gen z thing.

One thing I like about college is that they aren't what I expected them to be. They're not just nerds. They watch movies and read books. It was pretty narcissistic on my part to just assume that they don't care about anything except science. But I'm just being honest, amongst these nerds, I'm still the cinephile, even though in the real world I haven't scratched the surface. So I'm still better than everyone.

I ended up submitting the project proposal that I wrote because what WhatsApp girl wrote was shit. I didn't say that to her face. But she got pretty emotional while writing a scientific paper. Also she didn't cite any references. Tbh it was atrocious, her writing. I'm being completely honest here, it is what it is and what it is is shit. But yeah, I'm glad I didn't miss the deadline and next time hopefully I'll pick a different teammate because she is lazy and did not make an effort. I sound like a fucking teacher now. This is a new low for me. Whatever. Also I couldn't pick up the courage to ask her to stop calling me babe. Why is she calling me babe? She has a boyfriend. This is bullshit. And I used to be so cool.

EDIT: I just confused Francis Bacon with Kevin Bacon. That just happened.




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