At least on the point of religion, I feel fairly confident that I believe what I do because I know it's right--the spirit bears witness of the truth. I'd like to think that I'm not dependent on circumstance, on context, to help me decide what I believe about the nature of God. I believe because the Spirit tells me it's so. Not because my mom believes, or my friends, or my husband. Because I do.
But what about other matters of belief? Take politics--everyone seems so fired up about things right now, for good reason ('tis the season, after all). I, in turn, have my own opinions and perspectives, and I'd like to hope that they're founded in sound reasoning and moral judgements.
But most of my friends are leaning the same way I am. So are my professors, although they're more subtle about it. So's my husband. And my siblings and siblings-in-law. These are people whose opinions I value very highly--I'm very, very likely to agree with them if what they're saying makes an ounce of sense.
Does this mean I have no backbone?
Also, I just have to throw out that I've almost stopped listening to the news--news that seems to worsen hourly--about the economy. My reactions keep bordering on paranoia.
3 comments:
I know exactly what you mean. Today I spent the entire evening after conference talking with a very liberal group of friends about a wide variety of things, and the I didn't have enough of an opinion about the politics to really add to the conversation when ever it turned that way. This is mostly because I haven't spent enough time studying the facts (what little of them there are). However, I know that all of my knee jerk reactions ARE primarily conservative BECAUSE my parents are conservative.
And I've always secretly wished this wasn't the case. Not that I think I would stop being a conservative. But I wish I at least knew enough about the conservative platform to tell you why.
However, I did take a Poli Sci class this past summer that made me think very seriously about how my ideas (and the ideas of others) are formed. As we went through the various political thinkers writings that discussed this question--the nature of man and how (or if) the world shapes him--I was surprised at the intensity of some of my initial responses. Most of their ideas, I must admit, I ended up discarding out of hand (Hobbs, for instance, who believed that men were nothing more then desiring machines that do nothing more then simply react to the world around them in accordance to theirs, and had no control over these reactions/desires); or I found myself seeing portions (large or small) of truth in their philosophies.
But it never seemed complete to me. Not in the way I feel the gospel's truth is complete. Rather, I always ended up finishing their writings with more questions and doubts then I began with.
After a while, I came to an uneasy conclusion about the reason for this: Politics does in fact always have enough of a lie mixed in with the truth that it is almost impossible for even rational thinking adults to fully buy any platform o because they are all partially wrong. Varying degrees of wrong, perhaps. but enough that it makes it hard to see the truth there unless you look very very carefully, and even when you find it you can't be sure even then of what you're seeing.
Yet when people finally find that truth, they're so excited to see it that they latch on and hold stubbornly, never mind the rotting wood right under the surface of their life lines is continually threatening to plunge them back into deep water.
Can you blame them, really?
In fact, when I think of it that way, it reminds me of Joseph Smith's original question (which church should I join?) and Christ's answer (none of them). In fact, I think that's why I usually ignore politics as much as I do--I'm sick and tired of the lies, the pointing fingers, the careful half truths...
The worst part is that the church encourages us to take active roles in politics. So I have to change this attitude, never mind I would otherwise lack the motivation to do so.
Quite frankly, if it were left to me, I would do my best to help everyone around me as much as possible, and then pray that the 2nd coming might come faster.
So back to your original question--are my political views my own or a product of my society?
I think they're my own, but I won't know for sure until I can actually find a politician I can believe in. Then we'll see.
Wow. Sorry.
Didn't mean to write you an essay.
Especially since I know that as you read it your English-major brain was probably analyzing my sentence structure and the cohesiveness of my analysis.
So yeah, major whoops.
Hey, no way. I love blogs for the conversation! I wouldn't hack up your sentence structure or what not ... mine is far too messy for me to do that. :)
True that about conservative parents: mine are rather (very very, in the case of my mom) conservative, and I leaned that way for a long time. In high school I started to disagree with them on some things (like, say, gun control), but it wasn't until college--maybe last year--that I fully came to grips with the fact that most (if not all) of my politically-focused opinions were basically theirs.
That's not to say that now I consider myself super liberal--on the contrary, I'm proud to claim the title of "moderate" in just about every category I can think of (or, at least, that's what I aspire to). The issues that politics encompasses, in my opinion, are far too complex to be reduced to two overly-simplified platforms.
For me, "being involved in politics" hasn't come to mean that I actively support one candidate or party with too much vigor, but that I read about the problems out there and what ideas people have to solve them and then think about which ones make the most sense to me. I really don't believe that most political action is based on deception. Granted, some of it is, but I heartily believe that most people "involved in politics" genuinely want to make the world a better place. It's when passionate viewpoints clash and feelings get hurt that things start to devolve.
Anyway. In any case, thanks for reading and the feedback! I love getting to "chat" with people about the stuff I post. :)
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