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I do not dare to google if any columnist has already provided a think piece on Greta Thunberg expelling CO2 while exhaling, but let's put it this way: I would not be very surprised. In times of political turmoil, new individuals as leaders are always in the focus of public interest, even though focusing on individual people rarely does political activity well. Really very rare.
It then quickly revolves around how convincingly the individual lives their externally represented values themselves, and that is true to a degree true and understandable, but often on the one hand excessively exaggerated and on the other prone to category errors:
Has this or that climate activist ever flown long-distance?
Does this or that feminist sometimes make sexist jokes?
How can this left-wing politician buy such an expensive house?
Does this anti-fascist sometimes sit at a table with his AFD-electing uncle?
Or, if this or that political person looks or dresses like that, what does that tell us? If she has this or that psychic conspicuousness, how convincing can her political work be? At the bottom of the imagination are no limits in terms of level.
On the other hand, people who are too perfect are suspicious: why is this young activist rhetorically so brilliant? How sexy may a theorist look? How does this politician manage not to lose her humor with all the hatred? So in the end it is always the question: how perfect must a person be who is politically involved, and how perfect can he be?
The hurdle grows due to the hype
The problem is not just that all of these questions are distracting from the political issues this is about. It's reasonably human to be distracted. The problem is also that by focusing on individuals too many people - in the respective movement and outside - see themselves forced (unnecessarily) to have to behave fundamentally to certain particularly present political figures, so either to distance themselves or as a fan out, and once they have made that decision, reluctant to resign from it.
And the more individuals are highlighted in political movements, the more they are hijacked and panned, inspected and criticized, the greater the barrier often becomes for others, not famous people, to join this or that movement. I write this in general terms with "this or that" because it is very general: in the climate change movement, in antifascism, in the left in general, most of course in domination-critical movements, and unsurprisingly I can tell a lot from feminist contexts ,
It is not unusual for me to write to girls or women that, for example, they do not dare to call themselves "feminists" because they feel they still follow so many old patterns, and unfortunately clichés are so persistent that some write: " I think that is politically correct, but I also like to make-up and shave myself, "and I do not know how many messages I have written that said that such a thing is not a contradiction, but: very many.
A 17-year-old girl once wrote to me that she's struggling a lot with her political and her self-image, with her attitude to sex and beauty, and wrote the phrase, "If I can not even accept myself, how can I stand up for the things that are important to me? " I understand these doubts, but am also convinced that they should be got rid of as well as possible.
You do not have to clear everything, you do not have to win all your own personal struggles and resolve contradictions before making political demands. No matter if you are young or old. (One year later, she wrote again, saying she had met a cool boy, but sometimes confused by her now better self-esteem, and commented, "I think that's because he just does not like that had a lot to do with 'emancipated' girls, which in turn shows me how much is still to come. "I do not know this girl personally, but I pretty much loved her when I read that.)
Politics only of slippery Buddhas?
In the field of kitchen psychology, there is - love - in the field of kitchen psychology the view that one must love oneself in order to love others or to be loved by them. This idea sticks as stubbornly as it is wrong, and basically every human should know who has ever loved someone who has self-doubt or even a stable self-hatred - like so many people.
Fighting with yourself is not something that has to stop you from doing anything, even if it is healthier, of course, not to do yourself too much with your own ideals. Or, as comedian Chelsea Peretti ("Brooklyn Nine-Nine") once wrote on Twitter: "re self hate: theres better people to hate".
re self hate: theres better people to hate
- Chelsea Peretti (@chelseaperetti) 2 August 2019You do not have to be perfect to get involved politically. To be honest, politics would not be so great if it were practiced exclusively by slippery, self-indulgent Buddhas. In fact, conversely, people who realize that they have not yet resolved all their own contradictions and mistakes are often particularly persuasive politically because they are aware that social norms and expectations (and their own habits) are extremely strong, effective Forces are.
What if you find any flaws in a political person, not to say, oh god, she wants to stand up for those values, but makes mistakes herself in the field - but: Okay, she has her own contradictions, but she's brave enough to get involved anyway? Would be, in my opinion, very healthy. Especially in a time when there is a lot of political issues and we can not afford to wait until we are perfect enough.
