Transcending Politics

Polarisation is known. The contemporary world is wrapped around a split, politically traducing and evolving individual perceptions and notions. We understand within the formal political sphere, an adversarial snare exists within the governmental and partisan composition. 

Democrats and Republicans. Labour and Conservatives. Sanders and Biden. Reform and the Disrealian strand of thinking. This isn’t news. We all recognise it’s a problem facing Western civilisation. Policies are either this or that. Abortion is either death or choice. We are products of our society after all. I am, you are; unhelpable. Just remember to think. 

Creation is a manifestation derived from originality. Experience and understanding forge the chain that upholds your thoughts and perceptions: your identity. Essence relates to our social production. As human beings we were born with one, we have kin, relationships, beliefs and expectations. Why would you want to give that up? Why would you want to give yourself up? Politics plays a salient role in this. Identity politics is a ground people begin with. In their way, they branch but many never leave, never feeding the uncertain due to the comfort compounded within that certainty. Ergo, when we find ourselves in a debate, there is an immense reluctance to back down from our sedimentary position. When we do, that is if the argument confounds with clear convincingness, to you, rather than that of any other individual, not at the other end of the sword, we are likely to reject it; feeling an existential dread that summates in a rebound of consistency. Why would we want to abandon a part of our identity? Allow doubt, it's beneficial. Do not think that it will minimise your essence, but rather perpetuate and strengthen it. 

As a result of such identity being intrinsic, almost in a partisan alignment, ideological loyalty can permeate through your personality, which is half of your soul, allowing personality to welcome dogma (identity politics), and the other part of your soul, instinct, is affected. The way you judge, perceive, and identify people, becomes inhumane, and antithetical, to the body of humanity, the Corpus Humanitatis. Looking and basing an individual based on their political worth can blow over so disproportionately that there is no originality, or creation, between your interactions with another person. Polarisation is thus embedded within the personal world. 

Consider Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley. There was an element of true personal differences with the history and conflict in Northern Ireland, but politically there was a vast reason underlying their distinctions. During the Troubles, it was never thought that Paisley and McGuinness could even be in the same room with each other. McGuinness was the IRA’s 2nd in command; Paisley was a co-founder of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. In 2007, the two were elected First Minister and Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland. Yet, their relationship transcended politics: it was personal. By the end of their journey, they were coined the ‘Chuckle Brothers’. From a place of privilege, where politics hasn’t become as fundamentally and naturally polarised as occurred in Northern Ireland, to the point of physical retaliation and conflict, there was still a place to regard the other individual based on who they were, rather than ideological incompatibility. This seems very plausible in our society which isn’t faced with such troubles. 

Your identity is meant to be slightly vulnerable, never secure. You’re meant to be like another human being based on actions and treatment. Of course, there are exceptions, when that political identity is portrayed as oneself as opposed to an extension of the self, as their essence. That person is insufferable. But don’t define a person and act upon that judgement based on what you perceive they are. Get to know a person. Don’t be a coward and shelter your beliefs. Their personality may offer so much more, and elements of their views could open up a door that can perpetuate your essence. 

I’m not saying give up your identity, go through the Cartesian method of doubt where you start over from scratch via scepticism that develops into a new belief system, but stop looking at everything from your comfort. Interacting with someone who you find, with or without certainty, thinks differently doesn’t make you feel guilty merely by association. Understand why you may not like this person based on more than just political views. Knowing how the other individual’s beliefs may have stemmed from their life experiences makes you equally respect a person who holds the very same beliefs as you. When you embrace that existential worry of your essence, rather than rejecting it, you can find appreciation that these people who differ from you ideologically are more interesting than those who do, especially when knowing that person well. That interaction becomes far more original, beyond mere politics.

Rhys Binet

Editorial Director 

6th February 2025