is "the personal is political," a good or bad guiding principle?

[Theodarzna]

So, its a common political phrase and a central animating force with progressive politics. It underscored the connections between personal experience and larger social and political structure or so they say.

"The personal is political," is as Carol Hanisch, noted New York Radical Feminist put it;

One of the first things we discover in these groups is that personal problems are political problems. There are no personal solutions at this time. There is only collective action for a collective solution.

The over all problem IMHO with this belief is that you either believe someones problems are their own problems or they are caused by deep systemic forces and require social and collective action to solve. I would argue there is an inherent instability in basing a movement around peoples personal damage and issues as their issues are unique from individual and inevitably leads to conflict as groups of people be they women, men, immigrants, black people ect will all have different ideals on what are the problems in their lives and what needs to be done to solve those issues.

What say you? Pro-"the personal is political," or Anti-"the personal is political."

[Mistame]

Anti. The "collective" system is only valid for the "collective" as a whole. That's not to say that when large groups of people are in poverty, etc, that the "collective" shouldn't help, but more that the "collective" isn't responsible for each individual's issues. The onus of survival is on the individual, whether it be through their own hand via success or with the help of others via request. The "hive" mentality only works when there's a central "command" and the rest are simply drones.

[PC2]

Debating universal ideas > Personal or tribal experiences

Also, I prefer large scale statistics based decision making. If society overall long-term is trending in a positive direction, it will always work its way down to the personal level.

[Garnier Fructis]

Neither.

Things should be considered on a case by case basis.

[Sunseeker]

People are far less unique than they like to pretend.

[May90]

I think the statement is too general to talk about practical consequences of its acceptance. People's lives are affected both by the environment (including politics, society, economy, etc.) and by their actions in that environment. Every decision a person makes is based on their perception of the world and their place in it, and as such it is difficult to say whether their personal experience or the environment had a bigger influence on this decision: they (environment and personal experience) are interdependent, and considering one with another thrown out of the equation doesn't seem right to me.

General applies to the averaged, but doesn't apply to individual cases. There are some problems that are more common, for example, among black people than white people, but ultimately every individual case is unique. We can learn how to solve those problems on the general scale, but there still will be individual cases to which this solution does not apply, and those cases should be handled exclusively.

[Endus]

You need to bear the quote's context; it's from 1969, not the current era. It was making the case that the issues facing women, issues which were treated as personal complaints, were actually political issues worthy of consideration. Issues like equal treatment under the law, like abortion rights, and so forth. While you might consider that these are battles which, today, have been 'won', they were adamantly not so, in the '60s.

In a more general sense, however, I'd argue that all political issues are personal issues. The collective is the sum of individuals, and their individual concerns. Indeed, this is the founding base principle of democracy itself. If you only consider issues that directly affect you, as an individual, you're relatively self-centered (which isn't an attack, just a recognition of a fact). Empathy for the issues that others may face, and their needs, springs from empathy and compassion, creating a situation where you will accept some tradeoffs of yourself in exchange for their consideration. In the understanding that your own needs would face similar support, in return, at least in the theoretical sense, if your own needs were shared by a sufficient number, and the response was just as justifiable.

It is, in a sense, a multifaceted, never-ending Prisoner's Dilemma. The issues other "prisoners" face are your issues. And yours are theirs. Because it's only by considering everyone's issues collectively that you can minimize the costs to everyone.

[Deleted]

It is a bad principle because this only leads in practise to attacks on the person based on what others think politics should be.
Might work out in a ideal state like communism its however very gross and nasty in practise.

Meta layer should stay meta and personal layer should adapt to the person.

[Kraenen]

I don't really like it - I'd prefer to keep the personal out of politics. It just rots your life I find.

[Spectral]

I don't think groups that push this idea are setting a good precedent. If this is going to be the plan, eventually they're going to run into united fronts from whatever majority and/or powerful groups that they're trying to battle.

[Super Kami Dende]

People have gotten to a point where they think the asinine inconsequential problems in their lives are somehow worthy of everyone in the world giving a shit.

Protip: No one has to give a shit.

[Deleted]

Bad principle.

We are slowly reaching a point where our tools allows us to be fully self sustainable. Everything we face today can be solved on our own and things that cant be solved can be re recoginzed as such by not getting close to them in the first place.

[Anonymous1038853]

I'm typically not a fan of collectivism, in practice.

[Venant]

You need to bear the quote's context; it's from 1969, not the current era. It was making the case that the issues facing women, issues which were treated as personal complaints, were actually political issues worthy of consideration. Issues like equal treatment under the law, like abortion rights, and so forth. While you might consider that these are battles which, today, have been 'won', they were adamantly not so, in the '60s.

In a more general sense, however, I'd argue that all political issues are personal issues. The collective is the sum of individuals, and their individual concerns. Indeed, this is the founding base principle of democracy itself. If you only consider issues that directly affect you, as an individual, you're relatively self-centered (which isn't an attack, just a recognition of a fact). Empathy for the issues that others may face, and their needs, springs from empathy and compassion, creating a situation where you will accept some tradeoffs of yourself in exchange for their consideration. In the understanding that your own needs would face similar support, in return, at least in the theoretical sense, if your own needs were shared by a sufficient number, and the response was just as justifiable.

It is, in a sense, a multifaceted, never-ending Prisoner's Dilemma. The issues other "prisoners" face are your issues. And yours are theirs. Because it's only by considering everyone's issues collectively that you can minimize the costs to everyone.

The great flaw is that this way of thinking requires sympathetic examples, and creates the inverse situation where a society is 'OK' with doing horrible things to people the society deems as unsympathetic. The phrase isn't an ideology, it is a tactic, a tactic that has been used with horrific consequences historically.

[Independent voter]

Back in the old days of the leftist movement there was a lot of low hanging fruit that was easy to get, child labor, women's voting rights, etc. As time progressed the issues became more difficult, more obscure more gray than black and white. And now we have today were the leftist issues are border line insane.

[Gheld]

Here's where I detach with all other "progressive" individuals.

Politics can be separated into two concepts:

#1. Freedoms: These are areas in one's life that the state (whether or not it represents the collective will of the people) is not given the power to intervene. (i.e. Freedom of speech)


#2. Rights: These are areas in one's life where the state can and is expected to intervene for the "greater good". For example, you have the right to live. If somebody is standing outside your home waiting to shoot you in the face as soon as you step outside you can call the police and the police can come and enact direct physical intervention against that individual.

But there's a sub concept to #2.

#2.b. "Wrongs". These are rights that people demand in areas where state intervention should not be necessary. Because one has to realize, that when you ask for a right the end result of somebody violating that right is always some form of physical violence enacted against them. Whether or not it is the threat or action of imprisonment, the loss of property due to fines, or death because their arrest went awry or they refused to comply.

To suggest that one has the right to "not be offended" for instance, is essentially that person assuming the authority to call for state sanctioned physical violence against somebody who offends them. (being offended being an entirely subjective state of affairs based on a single individuals emotional state).

So the way things have gone these days I would say that politics in general has become an engine for violence against one another complete with fancy moral acrobatics to dismiss it as something benign when in fact it has become a very malevolent entity by which if somebody is clever enough they can basically manipulate it in order to ruin somebodies life to satisfy some sociopathic grudge.

[Stormdash]

This is the principle by which the DNC and WaPo and NYT were encouraging people to go ruin Thanksgiving, right?

[RoutinelyWorgen]

It depends on the issue, such as autism preventing access to education or something like that.

- - - Updated - - -

That's the only thing it should be considered for.

[AeneasBK]

People are far less unique than they like to pretend.

Again, I have a feeling that this kinda of sociology is way over my head, but isn't the premise essentially "Those problems you think you alone are facing, well actually lots of people face the same problem, and the solution isn't something you will achieve on your own" or as usual did I miss something?

[Deleted]

Again, I have a feeling that this kinda of sociology is way over my head, but isn't the premise essentially "Those problems you think you alone are facing, well actually lots of people face the same problem, and the solution isn't something you will achieve on your own" or as usual did I miss something?

Its holds water to some degree on mere theoretical grounds but then you will realize what kind of bullshit people use and more importantly did use it for to justify in practise.

Hey some jews are wealthy they stole it hence from germans via loans........
and don't derserve it.

The individual and their rights come first this is not negotiable in a just and fair society.