#5 - How To Talk Politics Without Resorting To Propaganda

So a few months ago, we started joining Facebook groups for anarchism, libertarianism and similar ideas. And we just wanted to see who's out there, what's out there, if we can connect with like-minded people. And this week, in one of the Facebook groups that we've joined, someone posted about looking for people's opinions on legalizing gay marriage. And I gave my thoughts on that. And other people also gave their thoughts but there were people who were against it. And suddenly, the comments thread became heated in like two days. And I feel like that affected me somehow. It got me down in a way because it got me wondering what the point is of all this or like, why do we act like we have to convince other people to our side of the political spectrum. And yeah, I guess I'm hoping today we can explore answers and get ourselves out of this doom and gloom, void that we're in.

Well, I like that you said that we joined the group actually, to connect with people. No surprise here that anarchism is kind of a lonely philosophy or, you know, frame of mind or perspective on life, because it's definitely not very common. All the people I know and love in real life are not anarchists at all. In the Philippines, at least, there is not even any sliver of a libertarian consciousness, dare I say, almost whatsoever? We have found a few libertarians, but I would say they are far from anarchists. And the anarchists that are existing in the Philippines, maybe are left-leaning anarchists. And so we come from different places, we might have the same conclusion, but it's still not quite the same. Right?

Not to say that there's anything wrong, not to say there's anything wrong, with left-leaning anarchism, but if I do see a few anarchist-related posts, it's very angry. It's very, dare I say, very protest-leaning or I mean, again, maybe there's nothing wrong with protest or whatever. But definitely, it doesn't have the peaceful, happy vibe that I have when I became an anarchist. So there, yeah.

And then the other thing that you brought up is sort of what's the point to all of this? Right, like, what's the point of talking about anarchism with people? And that's actually something that I sort of struggle with reconciling because if you were to take the anarchist principles sort of to its full extent, or to interpret it completely, purely, the interpretation would be almost as if you shouldn't talk about anarchism with other people, and that you kind of let people come to their own conclusions one day, right? In our previous episodes, we kept highlighting the importance of not forcing people into a certain ideology, or what are the possible pitfalls that could happen if you start to have this frame of mind, which is, hey, I have things figured out. And so if I can just convince you of my frame of mind, then everything will work. Right. I mean, the whole point of anarchism is that if we just let everybody be, we don't force people to do things that they don't want to do, then the world will find balance on its own. And we can minimize violence and things like this.

That's a huge ask. Yeah, I ask myself that a lot. I think between you and I, sometimes I tend to just kind of want to be hands-off since learning about the value of just plugging out or running away in our like, from our previous episodes, I'm kind of there. But then at the same time, I also know that there is propaganda at work every day, you know, when you go to the news, whichever news outlet you listen to, right, if it's left leaning or right leaning or center, it is still propaganda. So a part of me is like "So do I just let people soak up all that propaganda, and I'm not gonna do anything about it?" And I mean, that is kind of where I am by default. I don't try to convince people, but at the same time, it's like when do I start wanting to convince people, especially when with anarchism or libertarianism, we do value consent. If that is your choice, we are going to respect that choice. Whatever that choice is. The thing is, a lot of the people we know who are not libertarians or anarchists, they never had the choice. So it's not like they're making a choice if they're soaking up all this propaganda. So I don't really know what to feel about that.

You said propaganda, right. And there's something that I don't know how to feel about, which is how do I know that what we're doing right now isn't propaganda? That's something that I don't really have an answer to quite yet. You said that you don't like to convince people, I'm actually the opposite. What I struggle with is I really, really want to convince people about my point of view. And that's led to, I guess, not quite good relationship outcomes in the past. And that's something that actually I've learned to accept that even if I want to convince people of my views, it's something I've learned to accept that actually it does more harm than good when I'm trying to like force my opinions on other people, and I'm actually better off adopting this stance, which is, you can believe whatever you want to believe, but for me at least I just want to share my perspective. Our goal in making this podcast is not to convince people about our views. It's simply to explain our perspective. And maybe that's a difference between like propaganda, and what is this, education? I don't want to call it education, either.

I feel like what we're doing is an equivalent of just writing on the walls, you know how like in the like, cavemen, or whatever. And then they draw stick figures of themselves just to say, we're here. This is what we do. I feel like us throwing this out into the void is kind of like, "Okay, we're here. This is what we believe in, and whoever is seeking out this sort of shit, maybe they'll find us."

Yeah. Well, you also like to say we're leaving breadcrumbs. Yeah. Although when you say you're leaving breadcrumbs, it almost implies as if there is a final goal or like a final truth that they will arrive to. And that kind of implies that we are right, right?

No, no, no, for me is leaving the breadcrumbs is just us, like us as people and other people out there finding each other. So for me, that's how I imagine the breadcrumbs.

Well, what how I imagine the bread crumbs, when you said that I actually imagine it more like this idea of non-violence, it actually will be understood or people will arrive to that conclusion in their own ways. And there is actually no way we could possibly directly lead people to a certain place. And the breadcrumbs to me is more like clues that these paths do exist, and how they get to that path is sort of independent on every person, because everybody has their own experiences, right? I mean, I can talk about how I got screwed over by the state over and over. And that will not resonate with people who didn't get screwed over that way. Right. But they might have other things that they experienced, which would resonate, but I would have no idea what that would be right. And so I can't really connect with them in that way. The most I can do is share my perspective. And maybe they will say, okay, that's kind of similar to what I experienced in this and that.

I like that, just sharing your perspective, I think that is not common with social media. I mean, you would think it's more common because all of us now have a stage, our own stage, right, and all our friends or colleagues who are following us on our own social media pages would see us in our own stages, but somehow, maybe it started that way, but that hasn't been what it's like for the past few years. I'm not quite sure why. And even when it comes to conversing on social media, it hasn't been that way, either. When I mentioned earlier in that Facebook thread about legalizing gay marriage, instead of, I mean, there were people who are sharing their perspective, I shared my perspective. But somehow, we just can't help ourselves as people of wanting to let others see the light that we see. Right. And it quickly becomes an argument. And this is probably like a weird analogy, the way I kind of imagine it is peacocks just peacocking at each other without ever really coming to any form of understanding because you're just trying to one-up the other instead of just saying "This is my perspective. And that is your perspective." And then "These are the points we agree on. And these are the points we disagree on." Okay. Right. But it ends up being like, "Oh, what about this? Oh, what about this? Well, you're not thinking about this, answer my question blah blah, blah, blah blah." So you see how it becomes kind of aggressive. And when you ask those questions, it's not even sincere. It's not a sincere question for you to gain knowledge. It's immediately challenging another person. Not that that's bad, right? It's okay to challenge other people. But when it comes to yourself, you're not learning. I guess the challenging other people, it's kind of like a bait, I'm going to bait you to see, if you're going to fall for it, or…

I was gonna say like, it's almost like entrapment. Right. Okay. Yeah, entrapment. Well, I mean, when I do get into arguments, I find that by reinforcing this idea, or like basically telling the other person: "My intention here is not to convince you. And my intention is simply to share my perspective." Usually, the other person responds quite well to that, because they realize, "Okay, this guy is not hostile to me. He doesn't want to change my mind. He just wants to share his opinion. And I guess, let me know something that I don't know." Or not really let me know something I don't know, but more about giving his perspective, perhaps, on something that I know. And so far, actually just making that statement, "I'm not here to change your mind. I'm just sharing my perspective" has diffused every single argument or like online bickering or fights that I've had with strangers on Twitter or on Facebook. Wow. Yeah.

That's incredible. Yeah, life hack. You know what I noticed, a lot of the conversations or interactions that we're having on social media, which is every day and it consumes a great chunk of our daily lives, I don't think that was the case before. I don't know if this is the case for the social media age?

What do you mean before, like before social media?

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, when I was growing up, no one really gave a fuck about political beliefs, right? Just watch your TV or if ever, you would have friendship dramas, family dramas, but it never boiled down to politics. And now everyone talks about politics. And I don't know if politics is now like, the safe thing to talk about, like if you want people to talk. And if you don't want any awkward silences, you just talk about politics somehow.

I don't know if you can say it's safe, because…

Okay, maybe not safe. But if you don't want any silence, okay, and you want people to talk, right. Talking about politics seems to get people going, which hasn't been the case before.

Because everyone has an opinion on everything. And I'm not sure if we brought this up before. I mean, I do blame sort of democracy for this phenomenon. The way our state works right now is majority rules. And so if you want your views to be what the government implements, then you have the incentive to get your views to become the majority, right. And that's actually probably one of the reasons why we've become so hostile with one another when it comes to politics, because if your view is in the minority, then you'll actually be on the losing side, and the other side will sort of be able to force their stance on you. And that's one of the reasons why I think we've become so hostile with one another. Because if you're on the losing side, then the other side will be able to force you to do things that you don't want to do.

Right. And I guess in relation to politics in general, I just realized that, I don't know if it's maybe also like just a part of growing up, and you know, that saying that everything is political. And I don't know if that's true or not. But I think the point that I'm trying to get at is, I think, especially with the education that we received, everything about doing the right thing, and how that is sort of distilled into the practical things that we do every day, it has become kind of intertwined with our values, and therefore everything does feel political. And I think that's especially the case when it comes to religion. We were raised Catholic, we went to Catholic school, and everything that we know about right and wrong is what the Church says is right and wrong. And of course, we went through the teenage angsty phase, right, and we would start questioning a lot of the dogma, for example, about premarital sex, or masturbation or even exactly what we're talking about at the start, like gay marriage, right? We ask those questions to our teachers, and they can never really say anything, except “That's what the Church says.” So it's easy to see that those things easily leak into our laws or policies.

It's very sort of rigid, like, "Okay, this is what you must do. This is what you shouldn't do," right? And this dogma is almost spelled out, what you should or shouldn't do. And that stands in contrast with a religion like Buddhism, where the answers to your questions seem to be not very clear. So we brought up in our previous episode how when Avatar Aang asked the lion turtle for advice on whether or not he should kill Fire Lord Ozai, the lion turtle gives this very vague answer, which is something to do with staying true to your heart, basically. And it wasn't even that clear the way he said it. And so for us, at least, that was something that was curious to note, that how come this religion, Buddhism, doesn't give clear answers on what you should do and instead..

You mean in terms of politics?

In terms of politics, yeah, and instead gives very vague, sort of like, you should just find the truth or find enlightenment or whatnot.

I wouldn't say it's vague. I think the focus is very personal. Like you have to find forgiveness, you have to detach yourself from the things around you. But I guess other people would wonder: "Can you use these ideas in this very political society that we live in today?"

I think you can. I mean, definitely, you can. We recorded an episode where we said that Buddhism and anarchism are two sides to the same coin, which is non-violence, where Buddhism probably explains non-violence in the spiritual realm, anarchism explains non-violence in the political realm. And I want to explore Buddhism, in particular, today, and why is it that it never really tackled the statist perspective or statist critique, perhaps, even if Buddha's origin story is that of a statist prince becoming enlightened, right? And yet, he never talked about the state and why is that? Why is it that Buddha never did that? It's almost like if he had just gone out and said, hey, you know, the problem is the state and the violence that the state commits, right? Well, I don't know what to put words in his mouth, right. But the point I'm trying to make is how come he never went after rulers. Let's put it that way.

Right. Earlier, we were talking about how today, we do like to share our perspective. If not trying to convince other people it's just letting people see our perspective or the value now is being able to share your story. Yeah. And I don't know if he ever shared his story, the whole like, what did you see? How did you decide to just give up your princehood or something? Right?

Maybe we should give a brief history lesson. And I use history lesson with quotation marks because it was a very long time ago. And we only have secondary sources for this person. But supposedly, Buddha was actually a real person. His name is Siddhartha Gautama. And he does have other names. And there are supposedly other Buddhas that have existed. But this is the main one. And his background story is he was actually a prince that grew up in a walled garden. And one day, he left this utopia or walled garden, went out into the real world and saw suffering for the first time. How the story goes is, this was actually just like one trip where he leaves his estate. And on this one trip encounters several people suffering in different ways. And that's the story. But of course, I think in real life, it was probably more like, every time this guy leaves his palace, he sees all the suffering around him. It's similar to perhaps our own lives here in Metro Manila, where we have our gated subdivisions, we have our gated condominiums. But when we go out into the streets, we're in our cars, yes, just like Gautama was on his horse or something, and we see the poverty that's around us, and we see the suffering that's around us every day. So I think it was more like that. I don't think it was literally like this one trip where everything, he was like surprised or shocked or anything like that. And he left that life to go find answers to the suffering. And so I find it kind of curious that this person was actually part of the system. He wasn't outside of the system. He was part of this system. And he wanted to understand why there was suffering happening around him. And yet, he never really criticized this system directly. We tried to look for answers about this. And we came across this Medium article, which tried to give an answer to that. And according to the author, his answer to why Buddha never talked about the state was because out of fear of his own safety, sort of, if Buddha would start complaining, or start critiquing kings, and emperors and rulers, then he would not be able to live because he would be sought out and probably killed. That's one theory. That's one theory. Yeah. And for me, at least, it was hard to accept that explanation because it's not consistent with his teachings. His teachings is to stay true to yourself and speak truth to your reality. If you get punished, if you get killed for that, it's almost like it doesn't really matter, because what's more important is your own soul or staying true to your own heart. So I don't think him avoiding critiquing the state was him trying to protect himself. I think him avoiding critiquing the state was more of a conscious decision, perhaps having to do with maybe making sure that his message doesn't get lost in the critique. And he actually also says that in that article or the second theory. And I think that is actually more likely the case. And I think that's more plausible, because I really don't believe that Buddha was the kind of guy who would make excuses for not speaking truth. So why is it that he decided to do that? I mean, we started this discussion with this whole question of, is what we're doing propaganda? When we're critiquing the state, aren't we sort of doing the same thing that we want to avoid? Aren't we sort of enforcing our ideas down people's throats by critiquing the state or things that they really believe is true? Everybody I know 100% are convinced that governments and the state is the only way we can live. And so by directly attacking what they hold to be almost sacred, aren't I committing some kind of violence against them in some sort of way? And is that actually what Buddha was trying to avoid? So why was it so important for Buddha to avoid critiquing the state directly? My interpretation of that, especially today is if for example, like Buddha had never emerged, right, and Buddha only emerged today out of the modern state, and he started critiquing the state, my interpretation is, he is avoiding people from taking his message and now using the state or creating their own state to get his message to be accepted by everybody, which, as we know, would actually have the counter effect, which would just end up perpetuating more violence on people.

I think another way of looking at it is given the machinery that is the state, I think anyone who would be so contrarian and would speak out against the whole machinery, this happens all the time now, people are just gonna take bits and pieces of what this person is saying, misconstruing it so that everyone is just gonna shit on this person and won't even bother looking into the whole thing that the person said and looking into the context to see what the truth is. A lot of the time all these things that we see on social media is just bits and pieces of people being interviewed or people themselves sharing their perspective on their social media platforms. So I do feel like if that scenario were to happen, like Buddha just emerges today, and then he says all the truths that he has learned or has discovered, people are just going to shit on it.

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. So basically, the state will weaponize what you say against the state to either use it to cancel you or de-platform you. And I think they will also use it to its advantage and use those sayings to justify its own violence, sort of saying, "Hey, there's this guy, he is enlightened, and we all need to be like this. And so it's worth committing violence on people to make sure that they're able to become enlightened," right. And so you actually have just now the state weaponizing it both against the person as well as against people so that they can justify the violence to propagandize them or whatnot.

Yeah, it corrupts the very essence of what the person is saying.

Yeah. There's this other idea that I want to explore, which comes from this whole idea that, or comes from the background that Buddha came from inside the system, right, and found a way to leave it. It got me thinking whether Buddhism is actually perhaps a religion meant for statists as a way to plug out of the statist mindset. What do I mean by that? In the pre-modern world, most people actually weren't statist, most people didn't view rulers as the only way to live. For most people, they just wanted to live their own lives. And if they can pass their values to their kids and basically, I guess, have a simple life, that was good enough for them. It was only really rulers and the bureaucracies that they would create that created this like hierarchy in society that is similar to like the rat race or like this, strive to always have more things and to crate an empire or whatnot. It's the endless ladder. Yeah, the endless ladder. And so if you are not part of that world part of these courts or the bureaucracy, if you're outside of that, if you are like a free islander, or if you are someone who escaped the state to the mountains or whatnot, I don't think Buddhism is really a religion for you. Because I mean, these people, usually they have like shaman, shamanistic religions, they're pagans. Yeah. And these religions have to do with community and like shared empathy with one another, and creating a space where we can heal together. Buddhism doesn't talk about any of that. Buddhism is always about like your own enlightenment. And I find that to be quite curious, because it's like Buddhism wouldn't really help people who are already free, people who aren't part of the state that have really strong communities, that have strong empathy with one another. They're not violent with one another. These are peaceful people, they're happy, their lives aren't perfect, but they don't have these kinds of existential questions, perhaps that statists do have. And so it's almost as if Buddhism is really meant for statists to plug out of the system.

So Buddhism is a great philosophy for people looking to plug out of the state. Yeah. Which means they have to be a part of the state, and if they are not, so if they live in stateless societies, or are pagans, maybe, I don't want to say that there's nothing that they can learn from Buddhist philosophy. But definitely, they are much more connected than we are, between them in terms of like the number of people who have an existential crisis, that's more of people living within states, as opposed to them. Maybe some of them would want to go through the rat race and climb the endless ladder. Fine. Right. But in terms of finding that inner peace, I think those guys have it, and we don't, yeah.

So that got me thinking about what it meant to be enlightened. Do non-state people need enlightenment? Is that something that they're looking for? Is that something that will give them happiness? To me, at least I think the answer is no. And so enlightenment is for statists, which sounds weird, like only statists can be enlightened. But I think enlightenment is not the process of having a higher purpose. Enlightenment is the process by which you plug out of the statist mindframe. And you achieving a higher state of mind or whatever, it's actually not a higher state of mind. It's just plugging out of this limited state of mind that governments and states trap you into.

I think a more inspirational way to put that is being enlightened or this whole thing of enlightenment for people who are within states or are forced into this statist world, I think the process of finding enlightenment is finding a way to belong to yourself again, because I think when we are living in this very statist, hierarchical world, we don't belong to ourselves. We don't get to live the lives that we want, we are boxed into these certain roles and values that other people have. Even the things that we want to do, or the way we want to spend our time, is like, society has placed a value on it. For example, if it doesn't earn you money, why bother? There has been that call, thanks to the self-care movement, I guess, that it doesn't have to bring in money. If it brings you joy, if it brings you peace, it is worth it. You have all these people as well who feel guilty for resting or taking a day-off, because "oh, they're not being productive. They're not being professional," you know, all these concepts that are imposed by a hierarchy, whether it's the state or your office, I feel like people getting to enjoy rest for what it is, is so important, because it kind of also returns them to themselves, as opposed to "oh, you need the rest so that you can be more productive," which is like, oh, you're resting for another person, or for your company or for your family, right? Yeah, with these hierarchies, a lot of the things that we do or how we perceive everything has nothing to do with ourselves, like we are stripped of that.

The state likes to tell you or I should say society, or hierarchies like to tell you what your duties are. You have a duty to your family, duty to your neighbor, duty to your society, and almost never says you have a duty to yourself. And Buddhism says you don't have a duty to anybody but yourself. And that duty is to stay true for your own sake.

I do want to caution, that doesn't mean that stateless societies do not have any social constructs, right? Of course not. There's the hunter, there's the person who has to gather whatever, like make the fire like—

or it's important to take care of your family. Right?

Yeah, like there are still those ideas. But I guess it's also not that big of a deal compared to us. If we don't do our duty, if we don't follow or we don't conform to whatever ideal. It's almost an attack on who we are as people. And I'm not sure if the same goes for stateless societies. I mean, the fact that if you live in a stateless world, and you don't like your stateless group, just pack your bags go to the next community, right? Like there is no psy-ops or something.

If Buddhism is this religion for statist people to plug out of the state, then by talking about the state, by including that paradigm within his rhetoric, right, why you should plug out or whatnot, then it's still kept within that same worldview, which is the state exists, and you know, it always must exist or whatever, right? When people interpret that, they will still always see it in that statist perspective. And therefore, they're not really plugging out. It doesn't get the desired effect, which is to really transcend and really understand sort of what it means to have that duty to your own truth. And I think that's why Buddha avoided talking about the state so we don't get lost in the sauce, which really does have me question myself, and what we're doing right now, because we are leaving explicit breadcrumbs for people to pick up, right? And what if what we're doing actually is just antagonizing people and telling them that they're wrong. And they basically say, "Oh, you think you're better than me" or whatever, you know?

Yeah, that's actually why I haven't publicised all these things that we're doing in my personal Facebook, or even telling friends about it, especially if I know that they don't have the same beliefs as I do. I don't want them to feel like I'm trying to change their minds. I don't want them to feel like I'm somehow morally superior now, because I feel enlightened. Yeah, maybe I think that's how it is for people who are on the same boat as us and people who came before us and just ended up writing books. Like it's specific, your ideas are out there, but you don't shove it in people's faces, right? You just put it out into the void. And I think that's what we're doing. And I feel like not telling friends, especially when they don't believe the same thing. I think in a way, it's a kindness to them. At least for me, that's how I've come to think of it. You don't have to believe it. You don't even have to know my perspective just yet.

It's a kindness because, if we were to assume it's a good thing to talk about being anti-state and tell people about how the state is evil, blah, blah, blah, you're actually causing suffering in a way right? People will question their purpose in life when they're not ready, for example. If you are going to talk to a lawyer about how justice doesn't get you the results that you want, or how the law is actually coercive, then you run the risk of causing suffering to these people, especially when they're not at the right frame of mind to accept these ideas. And we don't know what the effect that would be on their lives, and then how that's going to therefore affect the lives of the people around them. And you might actually end up just hurting them instead of really doing anything.

I'm starting to visualise fruits and plants and flowers. I’ve killed all the plants in my life.

You’ve killed all the plants you’ve tried to take care of in your life, by accident?

I guess? It’s not easy, right? I mean, one of the basic principles, if I can even say that is: you don’t want to over water. You don’t want to be hovering over your plants because you will drown and kill it eventually. It has its own time. Maybe that’s kind of what it is? At least that’s the image in my head, everyone has their own time and if they’re not ripe, you can’t just force them to ripen.

The other thing too is the goal of Buddhism is to remove suffering, and everybody’s suffering is different. Our perspective is that there’s unnecessary suffering that’s caused by unlimited violence that’s coming from the state. Most people, they don’t see that they’re like “what are you talking about? There’s no violence happening to me by the state. I don’t know what violence is being done to me, I’m living a free life right now.”

“I’m living a peaceful life in my house.”

Yeah, and so if you talk like this to them it’ll just fall on deaf ears. But there is suffering that’s happening in their lives, and whatever that suffering is, although we’re saying the root cause, most of the time, is because of coercion or violence that’s happening from the state, to them, they don’t see it that way and so for them to realize what causes their suffering, it’s up to them to figure that out. And whether they say it’s the state or whether they say it’s maybe some other aspect in their life that’s causing that suffering, that’s for them to figure that out and for them to say what it is. And by us imposing our reasoning, we’re saying “hey no it’s the state that’s the reason for your suffering,” we’re actually just perpetuating that same cycle of violence.

It becomes propaganda, actually.

That’s how it becomes propaganda. So, what does it mean to be a buddhist anarchist to speak your truth but then also at the same time not commit violence on other people by speaking your truth? Well, I think speaking your truth is very specific. It implies that it has to be verbally speaking your truth, making your own podcast or whatever. It doesn't have to be speaking your truth, as long as you’re living that out. Living your truth. So, if you’re a writer maybe you want to write your ideas down, which is what other people have done before, you know they have their essays, their books, whatever. For other people they’re not very good or they’re not confident with their communication skills, that’s fine as well. Having your own conviction and making choices that are centered in what you believe is right, then that’s kind of how you will find your way. But I would say that there are people who are led by their egos, for example, there are people who are led by their own ambitions. And you know, I mean, because here’s the thing right, when you talk about speaking your own truth, there’s that implication of “you know what is right in your heart.” But not everyone is there. There are people who have been down in that dirty road for so long that it is hard to make better choices, go on the good-choice road, for example. That’s why it’s so important to have good people, because I think that will sort of balance it out or make it easier for you to not lose yourself. Because I think if you’re in a shitty place, if you are led by your ego or your resentment, you are gonna go to a shittier place, and so it’s good to surround yourself by people who you love who can help, maybe directly or indirectly. At the end of the day, you want to be able to save yourself, not have other people save you, and you wanna look to people who might get things right and follow their lead.