Making Personal and Political Opinions
Without a clear direction, personal opinions are scattered carelessly, anywhere and everywhere, but nowhere with lasting impact.
by Carl Eugene Stroud
Today, individualism is the dominant mode of thinking. In schools, in workplaces, online and at home, personal opinions are prioritized over others. They end up serving as the only tool we have for understanding the world. This has led to a common practice where anytime we want to get involved in something, we start by forming personal opinions and then go see if anyone agrees. In this process, other people are an afterthought, so you literally think of them after yourself.
By doing things in this order, and by only emphasizing the personal aspects, political thinking has also become something that’s done before consulting others. Why concern ourselves with the struggle to build unity if we expect to just find it or not?
It’s certainly easier to avoid working with others than to commit to a shared analysis, but without this struggle to get on the same page, even popular projects will get stuck since instead of a clear unifying strategy, there will be a tenuous grouping of personal opinions.
In elections, for example, you’re supposed to iron out your own beliefs, then categorize yourself based on which candidate or “team” has the most in common with you. This approach guarantees that individualism is the only relevant force in political thought. On top of that, it diminishes the political influence of the most affected people to simply defer to professional politicians and technocrats for all the big, important decision-making and strategizing.
Things like healthcare and wages affect more than just the people with the most refined opinions on the topics, and political support shouldn’t be treated like a consumer choice where you scope out who’s selling what you’re buying. It’s more than charismatic leaders giving orders to brainwashed followers, and it’s more than the plans cooked up by professional strategists.
This is confusing since political discourse is full of hot-takes. Pundits, podcasters, politicians, presidents … popes. While all these opinions come off as “political”, not all of them are shaped by collectively determined lines, the kinds of guardrails that are agreed upon with others and that exist independently of one’s own beliefs.
Taking political positions isn’t about erasing or ignoring personal experiences or the unique contributions that a single individual can bring to the table, but the political situation is always “out there”, in the world, not in some enlightened person’s head. There’s no way around taking the opinions of others into account. This means listening to how they describe their current circumstances and personal experiences, in their own words.
Coordinating with others involves more than just finding out who agrees with you. It’s also about committing to a shared framing, a shared outlook. It’s about agreeing to use the same tools as others so the assessments and proposals make sense to everyone and can be discussed more strategically and less personally. Otherwise, oppressive political lines will continue to be the only thing shaping our understanding of where we are, where we want to go, and how we get there.
It’s only with others that our personal opinions have the potential to become political and influential. This is why dialogue is so generative: it allows us to develop a new, collective perspective by incorporating multiple different points of view.
Of course, taking political positions, strategizing, and acting all depend on the freedom of individuals. So if we can’t tell the difference between personal and political opinions, the potential for transforming society will stay stuck in our heads.