Like any self-respecting, wannabe columnist, I guess I better start this one off with a quote, in this case the Greek philosopher Epicurus. “We must free ourselves from the prison of public education and politics,” he wrote in one of the few surviving pieces of his prolific writings.
You could read this a number of ways, but for the purposes of this column, I want to ruminate on what I think this means for anyone writing a column: we would be much wiser not to.
We should ignore the need to continually educate the public according to our understanding of facts and engage in political discourse according to our political ends. For surely this is a bottomless pit of disagreement, with no satisfying outcome for anyone.
A prison indeed.
Perhaps the writers of columns should take the lead from the voters of Prince George, who have by and large disengaged from politics.
Not even 30 per cent of us bothered to vote in our recent municipal election, and if you cornered the average citizen in the parking lot of the Save-on with election pamphlets, like I did, chances are they would avoid you like an aspen stand avoids wildfire; sometimes they get caught in the blaze but usually they snuff it out.
Maybe there is something to be said about living a non-political life, which so many of us subscribe to, and perhaps Epicurus is looking down on us in approval right now. I’ve got friends who will terminate a conversation the moment it gets political. And they are probably a lot happier because of it.
But as wise as Epicurus is, and you can bet I have some more quotes of his to share, I think he’s ultimately got it wrong on this one.
Too many of us have heeded the sage’s advice to stay out of the prison of endless political argument, a desire comment sections usually do nothing to temper, and we are poorer because of it, not only metaphorically, but literally as well.
The less people engage with politics and public education, the more of your tax dollars are wasted, the more our environment is devalued, and the further the fabric of our society unravels.
If we don’t get out there and engage, step on toes, above all vote, eventually we won’t live in a free-market democracy where the public good is paramount. We will live in a feudalistic corporatocracy on a dying planet where profits for global capital are paramount.
We are well on the way to the latter, and that’s my motivation for this column, the “back story” if you will, and I look forward to being incarcerated by lively debate in the columns ahead, Epicurus be damned.
James Steidle is a Prince George writer.
