A reason to keep up the fight
A couple days ago, a friend lashed out at me over my tendency to make political comments.

It doesn't matter which friend this was. It's likely there are others who feel similarly but don't say it, and it's good to get verbal feedback from time to time. Certainly her anger gave me pause. It made me think.

I believe scientists have a duty to question their own beliefs¹, and therefore also to discuss their beliefs with others. Just today through conversation, I learned that an assumption I had made was introducing unnecessary complications into my research project.

I would never have known the assumption was wrong were I unwilling to talk about the project. Taking part in a discussion with someone much more knowledgeable wasn't easy by any means: I still don't know exactly what I'm talking about, and it's always embarrassing when someone else discovers that.

Politics is a lot like biology. Everyone involved has a hypothesis, whether she admits it or not; and not everyone's hypotheses can be correct. Through discussion--political discourse, it's called--we have mostly managed to converge on a handful of these models of reality.

Democrats have one such model: as Stephen Colbert once said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias." Republicans have another model. A third is embodied in the group of people who consistently vote for Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, or anyone else who has no chance in hell of winning. There's even a fourth, in those who refuse to vote at all, arguing that it would be buying into a broken system.

None of these models is inherently correct (or incorrect). They all have strengths. I happen to believe that Democrats come closer to reality with their model--and that's why I happen to be a Democrat. I also believe that Democrats and moderates² are more open to discovering that their model is wrong, but maybe I just think that because I'm open to being wrong.

If one is willing to discuss one's beliefs, one can learn about alternative points of view. One can take advantage of other people's accumulated wisdom. That accumulated wisdom is the foundation--as well as the product--of science. We turn to doctors for medical advice, Stephen Hawking for physics help, and Al Gore (whom my parents have affectionately taken to calling the Goracle) for tips to avoid the coming apocalypse³.

If one is unwilling to discuss beliefs, one is nothing more than an adherent of a cargo cult. (Cargo cults are justified interpretations of reality based on narrow observations. Cult members are coerced by explorers into building runways in the jungle, so the explorer's hired airplane can drop more supplies for the explorers. Later, after the cults' respective explorers leave, they build new runways and attempt to repeat the radioing-for-supplies ritual to induce the plane-god to return and give them supplies.)

As for me, I have pressing reasons to participate in and discuss politics. Politics is not something I see on television: politics has immediate and deadly effects. The Rwandan genocide was allowed to happen because Americans saw it as politics on television. Virginia Tech on 4/16 was my life--but to so many people, it was just more politics on television.

The gun lobby even likes to use the it's-all-politics line as a talking point: "In what can only be seen as the politicization of a tragic event for political gain, the gun-control advocates at the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence and ProtestEasyGuns.com...sought to hold their own demonstration on the Drillfield at [Virginia] Tech [on 4/16]..."⁴ What they don't mention is that this very demonstration was organized by survivors and victims of the shooting.

The pro-handgun crowd isn't alone in using the it's-politics line--but the gun lobby is especially relevant to me because the background check system was one of many failures that contributed to my friends' deaths. That background check system was hobbled by the NRA and GOA well before the shooting, and it is still hobbled. Thirty-three people had to die to close one loophole, and others remain open. For comparison, consider that only five people were killed in the Boston Massacre, and we had a revolution over that.

It's never just politics. Universal healthcare saves lives. Making guns harder to access (e.g., with trigger locks and cooling-off periods) prevents suicides. If your congressman votes to bomb somewhere, people are going to die. That congressman's constituents have a collective responsibility for those deaths, even if they didn't vote. I'm not suggesting war is universally wrong, or that there aren't just wars; but I am suggesting that citizens have a responsibility to be aware of whom we're killing and why.

There is a reason I canvass for the Obama Campaign and not for the Brady Campaign. If Obama does a good job as president, a whole new generation of voters will be inspired by progressive values. They will see that the Democratic Model of Reality (DMOR) works when applied to the world. The DMOR tells us that the world is not as simple as Good Versus Evil, that corporations have too much power over our legislature, that empathy and willingness to listen are as important as discipline. If more people adopt the DMOR, better and safer gun laws will follow.

I participate in politics because I desperately need to see that a good person can win and make positive changes in the world from time to time. I need to know that the person who murdered my love is not representative of humanity. Life cannot be the Lord of the Flies, or I will surely perish too.

Slowly but surely, I am perishing. For so long I've been quiet about Max and the others, because I never want to use my tragedy as an excuse for bad behavior. I don't tell new acquaintances about what happened because I can't bear to see the stricken looks on their faces, can't bear to think other people are feeling a fraction of the pain their deaths caused. For months I had this odd view of reality where by writing about the shooting I could help other people value their loved ones without first having to lose them.

I reach out and I share my political beliefs in hopes that someone will take my outstretched hand, that he or she will be inspired rather than forced to care. That's why I was so livid when my friend suggested I (wrongfully) inject politics into everything: not only had I failed to inspire this person, but she fundamentally failed to understand me.

I live in a different world from her. She lives in the world I lived in before April 16th, 2007. In that world, Bad Things only happen to friends of friends--not to friends. In my world, my love dies again every time I hear what might or might not be hammering elsewhere in the building during class. She dies every time the University tests its warning siren. She dies every time there is a suicide bombing in Iraq.

If I stop talking about politics, my heart might as well stop beating.

Footnotes

1. This does not apply to religious faith. Faith is a different kind of belief entirely, which can't be questioned on the basis of factual evidence. Otherwise, it's not faith.


2. Maybe moderates are just more likely to be skeptical of all things.


3. Al Gore turns to scientists. He doesn't just manufacture it.


4. The linked source is not directly associated with the Gun Lobby, but it's definitely Gun-Lobby-funded public relations. I've seen this exact line in NRA press releases before, though I don't have one on-hand.