I've also seen this described also as "political hobbyism" by Eitan Hersh, which I only learned about from Pod Save America this last Sunday in a video titled "Are College Educated Democrats Going to Cost Joe Biden The 2024 Election?" It's worth a watch and his 2020 Atlantic article "College-Educated Voters Are Ruining American Politics" is worth a read.
Full time worker on political campaigns and so many people I know scoff at my work and pretend they're doing better when they're engaging on level 3 or 4 at maximum.
I think an important thing you didn't write on quite enough is that activism is hard and takes up time. Engaging at the level of offering cynical commentary or clamoring about a "revolution:" with the date and details TBD is easy and you can claim that you're unable to work with the system we have so the actual work of an activist is avoided. If you convince yourself that the whole structure (elections, Democratic campaigns, etc) is a vehicle that will never lead to change (despite repeated evidence to the contrary) then you can convince yourself that posting on a formerly bird themed social media site run by a Bond villain is the only way to get any wins.
There are a sneaky lot of folks out here living level one lives and showing level four faces to the public, especially online. By virtue of running for office in the first place, most politicians are probably level ones, but boy oh boy, many of them present as level fours in the worst possible ways.
I think the trick is making levels 3 & 4 productive. If you can figure out how to get even the posers to contribute, even if marginally, to making political change then you've cracked the code
I’m not sure wanting to ‘change the world for the better’ is a level 1 phenomenon. We can’t really perceive that directly, it’s too abstract. But I do think you can enjoy winning for its own sake. But then, when it comes to politics it’s not really you winning, is it? It’s your team.
maybe there are levels both in our actions and in our perceptions. Some things we perceive directly, some are mediated by abstractions, some are mediated by our team, and some we just think we are perceiving something but we don’t really understand what that thing feels like.
So in that sense, the kind of winning you are talking about seems like a level 3 perception.
I've also seen this described also as "political hobbyism" by Eitan Hersh, which I only learned about from Pod Save America this last Sunday in a video titled "Are College Educated Democrats Going to Cost Joe Biden The 2024 Election?" It's worth a watch and his 2020 Atlantic article "College-Educated Voters Are Ruining American Politics" is worth a read.
Full time worker on political campaigns and so many people I know scoff at my work and pretend they're doing better when they're engaging on level 3 or 4 at maximum.
I think an important thing you didn't write on quite enough is that activism is hard and takes up time. Engaging at the level of offering cynical commentary or clamoring about a "revolution:" with the date and details TBD is easy and you can claim that you're unable to work with the system we have so the actual work of an activist is avoided. If you convince yourself that the whole structure (elections, Democratic campaigns, etc) is a vehicle that will never lead to change (despite repeated evidence to the contrary) then you can convince yourself that posting on a formerly bird themed social media site run by a Bond villain is the only way to get any wins.
There are a sneaky lot of folks out here living level one lives and showing level four faces to the public, especially online. By virtue of running for office in the first place, most politicians are probably level ones, but boy oh boy, many of them present as level fours in the worst possible ways.
I think the trick is making levels 3 & 4 productive. If you can figure out how to get even the posers to contribute, even if marginally, to making political change then you've cracked the code
I’m not sure wanting to ‘change the world for the better’ is a level 1 phenomenon. We can’t really perceive that directly, it’s too abstract. But I do think you can enjoy winning for its own sake. But then, when it comes to politics it’s not really you winning, is it? It’s your team.
maybe there are levels both in our actions and in our perceptions. Some things we perceive directly, some are mediated by abstractions, some are mediated by our team, and some we just think we are perceiving something but we don’t really understand what that thing feels like.
So in that sense, the kind of winning you are talking about seems like a level 3 perception.