politics and parties don’t mix well together. the best analogy i could think of comes straight out of high school chemistry, when my teacher got a bit overambitious with the magnesium + water reactivity demo. kapow. i don’t know how or why i got into heated “conversations” last night at a halloween party, but it happened. i’m still trying to sort it all out.

i sat down to try to make a list of seven things that bothered me about interactions i had last night but, in unprecedented fashion, decided that maybe a list would be inappropriate. forgive me for rambling a bit, but there are a few things i need to get off my chest. and even if they disappear unread into the ether, that’s fine. it’s always just nice to have some sort of outlet… besides just venting in small bursts to whomever happens to be nearest. my housemate took the brunt of it this morning… sorry jolene…

let’s start with the basics. i’m 23, i’m white, and i’m conservative. not totally hard-core conservative, and i don’t follow politics closely, but i know enough to know which end of the spectrum i lie in. i’m on a college campus – and have been for the last 6 years. somewhere around 95% of my friends (probably more, actually) are liberal, and they feed off of each other’s energy, passion, and enthusiasm for their causes. the bay area is a pretty liberal area in a lot of ways, and the fact that i’ve stood by my convictions for the past 6 years – haven been given plenty of opportunities to “defect” – means i’ve found something that resonates with me. do i agree with everything that goes on in washington? absolutely not. i’m not a huge george w bush fan, nor do i even like mccain all that much. but when you present me with all the facts, mix me into a very liberal climate, and let me choose, i’ve always found my way back to the right of all my friends.

friends
i learned early on in my stanford career not to broach politics with people i like. i realized that in order to have any sort of intelligent discussion with someone, i’d need to do my homework. like… a lot of homework. a daunting amount of homework. i’d need facts and counterexamples for everything they might say. i’d need to be an expert on whatever it was we’d talk about. because if i came in unprepared, i’d get eaten alive. who would stick up for me? when it’s you vs. everyone, you are your own support team. and, as i discovered, that totally sucks. it’s profoundly unrewarding to have a long, drawn-out discussion with a friend who’s not going to change her mind about anything no matter what you say. but what was most striking to me about these fruitless encounters is that every argument presented to me was one from the mainstream media. if you’d gone to cnn.com that morning, you were pretty well prepared to present the liberal viewpoint. but for me, i had to go digging through blogs, looking up facts and statistics to get me past the glossy MSM stories. there’s a whole world of untapped facts out there that reuters and the AP just don’t report for various reasons. to get the whole picture, it takes a hell of a lot of effort. fortunately there are people out there who make a living at this.. but even keeping up with them takes a lot of effort. it’s easier to turn on the tv or to turn to a colleague and parrot whatever cnn said.

anyway. i decided that i wasn’t interested in having those sorts of “discussions” anymore. it wasn’t productive, and it certainly wasn’t winning me any popularity contests. at first, i just wanted my friends to know what other facts were out there. i thought that maybe if they saw where i was coming from, they might change their minds. how idealistic of me. being conservative takes commitment. it takes time and it takes energy. it requires constant upkeep if you want to be outward about your politics. i wasn’t going to convince anyone of anything for two main reasons:

1. they weren’t interested in having to research anything to confirm or deny what i was telling them.. to the point of being dismissive of anything not reported in the MSM
2. who wants to leave the bubble of safety? by asking someone to consider another POV, i was asking them to step out of their comfort zone. i’ve already talked about how difficult it is to be a conservative on a college campus – who’d want to impose that on themselves? i think i was interpreted more in the light of “misery loves company” than “i want you to have all the facts so you can make an educated decision for yourself, not made by the MSM or the liberal community in which we exist”

so in lieu of continuing my sisyphean exploits, i decided to just keep my mouth shut. things were simpler that way. i’d bite my tongue when people spoke about issues. i’d suspend judgment when people laughed at bush. my friends thought i was one of them. that we shared something. it felt borderline amoral, but at least i didn’t have to think about politics all the time anymore.

assumptions
i can handle getting facebook invitations to obama rallies. i can usually handle sitting in a room of people who are all bashing john mccain. i can handle watching my friends dress up like sarah palin for an “end of the world” themed halloween party. i’ve gotten good at keeping mum. the dialogue in my head, however, is another matter entirely, and sometimes i’m inches away from jumping into the discussion. but, for the reasons i’ve outlined above, it’s just not productive or useful to present another POV. because frankly, no one cares. i’m dismissed before i even have a chance. so, in a way, it’s good that folks assume i’m the political default around here. innocent until proven guilty. liberal until publicly declared conservative. but on the flipside of that, it’s terrible that people assume that i’m liberal. really? you think that everyone around here thinks exactly like you? that there couldn’t possibly be another intelligent creature in your midst who disagrees with your politics? it’s easy to be dismissive, isn’t it?? to put your blinders on and assume i’m a conformer? some recent reactions to my revealing my political preference: “really??” “i’m shocked…” “wow, no, i’m just surprised” and my favorite, “oh…. oh, wow. ok. wow. [silence]” should i just go ahead and tell you i murder puppies, too? because i’m pretty sure i’d get a similar set of reactions.

most people fundamentally change the way they think about me when they find out i’m conservative. somehow i instantly become less cool, less educated, less respectable, less of a colleague, less reputable, less of a human being. i become a second-class citizen. i become “other”. it would be so much easier to go with the flow… to agree with everyone else, to laugh along with the inappropriate jokes. i’d love nothing more. what bothers me most about the assumptions that people make about me has nothing to do with putting me in uncomfortable situations where i want to say something but can’t. it’s that, in this design community, we preach open-mindedness and empathy. we tell our students to go out and interview people to learn what positions they take and why. we suspend judgment and synthesize our findings. it’s the design process. yet somehow that mindset doesn’t get translated into other areas of our lives… why should it be any different? liberal until proven conservative? why is there a default? it’s sort of mob mentality-ish. a little open-mindedness would go quite a ways.

moral high ground
“wow, no, i’m just surprised” – him
“oh, well, i’m surprised that you’re surprised” – me
underlying an interaction like this is an assumed right and wrong. being liberal, clearly, is the right thing to do. by not living up to that expectation, i’m doing the wrong thing. he knows so much better than i which side is correct. which side has the moral high ground, and which side has the right to judge.

do i judge my liberal friends? absolutely not. they have their reasons for believing what they believe. sometimes i think they might be misguided or not fully informed, but sometimes we just disagree on fundamental issues, like prop 8. there are no facts underlying the choice, it’s a question of fundamental beliefs. and i absolutely and fully respect others’ fundamental beliefs. i disagree with them, but i still respect them and can understand where they’re coming from. i don’t get that same respect. why? beats me. i don’t see why it has to be any different. why does their side get to tell me i’m wrong and dismiss my views before i get a chance to explain? example of dismissiveness… i’m trying to explain why i think the term marriage should only apply to unions of men and women, citing that it’s a religious sacrament. i’m asked “well, why is it a religious sacrament? says who?” how the hell do you respond to that? i could respond with, “well, says god, actually” or “the catholic church” which would just be met with jeers and dismissiveness. you’re asking me to defend a fundamental tenet of religion? wow! it’s a lose-lose situation no matter how you shuffle the deck. whether or not you agree with me, can you accept that that’s what i believe and move on, or do you have to question my beliefs and try to convince me i’m wrong? i believe i was laughed at, actually. who has the moral high ground? it was clear by the derisive laughter that the folks i was talking to thought i was hopelessly misguided… a lost soul, devoid of moral purpose. but… who are you to judge?

diversity
the last point i want to address is one of diversity. it’s been statistically shown that diverse design teams have the potential to perform better than their homogeneous counterparts — they also run the risk of imploding because of the inability to deal with said diversity and the issues it can create, but to do anything worthwhile, you gotta take a few risks. risk vs. reward. i buy into the diversity stuff. i really do. i’m a believer. diversity is something that’s preached everywhere… particularly in an institute of higher education, and even more so in a design institute. i’m writing my NSF GRFP application right now, and i’m highlighting what i’ll do to promote diversity in my field. it’s easy to write when you believe in it!

unfortunately, diversity means different things to different people. most people think of the gender + race balance when they think of diversity. at the d.school, we like to have a diversity of areas of expertise on a team. we like to populate teams with students who think differently from one another — their fresh takes on problems empower a team with a huge arsenal of perspectives to draw on in finding solutions to crazy problems. but for all this diversity we preach, we’re a pretty politically homogeneous group. i’m literally the only conservative working at the d.school. like, solo. one. just me. and from observing the students’ last design project (related to the election), it’s clear that they’re quite a homogeneous crew, as well. not that there’s anything fundamentally wrong with that… we’re just not exploring diversity of thought as much as we could be. liberals, i’ve found, are all about diversity — so long as you agree with them. i think there’s something pretty fundamentally flawed about that mindset.

—–

ok, i’m sort of bored of writing now. i’ve got plenty more to say on the subject, but i’ll leave it for another day. my beef with this whole scene, though, essentially rests in the facts that:

1. it’s assumed i’m liberal
2. when folks find out i’m not, they judge me, as if i’m somehow less worthy
3. no one cares to understand my point of view (we’ve lost the empathy bit here, in designspeak)
4. i exist in a community dominated by liberals and no one sees a problem with bullying the minority
5. the liberal perspective is ubiquitous, and i couldn’t avoid it if i tried. i do, however, try to understand the other side, and it’s totally unappreciated.

i’m not a bad person. i’m just conservative.