Forget foreplay - let’s talk politics
Is ignorance truly bliss, or is knowledge the key that unlocks the tools we need to grow?
In some cases the latter is true. When I was diagnosed with OCD as a teenager, it was like solving a puzzle I didn’t even know I was working on. That diagnosis helped me contextualise years of behavior, understanding why became the key to unlearning it. Knowledge in that case gave me an advantage. Understanding can turn chaos into order, helping us feel less crazy, more understood. Finding others who share in our experiences can make even the loneliest corners of life feel a little less sharp.
But let’s not romanticise knowledge too much. Sometimes, learning stuff just makes things...worse. For me, theology, religion and most notably, politics have been particularly chaotic culprits.
Being part of society to some degree, is a subjective experience. Shaped initially by factors out of our control, such as class, gender, who your parents happen to be. As children, most of us are naive, blissfully unaware of social dynamics. We’re born into individual bubbles that help shape our early understanding of the world. Bubbles (typically) include family, a handful of family friends and some school friends… These bubbles feel safe and predictable, (though unfortunately that is not always the case). How people respond to us informs how we respond to them.
The people in your bubble, by proxy, will likely be pretty similar to one another. Certainly not in all ways, but there will be a couple significant ties, like tends to attract like. I was raised by two women in a gay family, so it’s no surprise when I tell you a lot of my parents friends were —and still are, gay couples too. Meaning I had a very normalised, cosy and positive perception of gay relationships from as young as I can remember. This is a bubble bias I grew up with. Built into the fabric of our early lives, everyone has their own bubble bias’s.
As we grow, our bubbles expand. Education and experiences burst them open, and while that can be enlightening, it can also be overwhelming. The more I’ve learned, the more I’ve noticed knowledge has a way of complicating things. Take politics —my own personal Pandora’s box…
Growing up the concept of morality felt simple: "good" and "evil" were things my parents explained to me from infancy with the aid of illustrated fairy stories. I first understood politics to be ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ pageantry, with good guys and bad guys. It wasn’t until I grew older that I realised how narrow minded and naive that view was. Once curiosity had taken hold, much like Pandora’s box, there was no closing of the lid. At first, I thought I could handle it. I started asking questions, reading books, stumbling down online rabbit holes —Alice in wonderland style and, most importantly, begun talking to people with different perspectives to my own. —Let me tell you, nothing shakes your self-assuredness like discovering how little you actually know. I went in feeling pretty solid, but came out thoroughly perplexed.
Politics is messy. No one person—or party—is all good or all bad, though plenty of people still cling to the comforting simplicity of tribalism. It’s human nature to want to be on the right team, but that mindset is dangerous. It stops us from questioning the status quo. It also means we end up glossing over inconvenient truths about our side, while amplifying the flaws of the other. Tribalism—the ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ mentality—is a trap.
Many of us inherit our political persuasion the way we inherit Grandmothers china. Its familiarity brings us comfort, so with loyalty we tend to adopt that of our families, or failing that, our friends. We seek comfort in knowing we’re all on the same team.
But what happens when you stop to actually question established order? What happens when you realise your views were shaped not by facts, but by family dinners and social media echo chambers?
As a teenager, I used to watch Onision's YouTube videos— Onision being an entirely separate can of worms for another day. From what I remember, he often criticized the hypocrisy in religion. His father, once involved with the church was abusive. I believe this fueled Onision's anti-religion stance, where he called out religious leaders as pedos—though ironically, he turned out to be a pedo too lol.
In his videos, he mocked contradictions in religious practices, like getting a Bible verse tattoo despite the Bible condemning tattoos. He repeatedly pointed out how people cherry-pick the parts of religion they like while ignoring the rest. While his delivery was questionable, the idea of cherrypicking stuck with me: taking meaningful lessons from a broader body of work isn’t inherently bad. If those ideas enrich our lives, it can be a positive thing. Whether it's okay to approach religion like this, embracing only the parts we agree with, is too big a topic to unpack here. But I’ve always appreciated the concept of cherrypicking, even as a teenage girl, maybe also drawn to the phrasing — cherries synonymous with playful, flirty symbolism.
And yes, I’ll admit it: I’m a massive cherrypicker when it comes to politics, philosophy, and even religion. I pluck the ideas that resonate with me and leave the rest to rot. I see it as stitching my own little patchwork quilt of beliefs. I don’t claim to be anything. I’ve realised that strict adherence to any one ideology doesn’t work for me— it’s too rigid, too narrow. And honestly, cherrypicking has its perks, allowing flexibility and growth. But it also means living in a constant state of flux, questioning everything and often spiraling into existential dread.
The problem with cracking open Pandora’s box; whether it’s politics, religion, or sociology, is that once you uncover the layers, you can’t unsee them. The world becomes so detailed, so nuanced, that it feels impossible to view anything without a magnifying glass. You start analysing everything: Why people vote the way they do? How historical systems of oppression still shape society today? Why capitalism feels like a carousel we can’t escape?
It’s is a catch 22 — Sometimes I long for the simplicity of not knowing. But then again, would I really want to go back? I’m left feeling all mixed up. On one hand, I wouldn’t trade the privilege of a richly expanded worldview for anything. On the other hand, there’s something enviable about the simplicity of not knowing, not even caring. Learning doesn’t guarantee peace. In fact, it often provokes the opposite. But maybe that’s okay? Maybe the discomfort is what pushes us to grow, to connect, and to make sense of the chaos, even if the answers aren’t always as satisfying as we’d like.
Ignorance may be bliss, but knowledge, for better or worse, is what makes us human.