Journey from Apolitical to Political Sphere

Dear friends, more than a month has passed since the elections that we attach so much importance to. People went to the polls with the idea that everything would change in a short time, whether in opposition or in power. However, the morality of politics was as much as the morality of society. In other words, politicians, whether in power or opposition, were honest only until they got the votes of the voters. Perhaps making political assessments at this stage was a pointless endeavor. Or maybe what was happening on the Turkish political stage was just a big theater designed to distract the audience (voters). Perhaps an apolitical reality was being presented to individuals in order to blind them to the political reality of social problems.

While all evaluations in the media are based on politics, society, which is the main determinant of politics, is usually left out of political discussions. Social reality is distorted through different dimensions and the hegemony of politics over society is legitimized. Without getting into academic debates on where the political sphere begins and ends, I would like to touch upon the responsibility of the individuals who make up society for what is happening. In fact, this responsibility starts in an apolitical sphere and becomes political as it reaches the social level. So where do the boundaries of apolitical reality end? In this article, I will try to make an effort at social criticism through individuals. To be honest, I will write my inner voice. 

People generally tend to find someone else responsible for every problem they experience and blame them. This is an attitude that people realize through their own defense mechanisms. Being able to criticize oneself requires awareness. Being able to criticize oneself is the first step towards discovering one's own limits. If the limits of this criticism can rise to the level of criticism of one's relationship with other people or the environment, one can become aware of what is happening in society and what is happening in relationships. In a society of individuals who can think and question in a healthy way, the relations between the individual and society are more coherent. But is individual awareness only the responsibility of the individual? Or can social reality tend to manage this awareness?

Here, where society positions the individual is an important question and (in Gramsci's terms) the subject of hegemony. The incompatibility between the position in which the individual sees himself and the way in which society shapes him creates a state of conflict within the individual and between the individual and society. Perceiving conflict as a dimension of the dialectical process and trying to understand it is an important step towards a correct view of one's own position. Conflict avoidance behavior, on the other hand, builds walls between society and the individual that are difficult to overcome. The individual then becomes a prisoner within these walls, reinforcing his or her apolitical position. Most of the time, people do not realize what they have become.

What is social is also political in nature. Those who govern societies want to be able to control political attitudes to some extent, and to predict what they cannot control. The difficulty of controlling each individual leads rulers to use more convenient devices. The common characteristic of all these devices is to make individuals (and therefore society) have beliefs. Because a believer does not question. What both ideologies and religions have in common is that they put people through a one-sided learning process with no alternative. Individuals who constantly read the same thing in different ways become mentally blind. The process by which terrorist organizations can turn a person into a suicide bomber works in a similar way. A system of thought that is closed to all alternative information becomes the shackles of one's own voluntary imprisonment. 

In addition to beliefs, another useful tool is to turn people into parts of a social system defined by possessions. In such a structure, everything is defined by a substitutable value (money). Everything is given meaning in terms of consumability. This is where the importance of the individual questioning himself/herself lies. In a social structure defined by commodities or possessions, the awareness of the individual can lead him/her to a definition of reality that is radical enough to shake the apolitical imposition of the structure. The human being with this awareness is independent of selfishly defined relationships. He is aware that he lives only as a biological creature in a finite process. In the face of every beauty he/she sees, he/she stays away from very dangerous thoughts such as "this/this place must be mine". He strives to understand the reality he lives in in all its dimensions. Such a person is not expected to unconditionally obey and accept social reality. Because he is also far away from social pressures that try to turn him into a race horse. He tries to understand life rather than to make sense of it. He is also aware of his own subjectivity.

It is worth mentioning here a definition that is often misused in everyday language. Attempts to merge value judgments, which are usually subjective, with culture and to legitimize the sometimes morbid behavior patterns of society often find a populist response in society. What is actually important is to emphasize values directly related to morality. Formal education should be part of a public policy that should be based on values. However, for those who have the power to rule, education policies are seen as the most effective tool for the continuity of hegemony. In other words, hegemony sees the function of raising individuals compatible with its existence as the main purpose of education policies. 

The fundamental mistake that is usually made in defining the political is to associate political reality only and directly with the construction and functioning of the structure we call the state. This problematic perspective expands the boundaries of personal apolitical reality at the expense of narrowing the boundaries of the political sphere. An expanded apolitical reality, on the other hand, creates a protected space outside of political criticism for those who assume the function of governing in society. Politicians' efforts to apoliticize events that are usually part of political reality can also be perceived as an effort to protect this protected space. 

As can be seen, as a dynamic structure, we can accept that everything in societies is more or less interconnected. At this stage, it may not be too wrong to make the following observation; all societies are doomed to decay and degeneration unless they are able to maintain individuals within a system of values. You can regulate social rules with legal regulations as much as you like, but if the individuals in society are devoid of values, neither relationships, nor choices, nor life can exist on a rational and moral basis. 

A society where selfishness is legitimized through value judgments cannot be a society of love. We can think that a society where love is not valued, a society that cannot be a society of love, serves precisely the goals of hegemony with hatred and segregation. In a society that is easily manipulated, partisan and segregated, the possibility of discussing and agreeing on values becomes less and less possible. The selfishness of individuals forces political reality to be replaced by apolitical reality. Apolitical reality removes all values in society from the political sphere where they belong. Devaluation corrupts people and relationships even more. Values are replaced by value judgments. In other words, the way to correct and normalize politics in society is through individuals who can define, question and be aware of their own existence through values. Individuals with values also have feelings. I would like to end with a sentence that may be perceived as too ambitious. As Zülfü Livaneli expresses in his verses; "Beauty will save the world / It all starts with loving a person".