zlacker

>>notion+(OP)
In 2019 my New Years Resolution was to avoid all news and social media. The reason I started the ban was because I found my mind unsettled after reading the news and I had trouble coming back to a tranquil headspace.

The inspiration is this simple quote: "The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control." (Epictetus)

I held this resolution for about 5 months and it was profoundly glorious. It's not hard. Treat current events like Game of Thrones spoilers. Focus on what you have control over. Be frank with others that you are taking a break from the news cycle. If your results are anything like mine you will find yourself calmer and able to concentrate on what matters. Your mind wont wander to externalities you don't have control over.

At the end of it, you can go read Wikipedia for 30 minutes and be just as caught up as anyone else because you know the end result of the news cycle instead of suffering through it as it happened.

>>stevec+Jb
It’s easy when politics doesn’t actually impact you. If you had relatives being deported or being shot by the police, it’s likely that you wouldn’t just tell your friends/family « sorry, i have no control over this »

I know it’s extreme but it’s the reality. For someone who is impacting by politics (say lost their jobs due to COVID), you can’t just stay on the sideline and ignore it.

You just have the great privilege of letting other people take care of that dirty work.

Is taking a news diet good? Absolutely. Lots of crap out there and a mental break is needed once in a while. But ignoring the suffering of people around you is just bad.

>>jerome+Re
Exactly. As members of society we have an obligation to participate in society whether or not we are impacted negatively by its current shortcomings. In fact, the greater our privilege, the greater our obligation. Society would unravel if this were not true, because it would place undue burden on those lacking power to fix society - an impossible task without power. This is the subject of MLK's writing on justice and mutuality, that 'an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere' as well as Niemöller's poem about 'first they came for...'.

The question is really how to optimize awareness & participation with personal wellbeing. There's a big difference between getting psychologically clobbered by the outrage engines of social media or TV news, and being able to take in and understand current events in a way that encourages contemplation of how to best participate.

One way is to focus our attention and efforts on the things we can control as OP mentions. Another is to shift sources from fast/reactive news to more infrequent and considered sources. Another still is to participate locally and learn things firsthand.

>>npunt+Ji
You may not realize this (or you might, I don't know), but many people who don't want to participate in politics have the sense that our opinions are not at all condoned by the majority of employers or coworkers in our industry.

If I were to go around, attaching my real name or face to my opinions as some form of "participation" in society, I would be quite fucked. I don't call that a privilege by any means.

>>isoske+Pt
To argue to the extreme for a moment, one can have privilege, such as by way of relative wealth and power in society, and still hold views that powerful groups in society believe are contemptible. Holding certain views does not cancel out privileges one has, nor transform one from privileged to victim. This is especially true in privileges that one has less control over, such as physical and intellectual attributes, place of birth, wealth and opportunities like education and socialization, etc.

One may also act on those views believing they are helping society, while consensus in society views those actions as detrimental. A recent example of this is the rioters and insurrectionists at the Capitol believed they were doing something to help society, whereas society judged their actions otherwise.

A possible solution to this conundrum is to focus one's participation on areas that are broadly agreed upon to be beneficial to society, so as to avoid accidentally becoming part of the problem, or simply minimize blowback from a disapproving environment.

This is a solution that is intentionally sidestepping any particular ethical framework, which may guide one's actions toward different tradeoffs.

Another thing worth considering is not all participation in society need be political at all, nor attached to your real name, nor known to your employer. Those are conditions you've attached to your response that were not part of mine.