Michael Mitchell: Archive

This is a great issue. Should people be forced to associate with people they disagree with?

I think of politics philosophically. What most people mean by the word "politics" is government involvement in our lives, but to me it just means anything social. Morality is individualistic, because only individuals can make choices, and politics is essentially morality applied to social interactions.

This is a very difficult distinction for anyone to grasp, though, because no one lives on a deserted island and we're all thoroughly managed by authority figures from the time we're born until we die. Parents, teachers, etc. People whose judgment of our beliefs and actions must be respected. So it's almost impossible to see that morality and politics are separate concepts. They sort of get all blended together in our minds.

Gun rights, for instance, is a moral issue. It's about self-defense. But some people believe they'd be safer if there were less guns. How can I disagree about gun rights with someone else while still respecting their right to self-defense? I believe whether there are more or less guns is not the issue, that it should be up to every individual to decide whether owning a gun is in their best interests or not, but that belief alone may be perceived as a threat by people who are against gun ownership in general. Our rights to self-defense are not actually in conflict, but they think they are, because of their position on gun rights, so freedom of association, a more fundamental right, is actually the key to avoiding that conflict. If people who disagree with each other are forced to associate with each other, the whole country falls apart.