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A few days ago, I was at work. We have a stack of the Charleston City Paper sitting at the front of the shop, which I’ll try to read from time to time. By ‘read’ I mean absent-mindedly flipping through it, looking at headlines and thinking, “I guess there’s a Shrimp Scandal now”. However, on this fateful day, I ran across an article, “On turning off the incessant hum of politics” by Andy Brack.
The premise of the article is simple enough: American politics are far too loud, France is quiet, and Andy has come to the conclusion that the remedy for this is turning off your phone and eating a baguette in Paris. Through France, Mr. Brack discovers that going on vacation… feels nice. His takeaway from this revelation is that the politics aren’t broken, you’re just overwhelmed. The solution is not in organization or deducing the root cause of your discomfort; instead, it is to log off, preferably from within the French countryside.
My main gripe with this idea is the group of people living it. On average, they are white, college-educated, extremely wealthy, and very proudly voted for Obama while thinking Occupy was a bit too much noise for their liking. We’ve all met them, I try my best not to.
In the worldview of these people, being overwhelmed by politics is a political position. On Twitter recently, I saw a sign at a ‘No Kings’ protest saying, “IF KAMALA WAS PRESIDENT, I’D BE AT BRUNCH RIGHT NOW.”, which is the activism that mistakes personal relief as collective progress. As long as you’re not being personally affected, then you can disengage. You’re not bothered by what’s happening, just that it’s on your front door.
This worldview isn’t new, and Mr. Bracks is practically a textbook example. He starts his article with the tone of a travel writer giving words of admiration for France. The thesis then comes shortly after, almost as a throwaway line, “The best thing about this year’s time away from the United States was not having to hear about Donald Trump and politics every time you turn a corner”. What follows is a well-meaning, if accidentally revealing, ode to a form of neoliberal escapism cloaked in the guise of wellness.
Even in his unplugged state, Brack can’t avoid U.S. headlines. But instead of outrage, he offers a shrug. Andy Brack reports that he was aware of some of the U.S news, such as the U.S bombing of Iran, writing, “Sure, we heard about the sudden bombing of Iran, the New York mayor’s race…” War, Regime Change, and Civilian Deaths are just another part of the *noise* interrupting an otherwise peaceful excursion to the French Countryside. And that’s the crux of this ‘liberal’ travel writing genre, everything acts in contrast to U.S. hegemony.
The article acts like any other simple travel piece; it marvels with its mouth agape at the otherness of somewhere else. Even giving a list of observations he noticed, such as their food, transport, and lack of guns. However, what makes this article grating is that it operates within the confines of superiority through worldly concerns. The French eat better, their public transport runs faster, and while the French smoke, at least they are civil. America, of course, is just full of guns and Twitter.
The message of his article seems clear, France has it figured out
But this narrative only works if you willingly become ignorant of how the world works. The trains are fast because of public subsidization, the bread is cheap because the EU subsidizes wheat, and those charming village markets survive on an economic model that would be laughed out of a Brookings Institute report. Furthermore, this relative calm depends on France’s political relationship with migration, labor, and Imperialism. These ideas could be the foundation for a great article on policies and systems that cause this, but Andy Brack instead gives a lackluster take that the root cause was not having to hear Trump speak.
We get aesthetic politics in place of actual analysis. The lack of guns he mentions is not a conversation about disarmament, but instead a lifestyle perk. The quiet he relishes in does not create a conversation about media saturation, but a vacation tip. In this formulation, politics is only real if your phone is turned on.
The irony to me is that this piece serves as a form of politics, just by other means. A performance of ethics through consumption. Almost saying, “I am the kind of person who cares, just not right now”. That is what apathy does best: manufactured concern is now aesthetic.
Mr. Brack then ends the article with monumental life-changing advice, “…turn off social media and television for a few days.” But what happens when you turn it back on? What do you do then?
