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I think it’s a feature of our ideas about legitimacy. Since our idea of legitimate government is democracy and consent of the governed, the people who want to govern must “launder” their ideas into the culture, and thus it becomes imperative to capture any institution that imparts ideas to the public (which is, to be blunt, all of culture). Then you can firehose out your agenda in every way the cathedral can get a message out, and eventually, unless you are an extreme contrarian or opt out of most of mainstream society, you’re very likely to get caught up in the zeitgeist of the media culture you saturate in.
I consider it late-stage democracy. Democracy cannot function unless the public goes along with good ideas. Which means that you can’t just let the public form their own organic culture or community which is likely to have the wrong sorts of ideas. Instead the elites have to make the culture over to their tastes and if you can’t take over the institution, it must be discredited or destroyed.
That's pretty insightful, especially the need to launder politics through culture in order to manufacture consent. Hadn't thought of it in those terms.
Related to the "You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you" point.
Any culture that's not under control of the political edifice is, potentially, a method for alternative systems and resistance to organize and arise. The state would see this as an intolerable possible threat to sovereignty. On top of that any popular cultural edifice can be turned into a propaganda organ, can't expect them to ignore that.
I've arranged my immediate affairs so that I have as few as possible intersections with political authority. Quite literally, I chose the location of my house in large part because it has the fewest political bodies with jurisdiction over its physical location (i.e. it is outside of the nearest city's limits in unincorporated territory, has no HOA, and has extremely permissive zoning).
And yet, AND YET I know that I can't afford to ignore politics because the political-minded will constantly seek to bring me and my property under their ambit, and it is NOT enough to just retreat, run, and try to stay outside their grasp, it requires active, intelligent resistance and even then its not guaranteed b/c the state has infinite patience.
I agree with that, but I’m more thinking about cultural organs as well. Things like religion, particularly organized religion, the family, education, clubs, etc. are potentially points of resistance. I see this as a weak point of the Benedict option. Unless you’re living in a commune owned by a church and have no cell phones and filtered internet, the chances of keeping your community intact and fairly pure are small. Zoning laws, school testing requirements, nondiscrimination laws, and so on will conspire to force you to conform, and entryism will be tried.
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