Complaining About "Agendas"

Perhaps readers have heard others comment that a politician, celebrity, or other type of somewhat influential figure "has an agenda" behind their words and actions, a statement normally perceived to imply negative connotations about the influential person in question.  After all, the context in which claims like this are brought up is usually one where a political figure is directly criticized.  Some circles use this phrase more than others, and it is at best an irrelevant observation to communicate.

In my experience, the only people to have ever said this were conservatives denouncing something they rightly or fallaciously associated with liberalism, as if they did not have a political agenda of their own.  All political sides have an agenda.  Otherwise, they would not be involved in politics!  The only reasons someone voluntarily gets involves in politics reduce down to philosophical or personal motivations, which means that conservatives and liberals alike have their own respective agendas.

Complaining about someone else having an "agenda" is identical to claiming that they either have ideological or personal reasons for doing something.  Of course, everyone inescapably has a worldview, and anyone who claims they do not is still making a philosophical statement about their own self that entails some sort of worldview, no matter how incomplete, irrational, or vague it might be.  The use of relatively vague words like "agenda" can sound more sinister to those who cannot see that agenda and worldview can be synonymous terms.

The only reason to object to someone having an agenda, therefore, apart from truly being so shallow and stupid as to think that having a worldview at all is itself malevolent or otherwise negative, is dislike of that person's worldview.  What is ultimately rational to denounce is not having a worldview, but having an inconsistent, assumed, or untrue worldview.  That someone has an agenda does not automatically mean they are evil.  It only means they, like everyone else, have some sort of philosophy driving them.

Having ideological motivations is not irrational on its own, but belief in an ideology that is demonstrably false, unproven, or unprovable is asinine, a definite mark of stupidity and shallowness.  Conservatives fail on this front in the same categories as liberals.  Both ideologies are based on arbitrary preferences, false or unproven assumptions, or inconsistent ideas.  One looks to traditions and blind patriotism instead of reason, while the other emphasizes largely emotionalistic or culturally defined shifts away from the status quo.  Adherents of both have agendas that are contrary to reason.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.