I thought I would just write a quick explanation for people who wonder why I do not want a badge. People often look confused when they think that, because I do not want a no nuclear weapons badge, that I support nuclear weapons.

This does not mean that I am totally anti-badge. If people want to wear them then that is fine – Rainbow Badges have a good selection and will make them to your own design.

I have already covered some of these points in other posts (e.g. Virtue Signalling – Here Be Dragons, Navalny v Leadership Of Ideas).

I think that it is important to see political problems similarly to that of solving a third order differential equation. I do not identify as a Gauge Transformist and I doubt if I can get a badge to state this. People often their political ideas as part of their identity, rather than just arguments about the best solution. This leads to several problems:

• It is difficult to accept or even listen to a different point of view. If you believe a certain thing, then it is because you are good and therefore anyone who differs is bad. Tory voters are stupid or greedy, anyone who repeats the anti-immigration rhetoric of the mainstream media is a racist… but I think they are just wrong, and I am willing to argue my point quite robustly.
• It is difficult to change your opinions if you see them as part of your identity. This is not to say that it is easy to say I am wrong, but it is much more difficult if your political opinion has become part of your identity.
• It makes discussion much more difficult. When you bring up a point about nuclear power, people will say you are only saying that because you are anti-nuclear. In fact, I am against nuclear power and weapons because of the points that I bring up.
• It creates different identities that you have to belong to or not. If you say I do this because I am an environmentalist it will mean that people may not want to do that because it identifies them as an environmentalist. Not wasting the Earth’s resources is something that is sensible and everyone should do, but by doing so you do not have to support Just Stop Oil (I do, but that is not the point).
• Just identifying is often an easy but poor substitute for having any real political analysis or taking any meaningful action. How may Stop The War badges were swapped for ones supporting intervention in Libya, Syria or Ukraine?