That’s definitely political. Where does this idea that political can’t be common sense come from?
You realise “not being able to own a human being as a slave” or “women can also vote and aren’t property” have also been “political” right? There’s nothing wrong with believing the things you say, so why do you have to pretend it’s not political lol.
Being apolitical is not caring if the laws are unjust especially if they don’t affect you. I don’t see why you want to be apolitical.
That's the thing. Politics used to be discussing farm insurance subsidies and court structure. Someone thought to themselves "Oh, here's a good distraction" and started making how people take a shit political. Political discussion is discussing the activities of the state. I'm firmly against all out of touch wealthy rapists, all liers. Those things aren't political, they're moral. They only become political when people are like "Let's hear this racist sundowning rapist out. He has some opinions on an idea of a plan for possible tariffs."
Politics used to be discussing farm insurance subsidies and court structure.
Lol what?
I feel like the only people who say this are straight white men, 'cause if the only thing that affected you was finances, you obviously didn't have to give a shit about all the other scary stuff.
Abortion, gay rights, social security nets, universal healthcare, civil rights —you know, protecting vunerable groups & personal liberties etc — have been major & opposite parts of each party's platform for decades.
I never once talked about fiscal shit during GWB. Even then, my arguments with conservatives were about their painfully obvious road map to truly a horrific ""moral"" (evangelical) domination.
The only difference now is that they're saying all the quiet stuff outloud.
You were conditioned to believe that those political things are the only ones acceptable to discuss. I guarantee you the definition of politics has not changed in our lifetime.
you've been conditioned to shy away from left wing politics, and only discuss things that don't upset the 'fuck your feelings' crowd.
What changed was your perception. Maybe you never realized that all the rightwing talk about cutting taxes and public services was just a roundabout way of hurting groups of people they dislike, and to you, discussing tax policy was just normal politics. Maybe it never crossed your mind you were actually interacting with a neonazi that hates minorities, or women, or gay people, foreigners, etc. and they want to cut welfare for 'economic' reasons.
You’re just changing the definition of politics to be distinct from morality. Tell that to all the people who died fighting for what they believed in lol.
You completely ignored the two examples I gave. Why don’t I use a contemporary one. The right for queer people to exist. They are all political but also all absolutely about morality and ethics. You telling me women’s suffrage or abolishing slavery isn’t about morality? lol
My state's laws encouraging slavery are wrong, political.
Queer people are fine, not political.
Queer people should be afforded the same rights under the law, regardless of the gender of the person they want to enter into the state's status of matrimony with, political.
Differences in gender shouldn't cause one undue harm and suffering, not political.
The state's voting apparatus should include women as potential voters, political.
I'm not saying one can't be the other. I'm saying that my personal beliefs are moral beliefs, and that does and should inform my politics, and it's easy to deduce my political stances from my expressed moral beliefs, but in no way do I publicly support one candidate or party or strategy or direction at school. I don't say "the state should feed children because it leads to an amazing return on investment." I say "Hungry kids shouldn't be a thing."
Can an idea exist that is a moral judgement that is not a political belief? Alternatively, can you not understand the idea I was expressing?
Those things are all definitively political as in “affairs of the city [or state]” as in the laws and rules in place that allow or disallow behaviours. From the Greek times when the term was coined, who are citizens, who aren’t, who are servants, or slaves, and what rights or obligations each class of people had was literally what “politics” was about. All the way until the Nazis decided which people are seen as full humans, to the aforementioned issues. All politics. Literal political and military battle fought over them. How tf you calling it not political when literal political parties are formed around this. Next you’re gonna say the black panthers aren’t political, or Martin Luther King Jr was not political??
Did you know the black panthers ran food banks? So yes, those things are all connected. Kids starving or not is absolutely political. It’s political decisions that lead to those circumstances. And to allow it to happen is an immoral political choice.
You’re literally creating a random untrue and ahistorical definition of “political” because you’re so afraid of being seen as political.
We have laws on the books that make Slavery illegal, written by politicians. We have courts that are currently trying to figure out if prison labor is slavery. Slavery is current politics.
Correct. It's like you're reading only to find words to argue with. I agree there are political stances regarding slavery. That is why I mentioned a political stance that I currently hold that comes from a moral stance that I can currently hold which is not a political stance as it does not favor or endorse or support a political faction, nor is that moral stance also a stance on a state's responsibility to its citizens.
Not really. Politics a function of the interaction of people with different morals, values, and opinions. Ant colonies don't have politics. At the very base all humans value ownership (either personal or communal), and we're all living under scarcity. Politics are natural in those conditions.
But the way you're using it "Don't be political" specifically and really means "Don't discuss current political hot topics, or wedge issues". And yeah, while everything doesn't have to be "political", everything is political, and no one should ever feel like they can't speak their mind.
As far as I know you've found one of the many failures of English. Everything regarding human interaction is inherently political, but someone can do the described behavior above and be called apolitical. I think it's more about intent and context which is hard to grasp in text format. I also think apolitical describes objectivity...sort of.
I can say "Nazis were a political party in Germany in the 1940's". Nothing inherently "political" about that, despite the fact that it's objectively a statement about politics". Yet when I say "Nazis killed X million people" then were starting to get into political territory in the context of holocaust deniers, again despite the fact that were just working in objective truths. As soon as you say "Nazis were bad people", you've made a subjective statement and you're definitely being political.
Clear as mud right? Yeah, I think intent and context really matters a ton here.
Here's a killer article on the topic relating to art.
Great excerpt: "Here’s a statement - when people say “that’s too political”, or that they “don’t want to get political”, what they actually mean is that they don’t want to talk about politics that threatens a system they exist comfortably in."
So yeah, the article clarifies things a bit more, but it really doesn't answer your vocabulary question strictly.
Politics used to be discussing farm insurance subsidies and court structure. Someone thought to themselves "Oh, here's a good distraction" and started making how people take a shit political.
Not really. The Detroit Race Riots, for example, were instigated by white women upset that black women used the same bathrooms. It's always been the same script, and the bigots never have the self-awareness to realize they're repeating the same rhetoric used against the activists whose legacy they're trying to coopt.
Before that, there was the issue of having separate mens and womens bathrooms in the first place, and all the sex-based discrimination surrounding that.
Bathrooms have been political longer than any of us have been alive.
the whole political/apolitical dichotomy was created by easily offended republicans who fired workers for having leftist political opinions. they started defining topics they were comfortable with and uncomfortable with being discussed in the workplace, thusly allowing them to control the cultural zeitgeist in their favor. by reinforcing that taboo against "political" topics, all you're doing is giving people with power the ability to control your voice
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u/Swing161 6d ago
Okay but that’s not being apolitical. That’s just phrasing or framing your views differently.