"Having a no politics discussion policy is seriously a great policy because politics hurt people."
It came back to me later, however, as I overheard two strangers in a coffee shop talking about how the nature of politics is such that it is a subject generally better avoided altogether. In that moment, I remembered the Tweet, and realized that this idea is actually quite common.
We do avoid politics. We treat it as a caustic, dangerous, and potentially explosive subject, speaking of it as if it might blow up in our faces at any given moment. We hold it at arm's length, as if it is trying to scratch and claw at us or otherwise do serious harm. We steer clear of it, gloss over it, and otherwise discount its importance and consequentiality in society and in our everyday lives. We handle politics with the utmost delicacy (if we choose to handle it at all), wearing gloves and grimacing during the brief and uncomfortable occasions during which we must discuss it out of pure necessity. Sometimes, we disregard it altogether.
It is a major faux pas and a universally acknowledged social error to raise the subject of politics in virtually any context. Attempts to do so are often met with immediate and unequivocal resistance: "We know better than to talk about politics at work", "Everyone knows you shouldn't discuss politics with friends", or "We are not going to agree and everyone will get angry, so let's just drop it". I've heard such stern and austere warnings a myriad of times. I've lost track of how many. Bringing up politics always feels like a serious risk, as if there is a certain level of volatility involved.
This attitude is so very pervasive and automatic, and as I considered it, it rubbed me very deeply raw.
Why is it that we are so afraid of discussing politics? Why is it that there is a general and presuppositional consideration of politics as too inherently polarizing and inalienably vitriolic? Why is it that we assume that we must, at all costs, always neglect politics in the workplace and at social events; that we must avoid discussing politics with our families, friends, coworkers, and neighbors?
It seems that we skirt around and refuse to discuss politics because we have conceded our own civility.
Think about it. When we say "We know better than to talk about politics at work", we are publicly acknowledging and embracing our inability to have a polite and respectful conversation. When we assert that "Everyone knows you shouldn't talk about politics with friends", we are surrendering to our weakness and incapacity to engage in mutually enlightening discourse. When we conject that "We are not going to agree and everyone will be angry", we are admitting defeat to societal patterns of divisive and discourteous dialogue.
Are we really willing to admit that we cannot kindly, sincerely, genuinely, and open-mindedly talk about the things that matter simply because these things are hard? Are we prepared to give up trying to come together and work through topics that are absolutely, definitionally important and universally beneficial simply because they are controversial? Do we resign ourselves to hostility?
This is cowardice, not courage. It is folly, not wisdom.
Refusal to discuss politics is not exemplary of success, it is a demonstration of fear. When we decide against communally conferring with others on issues that are critical and essential to our collective wellbeing, we have not won a victory; rather, we have capitulated to malignancy and malevolence. We have suffered a devastating defeat.
But so goes our strategy: Evade and elude the important conversations because they are difficult. This is a tactic indicative of and driven by weakness and trepidation, not by strength and audacity. We come to this shameful conclusion when we allow ourselves to be jointly motivated by emotional and relational frailty.
Politics is important.
What if William Wilberforce had refused to discuss politics because he knew the controversy it would inspire? What if Martin Luther King Jr. had elected to remain silent on crucial issues because he knew the ensuing dialogue would "stir the pot"? What if the Founding Fathers, the barons who chartered the Magna Carta, the men of ancient Ionia and Athens, or Paul the Apostle had chosen to pretermit meaningful and permanently impactful discourse and dispute because it was challenging and contentious?
The course of history has been significantly altered by the sweeping current and tide of politics. Empires, Dark Ages, World Wars, depressions and recessions, coups, uprisings, downfalls, murders, and the formation or liquidation of entire nations and people groups have been generated by politics. Politics has bestowed upon us premises as fundamental as those of basic human freedom and liberty. It has also ensnared us by offering alternatives that have led to enslavement, genocide, and human devaluation. Politics has brought us ups and downs, successes and failures, positives and negatives, pros and cons. Politics has tendered the Weimar Republic and Nazism, and has given rise to the United States of America and the Western world. Politics has instigated revolutions that have liberated men, as well as tyrannical repression and oppression that has imprisoned countless and cost so many lives. Through politics, we have made tremendous mistakes. Through politics, we have caused and observed remarkable and wonderful new systems and ways of life. We have created monsters, and yet we have also crafted heroes.
All this is true of politics. Yet we should avoid the topic altogether because we might disagree over subsidies, the allocation of tax dollars, and foreign policy?
No.
We must cease building cultural and social patterns predicated on intrinsic anger and hate. We are operating under the assumption that we are supposed to stick to our guns, that we are required to cling to our perspectives whatever the cost, that we are obligated to take politics seriously to the extent that we fail to see beyond our individual discrepancies. We are told that politics is so vital and that our disagreements are so severe and extreme that it becomes virtually impossible to maintain healthy relationships with those who voted for a candidate we did not support or who campaigned for and endorsed policies we do not like. If repetition is the mother of learning, the repetitive rhetoric of the inherent divisive nature of politics has given birth to and spread our schismatic tendencies.
Media discusses the deep political division and discord of this nation; it is a vicious cycle, for this very manner of reporting and presenting the concept only deepens the divide further. Constant harping on the notion that politics has driven a rift between us serves only to highlight that rift further. Chronic dwelling on the anger our differences has caused does little more than deepen and increase that anger. Politics is polarizing because we are told that it is, and we believe it.
It does not have to be.
My friend said "politics hurt people". This is only true if we allow it to.
We must wholly and forcefully reject the cultural stigma surrounding conversational politics. It works only to our detriment. To decide "We will not discuss politics because we are not capable of civil disagreement" is a profound loss, not a triumph influenced and inspired by sage, exegetical thought. It is time to be brave. It is time to be strong and willing to tackle both our differences and the preconceived norms regarding how these differences ought to be discussed and evaluated. It is time to abandon our ingrained tendency to assume the worst of conversations pertaining to our political idiosyncrasies.
It's time to talk about politics.
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