Well, the problem is that practically anything can be "politics", I don't think it's a useful way to frame thinking around what you can or can't say at work. G

Well, the problem is that practically anything can be "politics", I don't think it's a useful way to frame thinking around what you can or can't say at work. Generally though, when people say something is "politics" what it means is it comes down to a value judgement, rather than there being a middle solution, or the issue is too complicated for there to be a general consensus. As an example that probably wouldn't come up at work, consider the abortion question. If you're of the fundamentalist religious sort, your values practically demand you believe that aborting a baby is wrong. If you're not, then it's a lot more grey. Something like that is a value issue, there isn't really a compromise that doesn't involve one side changing fundamental beliefs about the world and the universe. To answer your specific issues though: - lgbt: not relevant. It's illegal to discriminate on that, so... either your company is following the law or it's not. Also: nobody needs to know. It doesn't need to be discussed, it just either needs to be litigated or not litigated. But no smart company wants their employees talking about their personal views on that because that could be a huge liability if someone has intolerant personal views (even if they don't apply them professionally). - Women in tech & underrepresented minorities: ... well it IS a pipeline problem. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of companies would love to have more diversity, but you can only hire the people that apply. I see a lot of the SJ types make offices miserable hammering on this stuff that frequently can't be fixed locally. I mean yeah, if someone is scaring away people, then address that behavior, but that's more of a "having respectful competent management" issue. - Education - Never really heard of this being an issue that isn't allowed to be talked about. I don't think anyone would really get upset about this though. Also, as others have mentioned... a lot of times when people say these issues should be "discussed" they don't really mean that. The far left generally hates "discussion" on their pet issues if there's even a hint of not towing the party line, and it quickly escalates into people being called racist. So frequently, avoiding "politics" is just saying, "please pick your fight somewhere else"