7 ms·

If everything is political then nothing is political and the term loses all meaning

iovrthoughtthis 6y ago
Perhaps that is because, in this instance the term “political” has 2 meanings which we need to tease out to see why your statement is false. 1. Political intent - acting or omitting to act because of a political view point. 2. Political outcomes - the results of actions or omissions to act which impact politics. I guess my point is that your actions and omissions have political outcomes whether you want them to or not. We should also agree what “politics” means. I’m not simply referring to the science of government but to the decisions around the distribution of power, resources and status in groups of people.
- fwn 6y ago
  > I guess my point is that your actions and omissions have political outcomes whether you want them to or not. It does not even stop there. If we choose to understand what's political in this way everything that humans choose to relate to (even things that do not exist beyond human imagination) have, of course, probably some influence on political outcomes. Rain, an escaped alligator from the local zoo, the color of a button in a web form, etc. I think that this second idea of what's political is merely the realization that we can choose to view everything according to it's political impact. Like a pair of glasses we might wear or might want others to wear. ...to stick with my example: One might end up making a long term study on how news about escaped zoo animals affect election outcomes. That might lead to surprising results. It's just not always guaranteed to be a very productive use of time. I think there's probably a healthy middle ground here. It's not hard to argue that there's some reasonable moral expectations regarding company decision making. Like, don't construct gas chambers. (Local example from my German home region.) On the other side it's easy to see that insisting on questioning every minor decision will lead to almost instant gridlock. That's why I think that both radical positions are pretty hard to defend. A better society might hide behind pragmatic decision making with some reasonable, probably even academically shallow moral questioning of ones own actions. Not in corporate apathy or zealotry.
  - iovrthoughtthis 6y ago
    What is your point?
    - fwn 6y ago
      My point is your parent is right and you are wrong. Artificially extending what's seen as political to excess is a pointless exercise that removes all meaning and usefulness from the concept. That's bad because a shared understanding of some political sphere (which comes into existence through its boundaries) is really important for democratic discourse.
      - joshuamorton 6y ago
        That sounds nice, but how, and as importantly who decides what those boundaries are?
        fwn 6y ago
        In a best case scenario those boundaries are continuously questioned in the democratic discourse. Some moral entrepreneur might argue: Politics should govern the bedroom for [reasons]! ... and others might object: No; the bedroom is a private sphere where politics has no say for [reasons]. ... and over time there should emerge a shared understanding of which aspects of life are political grounds and which are taboo. The bedroom case is mostly decided today. One side won (mostly LGBTQ&Friends) and now we see the bedroom as something that should be free from politics. ..like I think that the vast majority of people in the western world now sees sodomy laws as bad fit for modern democracies. But there are other issues that are more contemporary: The idea that speech is violence, for example, is prime moral entrepreneurship. Western societies regulate violence in a certain way and this equivalence would suggest to treat both equivalent, one way or the other. ... and it's far from decided how speech will be treated in the future and we all have many open arguments on the matter. It's a healthy thing for societies to continuously re explore their specific boundaries of politics. I have difficulties seeing the "everything is political"-trope as anything but the proposal to be reckless regarding the process of a shared understanding of the boundaries of politics.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Perhaps that is because, in this instance the term “political” has 2 meanings which we need to tease out to see why your statement is false. 1. Political intent - acting or omitting to act because of a political view point. 2. Political outcomes - the results of actions or omissions to act which impact politics. I guess my point is that your actions and omissions have political outcomes whether you want them to or not. We should also agree what “politics” means. I’m not simply referring to the science of government but to the decisions around the distribution of power, resources and status in groups of people.

fwn 6y ago
> I guess my point is that your actions and omissions have political outcomes whether you want them to or not. It does not even stop there. If we choose to understand what's political in this way everything that humans choose to relate to (even things that do not exist beyond human imagination) have, of course, probably some influence on political outcomes. Rain, an escaped alligator from the local zoo, the color of a button in a web form, etc. I think that this second idea of what's political is merely the realization that we can choose to view everything according to it's political impact. Like a pair of glasses we might wear or might want others to wear. ...to stick with my example: One might end up making a long term study on how news about escaped zoo animals affect election outcomes. That might lead to surprising results. It's just not always guaranteed to be a very productive use of time. I think there's probably a healthy middle ground here. It's not hard to argue that there's some reasonable moral expectations regarding company decision making. Like, don't construct gas chambers. (Local example from my German home region.) On the other side it's easy to see that insisting on questioning every minor decision will lead to almost instant gridlock. That's why I think that both radical positions are pretty hard to defend. A better society might hide behind pragmatic decision making with some reasonable, probably even academically shallow moral questioning of ones own actions. Not in corporate apathy or zealotry.
- iovrthoughtthis 6y ago
  What is your point?
  - fwn 6y ago
    My point is your parent is right and you are wrong. Artificially extending what's seen as political to excess is a pointless exercise that removes all meaning and usefulness from the concept. That's bad because a shared understanding of some political sphere (which comes into existence through its boundaries) is really important for democratic discourse.
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      That sounds nice, but how, and as importantly who decides what those boundaries are?
      - fwn 6y ago
        In a best case scenario those boundaries are continuously questioned in the democratic discourse. Some moral entrepreneur might argue: Politics should govern the bedroom for [reasons]! ... and others might object: No; the bedroom is a private sphere where politics has no say for [reasons]. ... and over time there should emerge a shared understanding of which aspects of life are political grounds and which are taboo. The bedroom case is mostly decided today. One side won (mostly LGBTQ&Friends) and now we see the bedroom as something that should be free from politics. ..like I think that the vast majority of people in the western world now sees sodomy laws as bad fit for modern democracies. But there are other issues that are more contemporary: The idea that speech is violence, for example, is prime moral entrepreneurship. Western societies regulate violence in a certain way and this equivalence would suggest to treat both equivalent, one way or the other. ... and it's far from decided how speech will be treated in the future and we all have many open arguments on the matter. It's a healthy thing for societies to continuously re explore their specific boundaries of politics. I have difficulties seeing the "everything is political"-trope as anything but the proposal to be reckless regarding the process of a shared understanding of the boundaries of politics.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]