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> 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 und

by 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.
      - joshuamorton 6y ago
        > It's a healthy thing for societies to continuously re explore their specific boundaries of politics. To rephrase: through political action (such as activism, lobbying and campaigning), societies should continuously reevaluate what topics are within the political sphere. If how we decide what is or is not "acceptably" political is itself a political process, how can you honestly say certain things aren't political. Claiming that bedrooms "aren't" is naive. There are still absolutely exist people who have and are and will continue to try and control what people can do in their bedrooms. Just because one side, and the side you presumably agree with, appears to have won the argument for now, doesn't mean that things are finished. There are lots of things that I think should be outside of the realm of politics: basic human rights, white supremacy, a woman's right to choose. And yet. So we return to the original question: how come those topics are "political", but in your opinion "bedrooms" aren't? (And would someone in the UK agree with you? They probably would, despite laws that affect them). Who decided that bedrooms were off limits but uteruses weren't? How? Why? Can I change that? Those are all political questions. And when you start into this meta-discussion of how do we make something political? The answer is pretty straightforward: you find people who are that there's an issue and you make noise about it. When lots of people see a problem and make noise about it that problem becomes political. Disagreements, on a societal scale, are politics. So "this shouldn't be political" isn't much more than "I don't think the status quo is worth spending resources on". And, well, the people who think there's a problem will disagree on that. And thus: politics. Yeah there are things that I wish we didn't disagree about, but I also am willing to stand by my convictions and say I disagree, instead of hiding behind "this isn't even a discussion, you're not allowed to bring up this complaint because this isn't acceptable politics". If you're fine with the way things are, say that.
adamsea 6y ago
You’re constructing a hypothetical “what-if” that sometimes could be true, but is not guaranteed to be true. I could just as well say “no one should ever argue anything because then people could argue about every little thing and it would be impossible to do anything at all.”
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I don't think it's a hypothetical. Overpoliticization is already at this point. There was a week or so at my company where a slack bot would automatically scold us for not being inclusive if we used the word "guys".
  - adamsea 6y ago
    What is the situation at your company currently?
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      There's still a soft ban on some terms like "slave", "whitelist", etc., but "guys" is allowed again.
      - adamsea 6y ago
        On a recent project we decided to use the term “main” instead of “master” for our primary branch. At first I was like “ugh” - not a big fan of that kind of language change, but then I was like, well, if it does matter to some people, what is my investment in this particular term anyway? I could see how it gets trickier as a company policy, as opposed to something chosen collectively by the group. Nonetheless, with everything going on in the world right now - and I say this as an advocate of free speech and of freedom of expression in art - this seems like such a small thing to stress about. Tbh if this is your big fear then I’d say maybe read more news? Being excoriated for an honest slip Of the tongue or absent mindedness is a different story though and there are definitely people that do that. In some ways I think the conversation to be had around changing how we use certain language is equally or more valuable than the change itself :).

by fwn 6y ago

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.
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      > It's a healthy thing for societies to continuously re explore their specific boundaries of politics. To rephrase: through political action (such as activism, lobbying and campaigning), societies should continuously reevaluate what topics are within the political sphere. If how we decide what is or is not "acceptably" political is itself a political process, how can you honestly say certain things aren't political. Claiming that bedrooms "aren't" is naive. There are still absolutely exist people who have and are and will continue to try and control what people can do in their bedrooms. Just because one side, and the side you presumably agree with, appears to have won the argument for now, doesn't mean that things are finished. There are lots of things that I think should be outside of the realm of politics: basic human rights, white supremacy, a woman's right to choose. And yet. So we return to the original question: how come those topics are "political", but in your opinion "bedrooms" aren't? (And would someone in the UK agree with you? They probably would, despite laws that affect them). Who decided that bedrooms were off limits but uteruses weren't? How? Why? Can I change that? Those are all political questions. And when you start into this meta-discussion of how do we make something political? The answer is pretty straightforward: you find people who are that there's an issue and you make noise about it. When lots of people see a problem and make noise about it that problem becomes political. Disagreements, on a societal scale, are politics. So "this shouldn't be political" isn't much more than "I don't think the status quo is worth spending resources on". And, well, the people who think there's a problem will disagree on that. And thus: politics. Yeah there are things that I wish we didn't disagree about, but I also am willing to stand by my convictions and say I disagree, instead of hiding behind "this isn't even a discussion, you're not allowed to bring up this complaint because this isn't acceptable politics". If you're fine with the way things are, say that.

adamsea 6y ago

You’re constructing a hypothetical “what-if” that sometimes could be true, but is not guaranteed to be true. I could just as well say “no one should ever argue anything because then people could argue about every little thing and it would be impossible to do anything at all.”

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
I don't think it's a hypothetical. Overpoliticization is already at this point. There was a week or so at my company where a slack bot would automatically scold us for not being inclusive if we used the word "guys".
- adamsea 6y ago
  What is the situation at your company currently?
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    There's still a soft ban on some terms like "slave", "whitelist", etc., but "guys" is allowed again.
    - adamsea 6y ago
      On a recent project we decided to use the term “main” instead of “master” for our primary branch. At first I was like “ugh” - not a big fan of that kind of language change, but then I was like, well, if it does matter to some people, what is my investment in this particular term anyway? I could see how it gets trickier as a company policy, as opposed to something chosen collectively by the group. Nonetheless, with everything going on in the world right now - and I say this as an advocate of free speech and of freedom of expression in art - this seems like such a small thing to stress about. Tbh if this is your big fear then I’d say maybe read more news? Being excoriated for an honest slip Of the tongue or absent mindedness is a different story though and there are definitely people that do that. In some ways I think the conversation to be had around changing how we use certain language is equally or more valuable than the change itself :).