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I promise it's not performative. I am part of another Internet community where "apolitical" means "is not ringing round door to door trying to persuade people t

I promise it's not performative. I am part of another Internet community where "apolitical" means "is not ringing round door to door trying to persuade people to vote in a certain way", and of course I have a strong aversion to politics in that sense. Aside from anything else, it seems highly arrogant to expect that I am somehow so much more right than the other half of the population, in the field of politics which I have no special understanding of at all. I'm not promoting apathy; I am recognising that I have no reason to believe I'm more right than everyone else here, so I will contribute my vote and I will try to understand things, but I won't try and persuade others. On the other hand, I will try and persuade others in areas where I do feel that I have unusually good knowledge. I really am highly uncertain about what people generally expect these days from words like "apolitical", especially because I perceive this as being one of the areas where there is very strong social pressure to Not Seem Like An Arsehole and so there is no clarification in the downward direction. I think the meaning of these words has been changing quite rapidly, even over the last five years or so.

didibus 6y ago
Being apolitical is an attitude, not an outcome. It is not actually possible to be apolitical in outcome. All your choice of doing or not doing have political impact. That's just the nature of existing with others. When discussing the attitude, the question is about how much you care. If you are apolitical, you don't care enough about other people's political issues to put any active effort behind or against it. You can pretend to care, like I really care about gay rights, but don't have time to help. That only means you care more about other things, and not enough about gay rights. Someone might challenge your pretentions here, for example, they could say well isn't there anything you can do if you do care? Donate? Make sure you vote for people who support gay rights? Retweet pro gay rights information? Put a sign up on your lawn? Or just tell others in casual conversations why you think gay rights is important, etc. But if you did any of this, you'd be political, not apolitical. So you'd need to say, actually I don't care about gay rights, and I'm not going to do anything about it. Only then are you truly apolitical to the issue of gay rights. But that choice will have a political impact either for or against gay rights, so while your attitude is apolitical, your inaction still is. > I perceive this as being one of the areas where there is very strong social pressure to Not Seem Like An Arsehole and so there is no clarification in the downward direction This is just you being now personally affected by a political matter. As more and more group interactions make you feel like an Arsehole about the topic of being apolitical, you begin to suffer personally. This in turn will motivate you to stop being apolitical on this very issue, and here you are actively commenting about it and trying to influence other's opinion of it. And this is where certain people are saying, you cannot be apolitical if you arn't privileged. As soon as the current politics start to affect you personally in a negative way, your intrinsic motivation to become politically active goes up. Now you're commenting, because it affects you only slightly, if it became a huge problem you might start knocking door to door about it.
- Smaug123 6y ago
  > Being apolitical is an attitude, not an outcome. Crux successfully found, thanks! In all the interactions I can remember where this has come up, this has not been made clear to me, because people usually equivocate between attitude and action, or are unclear which of the two they are referring to. Even in the original comment, I think I misunderstood what was being said: > If one of the main parties running wants to prevent you from marrying the person you love, you can't just be apolitical. I interpreted this as "you are compelled to act"; apparently in fact it means the much more obviously-correct "you can't avoid having a political opinion".

didibus 6y ago

Being apolitical is an attitude, not an outcome. It is not actually possible to be apolitical in outcome. All your choice of doing or not doing have political impact. That's just the nature of existing with others. When discussing the attitude, the question is about how much you care. If you are apolitical, you don't care enough about other people's political issues to put any active effort behind or against it. You can pretend to care, like I really care about gay rights, but don't have time to help. That only means you care more about other things, and not enough about gay rights. Someone might challenge your pretentions here, for example, they could say well isn't there anything you can do if you do care? Donate? Make sure you vote for people who support gay rights? Retweet pro gay rights information? Put a sign up on your lawn? Or just tell others in casual conversations why you think gay rights is important, etc. But if you did any of this, you'd be political, not apolitical. So you'd need to say, actually I don't care about gay rights, and I'm not going to do anything about it. Only then are you truly apolitical to the issue of gay rights. But that choice will have a political impact either for or against gay rights, so while your attitude is apolitical, your inaction still is. > I perceive this as being one of the areas where there is very strong social pressure to Not Seem Like An Arsehole and so there is no clarification in the downward direction This is just you being now personally affected by a political matter. As more and more group interactions make you feel like an Arsehole about the topic of being apolitical, you begin to suffer personally. This in turn will motivate you to stop being apolitical on this very issue, and here you are actively commenting about it and trying to influence other's opinion of it. And this is where certain people are saying, you cannot be apolitical if you arn't privileged. As soon as the current politics start to affect you personally in a negative way, your intrinsic motivation to become politically active goes up. Now you're commenting, because it affects you only slightly, if it became a huge problem you might start knocking door to door about it.

Smaug123 6y ago
> Being apolitical is an attitude, not an outcome. Crux successfully found, thanks! In all the interactions I can remember where this has come up, this has not been made clear to me, because people usually equivocate between attitude and action, or are unclear which of the two they are referring to. Even in the original comment, I think I misunderstood what was being said: > If one of the main parties running wants to prevent you from marrying the person you love, you can't just be apolitical. I interpreted this as "you are compelled to act"; apparently in fact it means the much more obviously-correct "you can't avoid having a political opinion".