american politeness requires that we not talk about politics in public and that encourages americans to ignore everything until it impacts them; broaching the subject will label you a malcontent.
american politeness requires that we not talk about politics
Is that really a thing?
People who talk about politics and religion at work tend to get hated at best and fired at worst.
People who talk about politics and religion on social media risk getting lectures from relatives and losing friends.
So yeah, people do not talk about politics and religion in America a lot of the time.
Honestly, the only reason my mother-in-law and I have maintained a really good relationship over the decades is because we just don’t talk about religion or politics. My wife and I are pretty much on the opposite side of the map from her on both. So we just don’t talk about it rather than become enemies. Maybe that’s not the right way to go about things, but it’s saved a lot of stress where we don’t need it.
we just don’t talk about it rather than become enemies.
She surely won’t worry when they cart you and your wife off to Gitmo because you probably had it coming to you.
Obviously we still have political protesters and things like that but nowadays things are so divided politically that it is typically a topic that you would avoid in everyday conversation. If you were to bring up anything political with your coworker at a get together after hours for example and you find that you are on opposite ends of the political spectrum it could make it very difficult to work together at best and potentially endanger you at worst.
that and religion are no no’s.
i googled it and found lots of treatises on the subject
It’s considered impolite to espouse political views here in Australia.
However, I’ve found that taking about issues rather than identities, with a modicum of diplomacy, is usually fine.
I think this would be a lot more difficult in the US with the issues at hand because you’re not deciding mundane things like whether to subsidise roof top solar but rather, whether autocracy would make a nice change.
You used an conservative American political dog whistle when you mentioned identity politics and you’re part of western hegemony as an Australian, so I would be a bad leftist if I let it be.
It’s a dog whistle here because everyone has an identity that comes attached w perpetually unaddressed needs and the ruling class of people only considers their own identity to be the national discourse; establishing that other identities are little more than causes for division.
