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To each their own.
Distancing from politics is a political act.
Being embedded in a society formed by politics, they become beneficiary and victim to what others decide.
I can empathize and understand why one would be apolitical. Some things need activism and political involvement, though. Investing the minimum is not that hard - if you at least know your sources. If they’re aware of being a beneficiary and there’s no immediate need for activism, I’m find with their political decision to be apolitical. If they ignore (glaring) issues, I may be a bit disappointed or sad.
If someone claims to be apolitical, they just don’t want to talk about it with you; even if they agree with you.
Even in the army, when we were supposed to present as apolitical, we still voted, which means we needed to consider and learn and understand. We just didn’t talk about it at work or socially.
It’s fucking absurd that we’ve let our country run so very far from reflecting the people’s will that we can’t even talk to each other about the thing we’re all supposed to do to supposedly continue selecting that representation.
I’m not sure if you expanded over broader society, but people of public institutions not making (public/visible) political remarks has good reasons: As representatives of the public institutions which are supposed to serve all citizens it’s important they are seen and trusted to be neutral and serving the state, the public, everyone.
If public servants talk one way or the other, others may lose trust.
Obviously, right now people are losing trust, and for good reasons, for other reasons and prevalence.
Politics has just always been such a no-no topic at work, it’s no wonder we can’t organize any sort of real labor movement now.
I think it’s even worse in the MAGA era.
we still voted, which means we needed to consider and learn and understand…
I feel like that particular voting strategy is long dead in the U.S. and Canada. Knowledge?! Who needs it?!
Assuming US or similar, they’re dumber than the MAGA cultists at this point, or are MAGA themselves but ashamed to admit it.
There are no apolitical people.
Only people who don’t understand that everything is political.
When you’re stuck in traffic commuting to work, that’s a result of political decisions made by others.
When you go to work despite being sick, that’s forced on you by political decisions made by others.
When you have to decide between buying your meds and buying food, that’s due to political decisions made by others.
“Apolitical people” just accept (or are forced) to let others dictate how they live.I had a friend years ago that studied political science at uni, that told me i couldnt discuss politics cause i hadnt. Took me a while to realise who the idiot was.
Unfortunately too many are like him and i.
when i poop is that political?
what if when i go to work, i sometimes drive, sometimes walk, sometimes take a bike, and sometimes take public transit, depending on the weather or my mood? does that mean my politics changes each and every day?
what if when i go to work, i sometimes drive, sometimes walk, sometimes take a bike, and sometimes take public transit, depending on the weather or my mood? does that mean my politics changes each and every day?
The fact that you even have those options, as well as the weather, are affected by politics.
when i poop is that political?
Yes, when you do it at work.
Even at home. The luxury of indoor plumbing and utilities in general are pretty firmly political.
sorry, so who i vote for affects if it’s cold or not?
If you buy the current science on global warming, literally yes. The politics of generations ago still affect us to this day, including such things as the fossil fuel industry’s massive prevalence.
OK, so I voted for harris. And it’s cold this year.
apparently my voted caused it to be cold this year.
did i vote wrong if i didn’t want it to be cold?
You’re not interested in good faith discussion, so literally fuck off!
is in good faith discussion if I start pointing out the absurdities that come from your arguments? that are massively overgeneralized?
lots of things are apolitical. most people are not thinking about politics every moment of everyday. even if you are.
Something like the climate is a centuries long process to change. Your vote moved the needle one way or the other, absolutely. But something like the climate takes generations, multiple administrations, choices, processes…
So like… You didn’t vote for it to be cold, no. You voted for a person who had a set of policies that will impact the world, moving things in a certain direction. And further, the fact that the world is as it is now is the result of all of those previous votes throughout history. You live IN politics. You are not exempt from it, your world is literally molded by it.
you are basically arguing for the butterfly effect. i open my car door, does that cause a typhoon in japan?
if i did, how could it ever be proven?
and if things are so deterministic, what is the point of making choices really?
most of us are not that important. my vote for harris did nothing to help or harm the climate or change weather patterns. i won’t be here in 50 years, let alone 500, so it climate policy is irrelevant to me.
I vote all the time. just don’t have any delusion that my vote is this big huge deal or that I’m ‘changing the world’. I also don’t care about a lot of issues, and that’s fine. I am limited being with limited time and resources and I not everything I do is an explicit endorsement of any politics. Perhaps for you it is, but for me it’s not.
Just like maybe you enjoy PB and J sandwiches, and I do not. People are different. Some people don’t ever have a PB & J sandwich in their life, and the concept doesn’t exist to them.
Are you pooping at work? Politics that force companies to allow you to have bathroom breaks can be thanked.
Is there a sidewalk when you walk or ride a bike? Thank your taxes and the people that pushed city politicians to install those pathways.
Like being able to take public transit? Then be glad regulations and ordinances in your city encouraged those services to be available.
Your political opinions and your thoughts on how your community and city are run, will most certainly change with regularity if you are putting in the effort to understand what can be done to improve things. And most people start with the things that affect them on the daily.
no, i don’t poop at work. is pooping in my own house a political act too?
i ride my bike in the road with cars. riding on the sidewalk is illegal and dangerous.
public transit is often falling apart where i live. it has been underfunded for 50 years. it’s very unreliable and nobody wants to fix it because that would mean raising taxes.
Pooping itself, no. Probably not political. But getting to the point where you have indoor plumbing, provided by a utility company you probably pay significantly less than the actual cost of said utility? Yeah, that’s the direct result of politics.
which politics though? is that progressive or conservative?
It’s not about sides, in this context. It’s just -political-. Whether you vote conservative, progressive, anything in between, you, me, and the whole rest of the world has to deal with that decision.
So I vote for Harris and she doesn’t win, it’s my fault she lost? and i’m personally responsible for USAID being dismantled?
You’re American, aren’t you?
Politics isn’t sports ball. Especially on a local level, it usually isn’t “us vs them”, it’s a bunch of people with different opinions about how things are supposed to be done. Politics is more complicated than red vs. blue.
Although the US “red” and “blue” parties do everything they can to convince people like you it’s that simple.Yeah I am. Where I live it very much is sportsball. Even on the local level.
I am involved in my local cities politics. It is not very complicated. Most people believe in winners vs losers and most every debate is framed that way. it has nothing to do with red vs blue. my city is like 90% blue, but still very anti-progressive on many issues.
for example in my city bike lanes are super controversial, because while the city has been adding them, many residents feel that bike lanes are theft from cars and car owners. many of these very same people are progressives, who have BLM stickers on their lawns in multi-million dollar homes, but think bike lanes are for ‘privileged white people’ and their are just poor struggling folks!
I’m not following what your line of questioning is supposed to be asking or proving in this thread.
Everything you do, at home or work, is shaped by political decisions that people have made in your name, whether or not you want to be directly involved in the making of those decisions is up to you, but you’re still part of the political system by using it and benefiting from it and paying your taxes.
Everything you do, at home or work, is shaped by God. God made you, whether or not you want to be directly involved in the making up of his world is up to you, but you’re still part of the God by using it and benefiting form his generosity and existence.
my line of questioning is to point out the absurdities of what you are saying that derive from such a vastly over generalized as to be totally pointless and any generally broad concept can be used. God, nature, the Force, etc.
You seem to think politics is anything and everything, sort of like how religious people see God, or natural spiritualist see nature. You are imposing a generalized belief structure on everyone, without realizing a lot of people just don’t believe in what you believe in. And you deem anyone agree with your belief structure as heretical and ignorant.
I don’t believe anyone does anything ‘in my name’. But I don’t see myself as part of some grand unified force you seem to believe in and call ‘politics’. I’m only a part of the systems I choose to be a part of, by my own desires. I vote for certain things, support certain things, and not others. It’s all very specific to me and sometimes I don’t have any views or concerns on the topic because it has no impact on me…
when i poop is that political?
The price of the toilet you use, the cost and coverage of the sewage system used to take the poop away, the question of whether or not you need to clock out of work to do that poop, what happens to the wastewater from that toilet and how your tax dollars are spent maintaining that system, are all political questions that others who had involvement with the system worked out before you, so you can shit without thinking about it and so your community doesn’t end up with cholera.
But I promise, if anyone decided to change any of that because it became apparent people “don’t really care about politics” you would notice pretty fast.
It means that the impacts of the politics on you change each day. It means you are in a place where the politics have allowed you to have these myriad options.
and if i moved to where only travel by car was viable, what does that imply about my politics?
I’m not reading you. Nothing is implied by anything. You live in a political world. It is shaped by the politics going on around you. Your simple existence shapes the politics of the world. You cannot be apolitical. You can only be ignorant of the myriad ways politics influences your life, your abilities, the obstacles you fact, the choices you have… Everything.
I’m not saying you have to pick a specific side, or that anything you do means you’re going to vote one way or the other. That’s insane. Its a bit like Rush. You ever listen to them? If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. You can choose not to engage with politics actively, but you’re still engaging with it by just existing. May as well do so with an informed opinion.
I feel like they’re trolling tbh.
edit: yah just unhinged whinging about personal feelings, I blocked.
Meh, probably. It’s fun though.
Indirectly, yes. How is the infrastructure of your town/city maintained. Is it falling apart or is it in good condition. Do the richer neighbourhoods coincidentally see more city workers updating their plumbing while you sometimes have to flush twice to get it all down because of unmaintained pipes, and are therefore paying a higher water bill as a result?
These are all political decisions.
i have no direct say in any of that.
especially as i don’t have the cash to say, tear down my building and rebuild an entirely new modern one with new plumbing.
But that’s exactly the point. That would be what people who vote would look for in a local election. What’s this politicians stance on spending money on ageing infrastructure. (For example)
We’re not saying its “progressive” or “conservative” just that everything is political at the end of that day.
Mr Plato, you’ve got yourself a deal!
Government is inevitable.
Apolitical people just want to avoid conflict.
They think they exist, but they do not. “Apolitical” usually just means “Fine with the status quo” which isn’t apolitical, it’s at bst non-confrontational. It also tends to reek of ignorance of what’s actually happening around them. That’s all at best, there are tons of people who use “Apolitical” to push far right agendas in spaces not centered around politics.
There’s a reason the joke of “Only two races/genders/etc exist to gamers; white/male/etc, and political.” You can replace gamers with any group that’s (at least perceived to be) predominantly white men, and it still comes out.
This is a good way way to put it, and I hadn’t though of that. Switching “apolitical” with “fine with the status quo” is elucidating. I will be doing that from now on.
Thank you for being on lemmy!
Cowards living in denial.
More likely people will really fucked up opinions who know how others will respond if they hear.
Literally an impossible position. Every facet of your day to day life is the result of politics. They may be ignorant of politics. They may hate politics. But they were born into a political world, and so they are a part of politics.
The only way you can escape politics is if you’re literally the only person on a planet.
It’s naive at best, but either willful ignorance or poorly reasoned resistance at worst. You can’t change things by not participating.
And pretending you have any high ground, when you don’t vote because of a singular issue being a problem, is foolish to the extreme.
Some people think they will improve things by not participating because the candidates don’t line up perfectly with their principals. All you get then is the direction others pick for you. You’ve solved nothing, but potentially made things worse.
There is no upside to not participating if you are seeking to improve things. If you are a shitty person and fear other people because of melanated reasons, by all means, allow other more reasonable people handle the voting. But otherwise, look at all the issues and vote for the one that does the most good or the least damage.
They irritate me. I guess I sort of understand, some people have too much going on in their personal lives to pay attention to politics, but it still drives me mad. Especially given the current situation in the Untied States. It’s inching closer and closer to full on holocaust. Soon, people will be being imprisoned and executed purely because of their race and there will be people going “I don’t know anything about that cause I don’t follow politics”. And it will be because of people who couldn’t be bothered to pay attention and vote against it.
Children.
Fully and wholely children. Politics matter; shutting your ears and eyes to reality is not a viable strategy long term, honestly not even in the short term.
Children arent expected to participate in civic matters, at least to the degree adults do. You shirk those duties you are a child in practice. I’m not saying you need a stance on every thing that happens in a society but saying I don’t do politics (no the same as saying I’m not informed enough to have a strong opinion) is not becoming of a responsible adult in a functional society. Unfortunately we have a lot of people who say they’re not into politics as a cover for their beliefs in bad policy.
“Oh, you don’t care about politics. Your landlord does. Your boss does. Your banker does. People with a lot more money, power, and influence do. And they’re interested in what’s good for them, not you.”
Carlin right?
Paraphrased, yes
They’re often conservatives who don’t have the balls to admit it.
They’re cowards.
