polite politics or politics polite

I always think it a curious thing that the English language has a word polite so similar to the word politics.  Looking both up in the dictionary, one can find that polite means “showing regard for others in manners, speech, behavior, etc.; not rude.”  The word politics is defined as “the total complex of relations between people living in society.”  All the other definitions for politics are related to government - but government, one could argue, is a complex relation between people living in society.  And by that definition, we have decided as a society that discussing politics is not polite.

I beg to differ.  

Of course, I probably lost a few readers immediately by invoking that ‘p’ word.  It is an immediate turnoff for a lot of people I know.  A point where a conversation immediately shuts down, people tune out and stop having an interest in what is said.

I suspect we’ve all been burned by that flame to know we don’t want to go near it.  Whether it was a hot-headed debate that had no solution beyond raised blood pressure… or the discomfort of sitting between two opposing and continuously escalating voices - when the moment would be much more valuable if passed in a quieter, more peaceful fashion.  

I understand that.  But I still beg to differ.

Right now we are two months and a day away from the supposed culmination of this year’s noise.  Which means, of course, the noise is only going to escalate and get more insane and screechy and petty and ridiculous.  And more people are going to tune out.  Indeed, they take the tuning out a step further and lambast the noise.  Because how better to show one’s dissatisfaction with noise than to make some noise complaining about it?  

I try not to get irritated or lose patience with people for side-stepping politics.  I get it.  I really understand that desire to avoid conflict.  I do it myself.  Even when I’m at my own dinner table, where I have a rule that any subject is allowed.  If I think it’s going to make one person sitting in a chair less likely to come back to my dinner table, well… I feel a little sad that I’m not being a good hostess.  But also sad that I’m not a skilled enough mediator to make it a good conversation.

That’s something I lament.  That there aren’t conversations about politics.  We don’t talk with one another.  Because that requires listening, processing, and returning a marinated thought.  It doesn’t require agreement.  A major rule of debate is listening to what the previous person said and including that in the next argument.  How can we listen and process and shape our own arguments if we decide that discussing politics isn’t… polite?

So we put it in a special corner, only to take out when we feel safe.  Safely surrounded by sympathetic thinkers or people we know love us enough to not be threatened by an honest expression of opinion.  We avoid the conversation.  We avoid working through our differences.  We avoid making ourselves uncomfortable and having to question what makes it so.  And yet it only seems to make the topic so much more uncomfortable by avoiding it.

Is that better?  Does that actually show a regard for others through behavior and speech?  Just avoiding a subject?  Avoiding having to respect someone’s different opinion?  Denying someone an opportunity to rationalize what they think?  Is that behavior one that prevents one from being rude?  And just because I avoid being rude, does that make me a better person?  Am I a better person if I don’t talk about those things, but still shop at Walmart or buy fast food to demonstrate my love of freedom?  Am I really more polite if I just go along and let those things be?

There is a time for grace.  Indeed, I would prefer that as my de facto attitude.  But I think grace comes more from listening, learning, and accepting that I am not always right instead of just pretending those uncomfortable challenging moments are hiding under the table when the conversation moves onto the more light-hearted topic of, say, the Red Sox.