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Comment by ardy42 | Hacker News Reader

> The disagreement is what makes things political. There isn't an inherent "political" quality sitting in things.

That's true in a sense (e.g. plate tectonics is not political), but it's false you start dealing with things that intersect with human society. For instance: anything to do with power over others, the makeup of society, or the kind of actions people are allowed, encouraged, or forbidden to do is inherently political.

> By analogy, most things in the world are apolitical until quarrelsome people with pet issues show up and make them political.

Not really, and that's just a pretty typical (political!) ad hominem argument made by people who want to maintain the status quo, whatever that is. Stated another way, you're saying the people who want change are troublemakers who should know their place.

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> Stated another way, you're saying the people who want change are troublemakers who should know their place.

First, that's only the case if you assume that by "political" I mean bad. But "political" isn't necessarily bad.

Secondly, and more importantly, to make something political is often to imagine some unjust status quo to be overturned. But imagination has power of reifying fantasies to actual events. In other words, to make something political is often to exercise power at the expense of others and to justify it by portraying your action as serving to overturn a status quo. Even status quo can use this to further their power! Freedom isn't always the net outcome of politics.

>>> By analogy, most things in the world are apolitical until quarrelsome people with pet issues show up and make them political.

>> Stated another way, you're saying the people who want change are troublemakers who should know their place.

> First, that's only the case if you assume that by "political" I mean bad. But "political" isn't necessarily bad.

No, I assume that by "quarrelsome people with pet issues" you mean bad. I thought that was pretty obvious.

> In other words, to make something political is often to exercise power at the expense of others and to justify it by portraying your action as serving to overturn a status quo.

This is "speech is violence" level nonsense.

If someone challenges a status quo that you like ("makes something political" in your parlance), then actually defend that status quo. Don't gripe about how those quarrelsome people ruined your nice "apolitical day."

> If someone challenges a status quo that you like ("makes something political" in your parlance), then actually defend that status quo

Incidentally, that right there is a good illustration of how being apolitical is different from supporting the status quo.

Going to a protest to defend the status quo from change is defending the status quo. Not having an opinion about some particular detail of how society operates is being apolitical.

>> If someone challenges a status quo that you like ("makes something political" in your parlance), then actually defend that status quo. Don't gripe about how those quarrelsome people ruined your nice "apolitical day."

> Incidentally, that right there is a good illustration of how being apolitical is different from supporting the status quo.

> Going to a protest to defend the status quo from change is defending the status quo. Not having an opinion about some particular detail of how society operates is being apolitical.

Not really. You're trying to restrict "doing politics" to certain overt political rituals ("going to a protest"), which I think is false restriction.

However, you missed my point in your incomplete quote: the act of griping that things should be kept "apolitical" is itself a kind of protest for the status quo, just a disguised one.

Now you might have a point that someone's ignorance of an issue could make them in some sense "apolitical" in relation to it. However, once the issue has been articulated to them in a way they understand, they're no longer ignorant and have taken some position, even if that's tacit approval of the status quo.

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