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this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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You’re wrong.
Not a little wrong, just, wrong.
Go and talk to a politic science professor and they will tell you this.
You can’t escape politics because it’s linked to power.
Power structures affect everything in our society therefore politics affects everything.
When someone doesn’t want to ‘make it political’ all they are really doing is attempting to preserve an existing power structure they are a beneficiary of.
Ever considered that politics is not always the essence of everything? I don't care that fundamentally everything may be political. I don't care that we are made up of millions of tiny organisms. I care about the things I care. And that's not your political agenda.
Great but you see when you say 'I don't care about other people' then we loudly don't want to care about you back. That is pretty much it, I don't know why you need to foghorn that you are selfish, is it to rile up others to violence in name of their selfishness? Explain why you have to explain that you don't need something so badly, we dont need anything if we dont wish to live so whats the actual fucking point here to "DONT NEED IT' except to also say "OR ELSE" which is... ALSO A POLITICAL STATEMENT OR ELSE.
Politics is not the essence of everything "To YOU" because you won the genetic/sociopolitical lottery. You sit comfortably atop the suffering of the "other," who does not have the luxury of playing this apolitical card.
I really didn't won the genetic/sociopolitical lottery...
You’re apathetic about it because you benefit from the current structure.
You don’t have to care when you’re already a winner.
Did you ever consider maybe it's just people already talk about politics in a lot of other places, and don't need to talk about it literally 24/7?
Uh no on the contrary. My true self is apparently appalling and unnatural.
When I am cranking it to a model on Only Fans, that’s what I want to think about, not about what politicians may have paid to lick their butthole privately.
So yeah, everything is absolutely political, but sometimes you need a few degrees of separation.
Do you not benefit from the current structure? Who built your phone? I wonder how much they think about politics.
Yes I do benefit and I think it’s unjust which is why I’m a socialist.
I also think it’s unjust, but I don’t shoehorn it into every conversation.
you make socialists look bad
I don’t think you care about their optics beyond brow beating them for having an opinion that upsets you.
Go to a physics professor and they'll tell you everything is physics. Go to a math professor and they'll tell you everything is math. Go to a philosophy professor and they'll tell you everything is philosophical.
Not everything is about power inherently. People can and often will make almost anything about power. But it's not inherent to the thing. But you might disagree.
However the degree to which things are political can vary greatly. Would you agree? Voting at the presidential elections is a more political act than watching birds or playing with my kids.
I think what people mean in your view's context is that they'd like to keep memes away which directly refer to a topic which is to a high degree politicized. Instead they prefer memes which are at maximum very indirectly related to politics.
I'm sure you know that but this is my one try at a good faith discussion.
I don’t disagree with you about each professor thinking their subject is the most relevant.
That’s interesting in and of it self though, maybe people should consider looking through things using different lenses. When they don’t look at a topic as political, maybe they should, perhaps it’d give a perspective they hadn’t previously considered.
In saying people want to keep memes away from politics, the problem is if you accept my premise that anything can relate to politics it’s functionally not possible to keep memes away from politics.
So instead what’s left is actually control on the discourse of what memes we can make and those we can’t. Or rather ‘which ones are political’ (not acceptable) and ‘which ones aren’t political’ (acceptable).
Now practically I agree the bow gets longer to draw on a meme relating to beef stroganoff but who gets to decide the boundary line? I assert no one gets to decide because the boundary doesn’t ever exist. All memes have a political component so to attempt to stifle discussion based on a memes political content is useless.
This is why people who say ‘let’s not make it political’ are really just saying ‘I don’t want you to talk about that topic because it’s unacceptable to me and not something I want to address’ - cool thanks for expressing your opinion, next time not saying anything would be better.
I think the boundary is set in this case by the community and ultimately by the moderators. Would it be an arbitrary and very fuzzy line? Sure. Will everyone like it? No. But that's why it is good that one can simply make their own instances and communities. But I am glad we can agree that different degrees of closeness to politics do exist and that it is possible to differentiate them. You don't think there is value in doing so as I understand it. And I think that's a perfectly sensible point to take.
I think this is why your argument goes a bit into strawman territory. Your interpretation is pure guesswork and putting words in the mouth of others without giving them the benefit of the doubt.
For me personally it is simply that I don't want to have heavily political discussions all the time. As you can probably see from this post here I don't mind a good discussion. Political or otherwise. Although you'd probably argue that every discussion is political.
Sometimes I just want to look at funnies and not think about the complex power dynamics of societies and the world. That doesn't mean I never want to discuss those. But I like to have places where I can go knowing it's not that. And I think several people here want this memes community to be such a place.
People here don’t realise the boundary line of what constitutes acceptable political meme discourse is far away from their expectations.
This the Marxist-Leninist meme community.
If people ‘don’t want politics’ in their memes I’d suggest they go to a different community.
———
My arguments about power are pretty well understood among social science academics. I didn’t come up with these ideas, I was taught them.
That aside, what do you think someone means when they say ‘let’s not talk about this topic’ do you not accept that’s an attempt to exercise power of what is acceptable discourse?
Who are they to decide?
I’d argue they are exercising covert power.
If you’re interested in the academic underpinnings of this view go read Lukes’ paper on the three faces of power.
Sometimes people just want to freely discuss stuff without the overarching politics.
Did you ever think about that?
Then they should say that instead of trying to refute that just about everything is political because just about everything is political.
They literally are? If they are having a discussion and someone brings politics up, “stop making everything political” would mean what else than I don’t want politics in this discussion…?
Thats literally an attempted refutation of everything is inherently political. Its already political, no one you're talking to made it political, they just reminded you of something you tried to ignore. So again if you just dont want to talk about politics, just say that instead of trying to refute that pretty much everything is inherently political. Words have meaning, say what you mean, because implying that the person you're talking to is making thing political is different from saying 'hey im not trying to talk about politics' and it doesn't automatically mean the same thing as "Why do you make everything political", especially in forms of communication like text only. Hell, one of them is a question and the other is a statement, so why would anyone who doesn't want to talk about politics prompt someone with a question that in guaranteed to get an answer that's directly about politics?
Only if you incorrectly take it that way, in the context of the conversation, it would mean, you’re trying to make this political, fuck off.
People can only respond to the words on the screen, not the ones you wanted to say, if you ask someone a question expect an answer. I can't make it simpler.
And “stop making everything political” can’t be simpler either…. If you bring up politics and someone says those exacts words, they mean exactly that. Since you can’t comprehend those words as they are, I have had to describe the term in similar scenarios to help you understand, but you apparently can’t comprehend that either.
You clearly aren’t here to have a discussion in good faith, so stop making everything political and kindly fuck off.
Is that simple enough for you….? Here I’ll try again.
Fuck off.
Again infering it isn't already and you wonder why people respond. At least when you said fuck off you actually said what you meant. Try that more often.
Interestingly enough, that doesn’t work, because people just say. Why so hostile. So if politeness doesn’t work, and hostility doesn’t work… maybe the person you’re talking to isn’t actually trying to have a discussion…? Like you here. Or am I not being “simple” enough for you…?
How am I the one not trying to have a discussion? You think simply because I don't agree with you it means there's no discussion? Then wouldn't you also not be trying to have a discussion? If you tell someone they are making things political, expect them to respond, you're talking about them. If you don't want to talk about politics just say you don't want to. You've yet to respond to those points but insist they mean the same thing, and then you say I'm the one trying not to have a discussion. Hilarious.
Just because it's important doesn't mean we aren't allowed to have happy conversations that don't involve politics which is basically what you are saying we should never do.
Just talk about the happy politics. /s
Remember when Regan got Alzheimer's?
Lol good times
Remember when Thatcher died?
Funniest shit I ever heard.