On Mon, April 21, 2014 12:04 pm, Rick Moen wrote:
Anyway, that matter aside, in my experience there's a far more prosaic explanation for the meme that politics shouldn't be discussed: bad history of same. It's a commonplace that most such discussions _do_ devolve into muckslinging. Therefore, the perception that they should be nipped in the bud is quite understandable, without dark suspicions of militant muttonheadedness.
An interesting point Rick, and one that is very close to my own studies in social theory via Hannah Arendt. Arendt claimed that it was not "politics" that was involved in the grounding of the totalitarian states of the twentieth century, but rather those states made sure that there was no debate about political matters. Whilst she concentrated on Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union (c.f., "The Origins of Totalitarianism") she also could bring it down to the personal level, noting that Adolf Eichmann ("Eichmann in Jerusalem") had no pathological hatred towards Jews, and lacked any substantial interest in politics beyond his desire to be a model and normal citizen. It is from Eichmann's personality that Arendt coined the phrase "the banality of evil". Following this Wiesenthal wrote: "The world now understands the concept of 'desk murderer'. We know that one doesn't need to be fanatical, sadistic, or mentally ill to murder millions; that it is enough to be a loyal follower eager to do one's duty". Arendt's general principle, and one that I agree with, it is societies that do not discuss politics, that destroy their public sphere of critical debate and disagreement, that end up sliding into totalitarian and simplistic authoritarian societies. Even with the trappings of a trivilised happy consciousness where any disturbing matters are pushed out-of-sight, out-of-mind, and preferably somewhere else. -- Lev Lafayette, BA (Hons), GradCertTerAdEd (Murdoch), GradCertPM, MBA (Tech Mngmnt) (Chifley) mobile: 0432 255 208 RFC 1855 Netiquette Guidelines http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt