What is political and what isn't?

Most seem to think it’s “obvious”. Spoiler: that obvious answer screws people up unnecessarily.

Some examples that are loosely based on personal experience:

• “We are German.” Stating your nation isn’t usually seen as “political”.
• “We are Taiwanese.” [Taiwanese flags get confiscated]
• “Keep politics out of sports!”

China makes Taiwanese nationhood needlessly controversial, and Taiwan’s own history of being occupied by the ROC only to have the ROC slowly (but not completely) morph into a Taiwanese state also makes this choice (are we the ROC, “ROC(Taiwan)”, “Taiwan(ROC)”, or just Taiwan) possibly controversial. But sports is a place where it’s necessary to recognize nations. Refusing to think by short-circuiting to “it’s obviously politics” and “politics is obviously irrelevant” is, well… refusing to think when you really should be having a sober discussion.

• “I should be able to wear what I want in front of Dad. They aren’t socially inappropriate.”
• “You should keep conflicts out. Don’t bring your [political] ideology into this.”
• ”????”

My sister, you’ve just interpreted my identity as an ideology. I wasn’t citing Marx, I wasn’t mentioning or thinking of any ideologies. I just wanted to stop putting up a fucking facade.

What “political” actually means is that this topic is controversial, and “keep politics out” means “we pick a default option and do not hold the discussion here”. To be clear and to try to not overcorrect, this can make sense: political topics are hard to resolve or come to a conclusion of, and sometimes it’s necessary to put it aside. But you should at least be aware of that choice.

However, often this choice to shut out what is deemed as “political” is made unconsciously (because it’s obvious, right?) and unjustifiably and unnecessarily shuts out people:

• In sports involving nations, drawing boundaries or deciding which nations to include/recognize/compromise on is a relevant topic. Stating a Taiwanese identity is not more political than banning a Taiwanese identity; you do not get to define one as political and one as not. You have still picked a side, and should at least own the choice.
• In having one’s existence, identity, or fight for basic rights deemed as “political” and “shouldn’t be brought in”, the same thing is at play.

Keep things relevant, not “apolitical”

“Political” means “possibly controversial”, and “keep politics out” should instead be “keep things relevant and on topic”, otherwise you will accidentally/unknowingly/irresponsibly overrule important voices just because you “intuitively” ruled it to be “politics” and screw people over! (This is not a wording issue; those words don’t just technically differ.)

In general, you don’t get to choose whether you “have politics” or not. Politics comes to you, for better or for worse, because everything can be controversial; by the time you notice “politics” is showing up you already have a political issue, and it doesn’t become not political even if you shut out the dissenters. You have to choose to moderate what is and isn’t relevant, and you do not get to hide behind “no politics” when you’re trying to get rid of positions or opinions that are actually relevant and fair.

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Another note. This is published on politics.kisaragi-hiu.com, my blog for what I deem as political, which suggests it isn’t just about controversy, because “using package.el at the same time as straight.el” can also be controversial but I’d never deem that to be “political” in a general sense. A more complete definition would be it’s controversial in a way that involves policy choices or societal opinions.