Technically, yes, everything is political if you make it political. But you have to make it political first. Petting your cat isn’t inherently political unless you bring up the government policies and economical structures that allow you to own the cat in the first place, or compare your attitude towards the cat to a political stance, or something else of that ilk.
In the same way, everything is scientific if you study it scientifically, and everything is theological if you consider it from a theological perspective. It’s technically true, but that doesn’t make it useful. It says more about the way you think than the nature of reality, especially as politics are a social construct.
And that happened when the first chimpanzee achieved sapience at the start of 2001 a space oddity. From that point forward, everything was political. You can’t close Pandora’s Box, everything is political forever or until the human race dies out.
Buttering your toast has nothing to do with that directly. You can make it political, yes, but if you say everything is political because you can talk about it from a political perspective, then I can say everything is theological because I can talk about it from a theological perspective.
Most people butter their toast with cow butter, which requires the subjugation, forced impregnation, and sexual assault of cows, at least within modern processes for milk acquisition. You’re buttering that toast with slavery. You can close your eyes and go LA LA LA and pretend it’s not true, but it is. You paid someone to pay someone to pay someone to violate a sentient being.
You are participating in a group that made a decision you endorsed to trade suffering for toast. Toast that you could have made with plant butter, but chose not to. The group, the decision, and the suffering do not disappear just because you’re in denial. It’s political.
That’s only true in an academic sense. When a layman uses the term “political”, they refer to discussion pertaining to things like how a formal government is run, comparisons between types of governance, government policy, etc.
While deciding what cookie to eat or what color your cat’s litterbox is might technically be political in an academic sense, you’re just going to annoy people if you try to tell them that those are political decisions. I have found that trying to force academic definitions into common use is confusing at best, annoying on average, and infuriating at worst.
An example of where a word’s academic definition has no place in common speech can be found in “information”. The informal definition of “information” typically is seen as referring to knowledge and the transfer of said knowledge. This definition allows you to gain information from a lack of something.
However, it is my understanding that the scientific definition of “information” does not allow for the aforementioned action, as “information” refers to the properties of physical matter. The result is that you cannot gain “information” from a lack of something. You might be able to come to conclusions based on a lack of “information”, but you cannot actually gain “information” from a lack of something because “information” is inherently linked to matter.
Now. All of that said, this meme is related to something said at an engineering school, so on the one hand, it isn’t entirely out-of-place to expect the academic definition to be used because it is an academic setting. Yet, on the other hand, it is an engineering school, not a political science school. As such, while OP should be aware that the academic definition of “politics” may come into play, it’s also reasonable to expect that their professors and peers would mainly be using the common definition of the term.
However again, in my experience, trying to force academic definitions into casual discussion is confusing at best, annoying on average, and infuriating at worst. Please stop trying to do it. Thanks.
(Also, imo, genocide is like Schrodinger’s Cat; it is both political and not political at the same time. Personally, I think it mainly depends on the depth of the discussion; but its “political” nature varies from person-to-person. Imo, saying that genocide is happening shouldn’t be considered “political”, but talking about why it is occuring is political.)
Edit: whoops, somehow my comment doubled, within the comment. The fuck happened there?
Edit 2: I swear I need to find a new phone keyboard, and I need to read over my comments before submitting. I’m finding a lot of stupid auto-correct errors, and it seems like they’re becoming more common.
Edit 3: the reason I got hung-up on it, and I should have mentioned this, is because I often see “everything is political” used to justify bringing heavier topics into places where it’s inappropriate (like chatrooms where people are trying to just hang out and have light hearted discussions).
Everything is political. And yes, genocide should be talked about, especially ongoing genocides.
Technically, yes, everything is political if you make it political. But you have to make it political first. Petting your cat isn’t inherently political unless you bring up the government policies and economical structures that allow you to own the cat in the first place, or compare your attitude towards the cat to a political stance, or something else of that ilk.
In the same way, everything is scientific if you study it scientifically, and everything is theological if you consider it from a theological perspective. It’s technically true, but that doesn’t make it useful. It says more about the way you think than the nature of reality, especially as politics are a social construct.
No, the politics is there. You’re just in denial.
Politics are a social construct. Without political thought, there are no politics.
And that happened when the first chimpanzee achieved sapience at the start of 2001 a space oddity. From that point forward, everything was political. You can’t close Pandora’s Box, everything is political forever or until the human race dies out.
How do you define politics?
The field concerning group decision making and power within groups.
That’s a sensible definition.
Buttering your toast has nothing to do with that directly. You can make it political, yes, but if you say everything is political because you can talk about it from a political perspective, then I can say everything is theological because I can talk about it from a theological perspective.
Most people butter their toast with cow butter, which requires the subjugation, forced impregnation, and sexual assault of cows, at least within modern processes for milk acquisition. You’re buttering that toast with slavery. You can close your eyes and go LA LA LA and pretend it’s not true, but it is. You paid someone to pay someone to pay someone to violate a sentient being.
You are participating in a group that made a decision you endorsed to trade suffering for toast. Toast that you could have made with plant butter, but chose not to. The group, the decision, and the suffering do not disappear just because you’re in denial. It’s political.
Sigh
That’s only true in an academic sense. When a layman uses the term “political”, they refer to discussion pertaining to things like how a formal government is run, comparisons between types of governance, government policy, etc.
While deciding what cookie to eat or what color your cat’s litterbox is might technically be political in an academic sense, you’re just going to annoy people if you try to tell them that those are political decisions. I have found that trying to force academic definitions into common use is confusing at best, annoying on average, and infuriating at worst.
An example of where a word’s academic definition has no place in common speech can be found in “information”. The informal definition of “information” typically is seen as referring to knowledge and the transfer of said knowledge. This definition allows you to gain information from a lack of something.
However, it is my understanding that the scientific definition of “information” does not allow for the aforementioned action, as “information” refers to the properties of physical matter. The result is that you cannot gain “information” from a lack of something. You might be able to come to conclusions based on a lack of “information”, but you cannot actually gain “information” from a lack of something because “information” is inherently linked to matter.
Now. All of that said, this meme is related to something said at an engineering school, so on the one hand, it isn’t entirely out-of-place to expect the academic definition to be used because it is an academic setting. Yet, on the other hand, it is an engineering school, not a political science school. As such, while OP should be aware that the academic definition of “politics” may come into play, it’s also reasonable to expect that their professors and peers would mainly be using the common definition of the term.
However again, in my experience, trying to force academic definitions into casual discussion is confusing at best, annoying on average, and infuriating at worst. Please stop trying to do it. Thanks.
(Also, imo, genocide is like Schrodinger’s Cat; it is both political and not political at the same time. Personally, I think it mainly depends on the depth of the discussion; but its “political” nature varies from person-to-person. Imo, saying that genocide is happening shouldn’t be considered “political”, but talking about why it is occuring is political.)
Edit: whoops, somehow my comment doubled, within the comment. The fuck happened there?
Edit 2: I swear I need to find a new phone keyboard, and I need to read over my comments before submitting. I’m finding a lot of stupid auto-correct errors, and it seems like they’re becoming more common.
Edit 3: the reason I got hung-up on it, and I should have mentioned this, is because I often see “everything is political” used to justify bringing heavier topics into places where it’s inappropriate (like chatrooms where people are trying to just hang out and have light hearted discussions).
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This statement is political
How is a fact political?
This was for the joke, I’m sorry you got downvoted
Yeah, it all is.