“You are intransigently trying to ignore the fact that what you are doing will have effects beyond those you’re admitting to, and has different consequences for different groups (and usually just happens to give a relative advantage to you or to some group you’re in)”.
I don’t think this is a very different claim from
“there are no interesting, purely predictive uses of language that avoid signaling in some group-status relevant manner; anyone claiming so is actually making a status move by trying to arrogate the title of ‘neutral.’”
And even simple flat-out facts also have consequences for political disputes. Almost any fact is politically convenient or inconvenient for somebody, if for no other reason than that people have sometimes actually picked their political positions because of those facts. Somebody’s choosing to assign salience to one set of facts, while ignoring another set of facts that are equally important, is almost always political. And people do do that while claiming neutrality.
There might be two senses of “political” that you’re moving between here. The first is “dealing with political topics at all,” and the second is “will redistribute status in the group-status game.” I readily admit that simple apparently apolitical facts can have political-affairs-relevant implications, and lead people to update their views on political affairs.
But it’s this bit that I’m worried about:
Somebody’s choosing to assign salience to one set of facts, while ignoring another set of facts that are equally important, is almost always political. And people do do that while claiming neutrality.
People can do this, when they’re in the trenches jockeying for status. But there’s also such a thing as credibly signaling your apolitical status, and not selectively filtering evidence based on its implications for your egregore. We should try hard to do more of the latter, and opt out of the egregore-status game.
People can do this, when they’re in the trenches jockeying for status. But there’s also such a thing as credibly signaling your apolitical status, and not selectively filtering evidence based on its implications for your egregore. We should try hard to do more of the latter, and opt out of the egregore-status game.
OK… but in my experience people don’t go around randomly just saying “everything is political”. They say it in response to somebody else saying something like “let’s not make this political”. And almost always, that other person is saying “let’s not make this political” so that they can claim that “their” facts and concerns are in a magic apolitical category, whereas “your” facts and concerns are the political ones.
It’s something you say when an interlocutor seems to be trying to bound the debate in a way that is politically convenient for them, while denying that fact. It’s not something you just bring up.
Advice not to filter evidence isn’t very useful to a person who is complaining that the other person is filtering evidence.
On edit: one other thing, similar to what Ape in the coat said: politics isn’t just about status. Politics is very often about negotiating on object level consequences. It’s very possible to be very deeply involved in very political debates for partially or even entirely non-status reasons.
Use more words. Some are interpreting “everything is political” as a statement that there are political ramifications and consequences to (almost) everything, IN ADDITION to having some non-political motivations or aspects. Some interpret it as a denial that there are non-political motivations or aspects to be had, and everything is SOLELY political.
Specify which you mean, and at least some of the disagreement dissolves.
I don’t think this is a very different claim from
There might be two senses of “political” that you’re moving between here. The first is “dealing with political topics at all,” and the second is “will redistribute status in the group-status game.” I readily admit that simple apparently apolitical facts can have political-affairs-relevant implications, and lead people to update their views on political affairs.
But it’s this bit that I’m worried about:
People can do this, when they’re in the trenches jockeying for status. But there’s also such a thing as credibly signaling your apolitical status, and not selectively filtering evidence based on its implications for your egregore. We should try hard to do more of the latter, and opt out of the egregore-status game.
OK… but in my experience people don’t go around randomly just saying “everything is political”. They say it in response to somebody else saying something like “let’s not make this political”. And almost always, that other person is saying “let’s not make this political” so that they can claim that “their” facts and concerns are in a magic apolitical category, whereas “your” facts and concerns are the political ones.
It’s something you say when an interlocutor seems to be trying to bound the debate in a way that is politically convenient for them, while denying that fact. It’s not something you just bring up.
Advice not to filter evidence isn’t very useful to a person who is complaining that the other person is filtering evidence.
On edit: one other thing, similar to what Ape in the coat said: politics isn’t just about status. Politics is very often about negotiating on object level consequences. It’s very possible to be very deeply involved in very political debates for partially or even entirely non-status reasons.
Use more words. Some are interpreting “everything is political” as a statement that there are political ramifications and consequences to (almost) everything, IN ADDITION to having some non-political motivations or aspects. Some interpret it as a denial that there are non-political motivations or aspects to be had, and everything is SOLELY political.
Specify which you mean, and at least some of the disagreement dissolves.