I used to have a pretty big problem with this claim myself; I'd vehemently reject it for reasons I wasn't entirely certain of.
Then I read a comment on here a while ago, something along the lines of "children have political opinions too". It was so utterly absurd, it broke something in me. One thing lead to another, and now I no longer reject the claim vehemently. I reject it trivially.
It isn't that it's not correct. It is correct, it's just also stupid. I found that the fundamental anchor of it is that people do not directly observe reality - they interpret it through their senses, so nothing can be truly known. So far, fairly uncontroversial, if a little philosophical [0].
But that means all we have is experiences and opinions about those experiences. Mix this with politics just being a group's opinion, and the fact that there's more than two people alive - what you get is that every opinion can be now considered a political opinion, and since all we have is opinions, "everything" is a political opinion, so "everything" is political [1].
I then find this stupid because it hard-misses the point of the colloquial usage of the word. By being overly universal, it functions either as just a useless segmentation, or as a pointless exercise in pedantry, a rhetorical sleight of hand. It also deals in a good amount of mind-reading, where those considering something a political opinion, rather than just a personal opinion, pretty much implicitly accuse the other person of groupthink, which is a really quite cheap accusation to make with no real argumentational benefit.
But maybe this is one of those rare cases where this definition does have its utility. Let's see.
> It isn't that it's not correct. It is correct, it's just also stupid. I found that the fundamental anchor of it is that people do not directly observe reality - they interpret it through their senses, so nothing can be truly known. So far, fairly uncontroversial, if a little philosophical [0].
It also fundamentally rejects there being an objective reality, which also rejects the possibility of disagreeing on something but still believing common ground to be possible to be found. Which I personally see as one of the biggest reasons why people become less and less willing to allow differing opinions to exist at all.
And in regards to everything being political: Politics certainly informs a lot of stuff in how you perceive the world. But most things aren't political statements, unless you make it so. And I really don't enjoy interacting with people who make any one thing their whole personality, and that includes politics.
> It also fundamentally rejects there being an objective reality, which also rejects the possibility of disagreeing on something but still believing common ground to be possible to be found. Which I personally see as one of the biggest reasons why people become less and less willing to allow differing opinions to exist at all.
That's a stronger interpretation than what I was referring to. In the interpretation I was referencing, objective reality is assumed to exist, but people are bound to at best asymptotically approach understanding it, yet never be able to fully do so. This also does keep the door open for a common ground to be found, so much so that it even covers the possibility of that not yet existing.
I do identify problems with it though as well. For example, the mere idea of lying becomes fairly challenging to represent in this model (though I'd say not impossible). But yeah, this is the framing I identified to necessarily underpin this claim, if I want to give it any fighting chance at all.
> That's a stronger interpretation than what I was referring to.
Absolutely. I was just giving my own 2 cents. I am not that good at expressing my thoughts. And tbf, not everyone who goes "everything is political" thinks that there is no objective reality and vice versa. So my wording was definitely badly formulated. But I definitely experienced a decent overlap, and find it very hard to engage in a civil way with people who think everything is political + no objective reality existing.
Then I read a comment on here a while ago, something along the lines of "children have political opinions too". It was so utterly absurd, it broke something in me. One thing lead to another, and now I no longer reject the claim vehemently. I reject it trivially.
It isn't that it's not correct. It is correct, it's just also stupid. I found that the fundamental anchor of it is that people do not directly observe reality - they interpret it through their senses, so nothing can be truly known. So far, fairly uncontroversial, if a little philosophical [0].
But that means all we have is experiences and opinions about those experiences. Mix this with politics just being a group's opinion, and the fact that there's more than two people alive - what you get is that every opinion can be now considered a political opinion, and since all we have is opinions, "everything" is a political opinion, so "everything" is political [1].
I then find this stupid because it hard-misses the point of the colloquial usage of the word. By being overly universal, it functions either as just a useless segmentation, or as a pointless exercise in pedantry, a rhetorical sleight of hand. It also deals in a good amount of mind-reading, where those considering something a political opinion, rather than just a personal opinion, pretty much implicitly accuse the other person of groupthink, which is a really quite cheap accusation to make with no real argumentational benefit.
But maybe this is one of those rare cases where this definition does have its utility. Let's see.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism
[1] Except of course the matters of mathematical logic, which by virtue of being inherently axiomatic systems, once again walk away unscathed.