Why can't we talk about it?

bits of unfinished thoughts on life, politics and consequences of speaking up

Over the past few months the question that I’ve been returning to again and again and again in my head is this: why can’t we talk about politics? Why is it “no religion or politics at the dinner table / workplace / social media feeds”?

Observing conversations online and offline I keep trying to decipher the unspoken social rules that make exactly zero sense to me.

Why is it ok to participate in the four-yearly display of political awareness during election time, but not okay to talk about anything else any other time? Why it seems acceptable to talk about British white suprematist riots and the war in Ukraine but not the UK- and US-funded genocide in Gaza and the deliberate dissolution of all humanitarian norms that follows, or the impending climate disaster that will affect us all?

In short, why is it okay to talk some kinds of politics in some places but not the others, and how did we collectively decide where that line lies?

I keep wondering: when did we lose that social permission to…