“Never mention politics or religion, in polite conversation.” It’s a common phrase and you heard it many times. It is also one of the most destructive ideas of Western civilization. Think about it for a minute, is there anything more important to discuss than politics and religion? Religion, is what you believe, is, and politics, is what you believe should be. Religion in this sense could also be a worldview, it could be a particular theory of metaphysics, or it could be one of the more traditional religions. In any case, it deals with man’s relationship to God or lack there of and questions of ultimate truth and reality. Politics deals with man’s relationships with each other. I can think of nothing that could be more important to discuss, especially in polite conversation.
The purpose of this proverb, (I’ll be referring to it as the pseudo-polite rule, and you’ll see why in a second) is to maintain a polite atmosphere. The fear is that, if it’s discovered that two people in a conversation disagree with one another, then the conversation will quickly turn to bickering. I contend that if the conversation would turn to bickering simply because there’s a disagreement, than it is not a polite conversation to begin with, only pseudo-polite. The parties to a conversation like that never had any real respect for each other in the first place, they just didn’t have the opportunity to display their disrespect. It is extremely foolish and immature to take the position that one can only be polite with those one agrees with. Now, it is true that there are many foolish and immature people out there who can only be polite with those they agree with but these people are bigots, and creating a pseudo-polite environment, only enables them to continue in their bigotry.
Arguments are after all, cooperative, not competitive ventures. The purpose of an argument is always to come to agreement. Usually when arguing, you are seeking to convert your opponent to your point of view. Sometimes you’re seeking compromise, but either way you’re seeking agreement. Also, when venturing into an argument, you accept the risk that you could be the one converted. In this way an argument is a cooperative venture. Those who seek to “win an argument” were never in an argument in the first place, they were in a bickering match.
I don’t know when the pseudo-polite rule was invented, but I do know that through most of history, in most cultures, it was not the norm. Perhaps it is because rhetoric is no longer taught in most schools and so people have a distorted view of argumentation and can no longer distinguish it from bickering, or perhaps it is this distorted view that led to rhetoric no longer being taught in school. Whatever the cause, one need only look at the debates between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams to see that arguing was not always equated with bickering and enmity. These two men had extremely divergent views in both politics and religion, yet they had tremendous respect for one another and tremendous friendship.
When the United States was in its infancy. There was no Australian ballot. The Australian ballot is how essentially all voting takes place in the Western world today. It has become so common that there’s no longer any need to refer to it as the Australian ballot. It’s simply the way voting is done. You go into a booth and close the curtain fill out the ballot and place it in a box. In this way, no one knows, if you voted Republican, Democrat, Whig, Socialist, or Libertarian. We have become so concerned with the pseudo-polite rule that casting a ballot behind a shower curtain, has become a sacred right in most people’s minds. When the US was in its infancy, ballots were cast by walking up to a table and picking up a red piece of paper or a blue piece of paper and placing it in the ballot box. When voting, you may have turned and held up your ballot for everyone to see, you may even have had to do this on stage. All your friends, family, and neighbors knew who you voted for and you better believe it got discussed. This discussion is something that we have lost and I hope and pray that we can get it back.
I mentioned before that the pseudo-polite rule is one of the most destructive ideas of Western civilization, the reason for that is this. The pseudo-polite role attempts to limit or shut down completely, argument and debate (among friends and family, at least). Progress comes through dissent. You can have no progress, if you have no disagreement. If you only agree and you only speak about things you agree on then the status quo is the best you can hope for. Progress only comes when someone says, “I think there is a better way to do this.” That, is a disagreement.
Furthermore, what is the point of conversation at all, if you’re only going to discuss things you agree on? If you meet a friend for lunch and you both adhere to the pseudo-polite role, then you might as well just sit and smile at each other, because you’re not going to get anything done with conversation! Conversation among friends like that (and they can’t really be friends if you can’t disagree) is nothing more than a mutual patting each other on the back fest! A nation or a culture with out argument and debate is like a crab, it can only move sideways or backwards. The nations with the most vibrant debating culture are sure to be the ones making the quickest and most rapid progress. Get out of Pleasant Valley and stop being afraid of running into someone you might disagree with!
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