u/Akki_Mukri_Keswani

"Leave politics out of relationships."

I hear this all the time. Don't let politics come between friends or family. You can disagree about politics and still have a perfectly good relationship.

I don't understand the premise. Feels fundamentally flawed to me.

Politics is not just a topic of conversation. Our politics and political ideology are a reflection of our core values, our principles, our worldview, our ideology, and our understanding of how society should work. They tell us something about what we believe about freedom, equality, power, human rights, women, minorities, authority and the treatment of other human beings.

Of course, I can compartmentalize plenty of things. I can love a movie you hate. I can think your taste in music is terrible. You can be religious and I can be an atheist. We can support different sports teams, disagree about restaurants and argue about which movie is better. None of that matters to me.

I am actually a pretty chill person. I love sports, comedy, movies, stupid jokes and taking the piss out of myself. I believe most of life is about having fun.

But there are some things I cannot put in a box and label "politics"

If someone supports authoritarianism, believes women should be subordinate to men, thinks minorities deserve fewer rights, or is willing to overlook rape, abuse or the persecution of vulnerable people because the person responsible is powerful, successful or politically useful, that tells me something about their values. Not only the kind of person they would support, but what they themselves might be capable of doing.

I DONT WANT such a person in my life.

Morality is not a scorecard. If someone does 99 good things and one thing that I consider profoundly immoral, I cant just average the two. Some things are so fundamentally opposed to my moral framework that they outweigh everything else.

A cousin once told me that he admired Trump because Trump had enormous power and done so well for himself. "He was a Maverick" per my cousin. I jokingly pointed out that if power and impact were the criteria, then he should admire Hitler even more. Trump had a very privileged upbringing. Hitler started with far less and went on to acquire far more power and influence.

He said, "I admire Hitler too."

My cousin is very well read. He knew what he was saying. He seemed to not care about the Holocaust and the systematic murder of six million Jews, along with the persecution and murder of millions of other people. Someone telling me, with full knowledge of that history, that they admire Hitler crosses a moral boundary that is absolute for me. I havent met this cousin since he said this 2 years ago, even though we live just 3 miles apart.

Another example. Anyone supporting Trump -- knowing that he is a convicted felon, a convicted rapist, a paedophile, an insurrectionist, responsible for overturining Roe v Wade -- is someone I can never associate with. For me, such a person is not just a supporter or enabler of terrible crimes, but might be capable for committing such crimes themselves.

Again, I DONT WANT such a person in my life.

I have experienced a version of something similar with an uncle I was once close to. For years I admired his intellect and loved talking to him. But over time, I started noticing the way he felt about women. He has often said "Women are not as smart as men" in one way or the other. Once he said "Women should not be allowed in the military because they are weak". His thinking on the #MeToo movement was "Some of these women have done sex scenes in movies. They are characterless and thus cant accuse anyone". He constantly makes fun of his wife and talks down to her in front of others.

Over time, as I started noticing these things, I realized that the person I thought I knew held values that were fundamentally incompatible with mine. I havent met him in ages.

Now, I am not saying that everyone who disagrees with me is someone I want to cut out of my life. I want people to challenge me. I don't need intellectual conformity. What I cannot accept is fundamental moral incompatibility.

And yes, that means I may walk away from people. Friends. Acquaintances. Even family. I may end up with fewer people around me. Worst case, I might not have anyone around me. And I am completely fine with that.

I would rather spend my time laughing, playing sports, watching movies, travelling and talking absolute nonsense with people whose fundamental values I respect than spend that same time with people whose moral boundaries I find profoundly disturbing.

So no, I don't want to leave politics out of my relationships.

Because politics isnt just politics.

It is one of the clearest ways people tell us what they believe, what they value, what they tolerate and, ultimately, what kind of world they are willing to live in.

And I get to decide whether that is a world I want to share with them.

I like movies that deal with philosophical issues, and do it in an entertaining and engaging way; when the ideas are woven naturally into the story, so you can simply enjoy the movie for what it is, while at another level, it is making you think about much bigger questions.

You care about the characters, you want to know what happens next, you enjoy the performances, the story and the atmosphere. And yet, when the movie ends, the story isn't quite over. The ideas stay with you. You find yourself thinking about the characters, their choices and the questions the movie raised, sometimes without even realizing that the movie was making you think philosophically in the first place.

The Man from Earth, The Sunset Limited, My Dinner with Andre and The Seventh Seal are some of my favorite examples of this kind of cinema. So I did a fun exercise. I decided to create a fictional setup where I put some of my favorite characters in a room together and imagined the kind of banter they might have with each other.

Key characters:

Black, White from the sunset limited

John from the man from earth

Andre, Wallace from my dinner with Andre

Setting: Black's apartment

Heres the conversation:

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John: I've always found it interesting that human beings assume meaning must exist. Perhaps that's simply because we find meaninglessness unbearable.

White: Or perhaps we assume meaning because otherwise we would have to admit that we're here for no reason.

Black: Has "no reason" has been proven?

White: Has the opposite been proven?

Andre: Perhaps that's the wrong question. We spend our lives asking whether life has meaning, while most people aren't really living their lives at all. They wake up, go to work, follow routines, acquire things, worry about what other people think, and then one day they die.

Wally: That's a little unfair. Some people actually like their routines.

Andre: I'm not saying they don't. I'm saying they rarely question them.

Wally: And why must questioning everything be the definition of living? My wife, my friends, dinner, a walk, a good conversation. Those things are enough for me. They give me meaning. They give me a reason to live.

John: That's actually quite close to what I've personally observed over the last 14000 years. People construct enormous religous, philosophical and scientific systems to explain existence, but most of what gives them happiness is remarkably simple.

White: Happiness isn't meaning.

John: No. But perhaps meaning doesn't have to be something grand.

White: You have lived longer than any of us. You have watched civilizations rise and disappear. Religions appear, dominate, and become myths. You've seen people finish off each other over ideas they believed were eternal. Surely you've learned that all these claims of meaning are temporary.

John: I've learned that they change. But change doesn't necessarily make something meaningless.

White: If everything disappears eventually, what difference does anything make?

Black: It makes a difference to the person living it.

White: For how long?

Black: Does that matter?

White: Of course it matters.

Black: Why?

White: Because if something is temporary, it cannot have ultimate significance.

Wally: Why do you need ultimate significance?

White: Otherwise we're simply distracting ourselves.

Andre: Perhaps distraction isn't a bad thing. Think about it. If you knew with absolute certainty that there was no ultimate meaning, would that necessarily make every moment meaningless? Or would it make every moment more precious?

White: Precious to whom?

Andre: To the person experiencing it.

White: And then that person dies.

Black: Yes.

White: So we're back where we started.

Black: No. We're back where you started.

White: What's the difference?

Black: You think death cancels everything that came before it. I don't.

John: Perhaps that's the real disagreement. White believes that meaning must exist objectively, independently of us. Black believes meaning is experienced rather than proved.

Wally: And I still think both of you are making this much harder than it needs to be.

White: What do you mean?

Wally: I mean, perhaps my life doesn't need a philosophical justification. I love someone. Someone loves me. I enjoy certain things. I suffer sometimes. I try not to hurt people. I get up tomorrow. What exactly is missing?

Andre: Consciousness. Being conscious of the fact that you're alive.

John: This has fascinated me throughout my life. People can live for decades without ever asking why they are doing what they are doing.

White: Thats cos they perhaps know that if they were to ask, they will discover there is no answer.

Black: Or perhaps they discover that they were asking the wrong question.

White: And what is the right question?

Black: Not "Why does life exist?. But "What am I going to do with the life I've been given?"

White: And if the answer is, "Nothing. I don't want it"?

Black: Then perhaps someone else has to remind you why you should stay.

John: Even if you cannot prove that staying is rational?

Andre: So perhaps meaning isn't something we discover. Perhaps it's something we create.

White: Or something we invent because we are afraid.

Wally: Does it really matter which one it is?

John: Maybe that's the one question none of us can answer.

Andre: Which one?

John: Whether meaning has to be true to be meaningful.

White: And perhaps that is the question that keeps us alive.

Black: Perhaps.

Wally: Way too deep a discussion for me. Drinks anyone?

They all smile and nod in agreement.

As they walk out they see Camu. He looks at them and smiles.

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Disclaimer: This is just a fun attempt. No offense intended.