NOT IN POLITE COMPANY

Nope. I've said as much before, but they're both topics I discuss IRL as well as here.

I usually feel people out before I bring things up, but with my family and people I know well, they're both subjects that are oft-discussed. (In fact, a squeamishness about discussing one or both tends to nudge people more into the "friendly acquaintance" category for me, since I don't want to have to censor myself too much with a good friend.)

Question: What do you think of t-shirts that proclaim a political or religious belief? I got my Obama Mama t-shirt in the mail, but find I'm somewhat reluctant to wear it as I continue to feel out the community that I live in now. I'd wear it without a second thought amongst people I know well.

...even if it was "mixed" company. (Wasn't sure if that was clear.) I do have several good friends who are of a different political or religious persuasion than I am, but they're good friends because they'd say, "Jeez, soz, you realize that guy could never be elected, right? And a damn good thing too because he's the most liberal of the bunch..." and launch a high-spirited but civil argument, rather than being offended or whatever.

That kind of goes right to the heart of what this thread is all about. I probably didn't explain what i meant about "mixed company" very well, but i had in mind those groups in which one is not certain about what the religious beliefs or political opinions of others will be. Sure, among friends you can relax and talk over these things--sometimes. I'm rather surprised, though, since many of my friends have completely different political beliefs, and we usually just avoid those discussions. One of the most virulently anti-religious people i know is a very good friend, and you really don't want to get him started on religion, because he just goes off like Fourth of July fireworks. He also happens to be a conservative and, at least the last time i discussed politics with him (long time ago), a staunch Bush supporter.

So, i guess i'm mildly surprised to hear that you would probably not become a close friend of someone with differing political opinions. On the other hand, i'd have a hard time being a close friend of someone who went on about religion (any religion) all the time, so i guess we're not so different in that respect.

I don't know if i can explain this, so i'll just say it. I never like to dress ostentatiously, and almost never wear t-shirts with writing on them (unless it were a gift from Lovey, or something like that)--so, no i wouldn't wear a shirt like that. But i'd "say" almost anything with a bumper sticker. Make any sense to you?

(All time favorite political bumpers sticker: Somewhere in Texas, a village is missing its idiot.)

OK, that explains a lot. No, i probably wouldn't wear it, but then, i'd avoid discussions things like religion or politics precisely because i wouldn't want to have an argument. And, as i said, i don't like to wear clothing with writing on it.

I say what I think both here and in real life.

Anyone with whom I have some degree of comfortability (including people I work with) knows that I have strong opinions on religion, politics and pretty much everything. I am known by co-workers and friends for freely expressing opinions on controversial topics. Some people like this, others jokingly avoid it.

The one exception is in professional circumstances where I don't know people well. Then I will generally censor myself.

The t-shirt/ bumper sticker distinction makes sense, yep.

Pre-baby, I had pretty much no limits on this (more like ebrown). Right now, as we get established in this very close-knit community, I don't want to close any doors quite yet. Especially in terms of my kid, getting her set up here. As far as I can tell I have nothing to worry about though, everyone I've talked to thus far is either liberal or accepts that most of the other people around here are liberal and doesn't mind.

One possible exception -- I had an exchange with sozlet's girl scout troop leader about how to handle the "god" part of the pledge (I forget how it went exactly) since we're not religious. She's seemed a little skittish around me since. Hard to tell though of course.

I think that accurately captures the intent of the general prescription. There is another factor too -- one can't at first be sure of the ability of others he/she doesn't know well to tolerate such discourse. With known friends & acquaintances it can be both entertaining and instructuive - but it requires a certain amount of collective detachment, the notion that we all are ultimately not quite certain of the right answers; and are united by that uncertainty. I enjoy light-hearted argument and dispute about these proscribed issues. However, in some cases one can't always be sure the dialogue will remain light-hearted.

Well, living in Houston has made me wary. I generally feel someone up before I broach such topics. If it seems likely we may be in agreement, I say a few words. Never get elaborate. We pass a few words, but it's generally kept to a level of lightness and quickly passed over.

On the other hand, if someone, whose politics makes me ill, mouths off continually, I quit giving a pass after about the third time. Then I tell my true thoughts and the hell with their response. Most don't try to make it a war. Many drop it from future conversations.

According to my parents, it was not polite to discuss sex, politics or religion in mixed company.

I remember asking them what constituted "mixed" company. It was the '60s. Did they mean male/female, black/white, republican/democrat or christian/athiest? That just confused Dad, so Mom stepped in and said, "All of the above. Just talk about the weather!"

I hardly ever discuss politics or religion.

I do not support any "ism" or any party in politics and i'm entirely irreligious (though I lfind religion and beliefs interesting to read about). I do not tell people that I believe religion is a waste of time - all I say is I'm not religious (or I don't "believe" in any religion). I find that even *this* annoys people (mixed group or otherwise)!

Most people tend to change the way they act and what they say around different people - even children do this.

In a forum like this - the premise is to discuss your beliefs and thoughts - most questions are directed that way. Whereas having dinner with great-grandmom Bertha who is a bigot and only wants to discuss her views and you want to have a civilized dinner, you may just let what she says slide.

I personally have a hard time to keep my mouth shut more around issues where some one is being hurt or taken advantage of or something just plain mean. I remember visiting my hubby's family out west and his normally very nice uncle started talking about a particular racial group in very cruel and mean way. My husband later told me how he looked at me when his uncle started, saw the look on my face and was thanking God when instead of me saying something, I got up and went outside to play with the kids - (kids are much more civilized).

Moms know, don't they?

I only discuss religion with those who are of a like mind with me. My comunity is middle American, and many of the people are involved in church life. The gals with whom I play bridge, are all college graduates, but their lives are focused, to one extent or the other, with their religions. What is interesting is that all of them are pro-choice.

I have another group of friends who are not religious, but extremely liberal politically. I will discuss religion with them. They know that I have an open mind, and we often have religious and political discussions. Interesting thing though, that these 2nd group of friends are from the metropolitan northeast.

My feeling is that life is about human interaction. I can deal with people who say things I disagree with. Any normal adult can deal with me disagreeing with them. This is not only how I learn and adapt, it is also how ideas travel through society.

By censoring myself-- even with bigoted great-grandmom Bertha, I feel that both Bertha and I miss out on the social-intellectual interaction that to me is the most important part of being human.

The rule I try to adhere to is that questioning or even attacking an idea is acceptable. Attacking a person is not (in most circumstances).

I am perfectly willing to tell someone that something they just said is offensive.

If a topic that I care about comes up in conversation, I am perfectly willing to express and defend my opinion on the topic.

I have found that people can deal with this. Often it leads to interesting conversations-- and I have a couple conservative friends who now seek me out to engage in discussion which we have without getting personal.

Some people disengage, which is fine with me-- I don't push it. I have rarely found anyone who couldn't deal with my radical ideas.

The interactions I have when I express ideas that other people disagree with are a part of life I enjoy.

I agree, ebrown. I *like* having productive, interesting disagreements with people. That's part of what I was trying to get at earlier -- that people who handle disagreement well are people I tend to consider good-friend material, in general.

That is fine, for as far as it goes, and how far it goes depends a good deal on context. For many years, i worked for a state universities civil service system. What i often ran into was an initial incredulity that anyone would think differently than "I do," and actually have a cogent argument. PhDs who are tenured professors often, truly, are not at all used to having anyone disagree with them, except for their peers (i.e., other tenured, "full" professors), whom they simply dismiss as pompous jackasses. But among those who were assistant or associate professors, or graduate teaching assistants, there was much livelier discussion, and a good deal of healthy debate and disagreement.

But when it came to the mere undergraduate students, everyone drew a line--students are not to question the instructor, no matter what their relative status among themselves. There always seemed to be a hierarchy of tolerable dissent, and undergraduates were the serfs in that scenario. There was one tenured, "full" professor, who was held in contempt (but a wary contempt--you didn't want to get on his bad side, because he was devastatingly brilliant, and could rip you up if you were peddling BS) by the other professors. He had only published enough to justify his position, and all his publications were text books. But he wrote scads of papers, and they were almost all concerned with pedagogy. One of his papers, Let the Student Do the Talking, was brilliant, and he practiced what he preached. He was an expert in comparative English/French grammar, and he had published a standard text on French grammar for speakers of English. So i took his undergraduate course (and got laughed at for it), and really learned something. He hardly ever spoke in class--if someone had a question, he'd go around the room until he found another student who could answer the question. If he went all around the room, and no one answered it, he'd stay on that question until the students worked it out for themselves. Among the undergraduates, he was very popular, and it was hard to get into his classes (i was only able to sign up because professional staff were allowed to take "professional development" courses and were guaranteed registration rights--plus, he and i got along so he let me in without quibble). Many years later, i read his obit in the New York Times, which was a shame, but was also a measure of the respect in which he was held in the academic world, even if his immediate colleagues were snotty toward him.

I found much the same in the years i worked in hospitals just after i got out of the army. Doctors (a lot of them, perhaps most of them) do not accept that anyone will question them. Nurses and other professional and "ancillary" staff, however, were well-educated and intelligent, and you could get lively discussions. What was silly about it is that many doctors know almost nothing outside their profession. There was a radiologist at one hospital i worked at who had a national reputation for his skill in reading x-rays, and who was an ornament to the hospital. He was also obsessed with the flood account in Genesis, and claimed against all the evidence that geology confirms the account. The Tennessee River is deep and fast in its eastern range, and has carved deep valleys in the hills. To most geologists, the strata revealed provide excellent evidence for the history of the river, which is tens of thousands of years old--but not this joker. In fact, he claimed the strata were evidence that sediments had been laid down by the flood, and he would become very angry at anyone who questioned him. Years later, i was amused to read an anecdote of Carl Sagan. He was at a party, and speaking to a professor who was a specialist in ancient texts. Sagan commented that he had always known that Immanuel Velikovsky was full of poop when it came to astronomy, but that he had been impressed with Velikovsky's knowledge of ancient literature. The professor Sagan was speaking to said that he was impressed by Velikovsky's knowledge of astronomy, but that he (Velikovsky) obviously knew nothing about ancient literature. It seems that highly-educated people who stray outside their area of expertise often believe the most errant crap, but you had better not question many of them (perhaps most of them), because they are not accustomed to disagreement. Of course, i couldn't speak to how this works with highly educated people who work outside of universities or hospitals, where their every word is not holy writ.

Years later, i relocated to Ohio, and set myself up for a manager of small business. I was modestly successful, and i consequently came into contact with a lot of people on construction sites, and people in building trades and other skilled laborer professions. They know their own fields well, but they often know little else beside that, and don't enjoy being told that they are ignorant, or that they are wrong. I reverted to the default position i had learned as a child, and avoided discussions of religion or politics. My brother many years ago worked for a large manufacturing corporation in one of their factories in the evenings while he was getting an engineering degree. To the guys on the assembly line, he was the "college boy," and an oracle on all things outside their everyday experience. One group with whom he took his breaks included a Jehovah's Witness, and the other guys were always on his case about how "stupid" his religious beliefs were. One evening, this guy brought in a concordance--a bible with English on the left-hand page, and the "original" Greek on the right-hand page (i will avoid a discussion of the unreliability of the "majority" text Greek versions). So when my brother came into the break room, one of the guys handed him this bible and asked him what he thought of it. My brother looked at it and said something to the effect of "Oh yeah, that's a concordance." To which the other guys smiled triumphantly, and one of them said, "See, i knew it was bullshit."

I'd say the advisability of lively discussions of religion or politics depends a great deal on the social context in which one finds oneself.

Don't talk too much politics and religion here.

Put out my feelers. Have a strong dislike of having politics and religion pushed in my face and/or all of life made into a political issue. So try not to do it myself.

With friends, and those who I know there is a back and forth of knowing when to stop and mutual respect about these things, love a good talk about it.

It's mostly entertainment for people. In my opinion. So whatever. Let's talk about something closer to home. Just say upfront that you hate your father or whatever - the generalizations to the world you want get old.

peace out.

tee hee... that sounds more invasive than a political conversation ...

I post here because I can't find personal venues or people near me that are willing to talk about these topics. I'm sure they're interested, but they are too fearful of hurting feelings or having someone think different about them.

Honestly, I wish I could talk with the people I know, and I didn't need an A2K.

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