Kool-Aid or Diet Coke?

I know I should stay away from politics, for my own sanity's sake. I know it is poison, and yet, how can I? It's not a matter of addiction - although, in my case, there is some of that, too - but if I stay away, I will have no voice and will thus let somone else speak on my behalf... "Those absent are wrong" ("Nieobecni nie maja racji"), said the chairman of the Union of the Socialist Youth of Poland, sometime in the 80's. What he meant by it is that the voices of those who are not participating do not count and can be dismissed, as if they were plainly wrong. I remember disagreeing with him (only in my mind, of course - there was no opportunity for open disagreement), because not participating was the only way of saying "no". What else can you do but refuse to participate in elections where the only candidates were those from the communist party and its puppet associations? Yes, you could go to the polls, cross all the candidates out, write "F..k you!" on the ballot, and deposit it in the ballot box. (That's what I did the first and only time my father forced me to go and "vote"). However, the only outcome of that "protest" was that the state-controlled media could say the next day that "98 percent of Poles went to the polls yesterday to express the will of the people in our socialist democracy". (Sadly, those phony numbers were used by some "intellectuals" in the West to point out the sorry state of Western democracies, where the participation was mere 60 percent or less...)

I know how divisive politics can be, yet for some years after arriving in the US I have been quite angry at the fact that politics was almost never discussed: not at a work, not at parties, not with friends... It was so different from Poland, where politics was a very frequent topic of conversation, even in times, when openly griping about communism could land one in hot water. There was no time that was not right for talking politics. I remember heated discussions - well, quarrels really - at the Christmas Eve dinner at my grandmother's, where there seemed to be 10 different opinions among the 8 of us... And so I saw the reluctance of Americans to openly broach the subject of their political views as a sign of cowardice. Now I know better and see it as a sign of maturity and good judgment.

Perhaps it is a cultural difference, or a matter of not having been accustomed to democracy long enough, but Poles seem to have a very hard time disagreeing amicably with each other over politics. It's tearing not only the country apart, but families and friends as well. I just read this cautionary tale in the blog by a Polish writer and journalist, Malgorzata Karolina Piekarska. Unfortunately, it is in Polish, so let me summarize it for you:

She invited a bunch of close friends to a party at her home. Unfortunately, it fell on an "election weekend", so the conversation inevitably (?) drifted toward the candidates and their platforms:

"It started with watching the Prime Minister's speech. With timid comments. [...] With time, the comments became more and more blunt. Finally, the guests started openly expressing their views. [...] I was called into the kitchen. Here, my two married friends were arguing. He'll vote differently than she, because he's smart and she's dumb. He'll probably divorce her, because he no longer has respect for her. Doesn't matter that they have a child. [...] She is stupid and her views are stupid and harmful. [...] In the melee, for the first time, it got to male-on-female fights for political reasons - kicks, name-calling, even pulling each other's hair! Nobody was dancing. Almost everybody was arguing. One of the guests, on wobbly legs, showed his political adversaries his genitals. I swear that my friends are educated people. This is the so-called intellectual elite of the country."

Although she doesn't say that any divorce proceedings were started as a result of these fights, some friendships did suffer damage, possibly irreparable. When I think about how badly Americans are now divided along the political fault lines, and what issues are at stake in this division, I feel grateful that we still seem to have a good measure of civility left, that all this shouting and name calling is only temporary, and is already starting to subside. Perhaps the blessing lies in our short attention spans, or that we learned not to take politics and (especially) politicians seriously - whatever it is, given the number of guns in private hands, I'm really, really glad we know when to pull back and talk about the weather. :-)