Phrases/words that set your teeth on edge.

[Richard Barrett]

What's wrong with that word ?

It has, like "unicorn", no referent in reality, but many people seem to think it has.

[french frank]

It has, like "unicorn", no referent in reality, but many people seem to think it has.

What's wrong with the word 'unicorn'? Does every word have to have a referent in reality?

[P. G. Tipps]

It has, like "unicorn", no referent in reality, but many people seem to think it has.

Well, The Unicorn is my local watering-hole for largely sober individuals of whatever political or apolitical persuasion so I suspect it is real enough for them?

However, I do agree with you to some extent. The 'Protesters' in Hamburg this evening are not really innocently 'protesting', are they?

Of course not! They are quite openly and overtly Political Activists. Only the BBC and most of the rest of the media appear to be blissfully unaware of that fact.

So the logic of your argument might dictate that at last we might we able to agree on something?

[teamsaint]

Well, The Unicorn is my local watering-hole for largely sober individuals of whatever political or apolitical persuasion so I suspect it is real enough for them?

However, I do agree with you to some extent. The 'Protesters' in Hamburg this evening are not really innocently 'protesting', are they?

Of course not! They are quite openly and overtly Political Activists. Only the BBC and most of the rest of the media appear to be blissfully unaware of that fact.

So the logic of your argument might dictate that at last we might we able to agree on that?

Eh?
So in order to protest, you mustn't be a political activist ?

[Richard Barrett]

What's wrong with the word 'unicorn'? Does every word have to have a referent in reality?

Of course not. But, as I said, unlike "unicorn", "apolitical" is thought by many to refer to something real, which it doesn't, since calling oneself or one's words or actions "apolitical" involves making a decision as to what is and isn't "political", which is a political decision.

[french frank]

Of course not. But, as I said, unlike "unicorn", "apolitical" is thought by many to refer to something real, which it doesn't, since calling oneself or one's words or actions "apolitical" involves making a decision as to what is and isn't "political", which is a political decision.

That may be so in terms of "calling oneself apolitical" but that is adding a new idea to what was said. What about calling someone else "apolitical"? Or does the very fact of being "apolitical" (OED 'Detached from, not interested in or concerned with, political issues or activities', or living on top of a pillar) count as a political act, albeit one that sets some people's teeth on edge?

[ahinton]

"Unicorn" seems well to have served all those composers who have written concertos for horn and orchestra from Mozart to Carter, Knussen, (Colin) Matthews et al and those who have written other works for solo horn and piano, ensemble or whatever, even if it's never actuall been used in said context. As to "political", "atonal" or whatever else "a"-oriented, if "apoliticism" is in itself a kind of political state then it might reasonably be assumed that "atonality" is likewise, even if not everyone can agree on what constitutes either...

[Serial_Apologist]

That may be so in terms of "calling oneself apolitical" but that is adding a new idea to what was said. What about calling someone else "apolitical"? Or does the very fact of being "apolitical" (OED 'Detached from, not interested in or concerned with, political issues or activities', or living on top of a pillar) count as a political act, albeit one that sets some people's teeth on edge?

Imposing ones own definition of apoliticality on another would be even worse than defining oneself as apolitical.

[vinteuil]

.

... I don't really like calling myself an "atheist", because that might seem to be predicated on some non-existent theos which is irrelevant to anything and deeply uninteresting to me - I am an a-theist in the same way as I am an a-custardeatingmonkeyontheplanettharg. But a-political is a different case - we are all, like it or not, members of society - how society functions is a concern of us all - none of us can escape a political interest in this - the concept "a-political" is a denial of being a human in society.

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[Lat-Literal]

I have been considering the recent discussion.

First, it is not the case that being a part of a society automatically makes one political. Babies are not political other than how they are viewed by others and yet they are a part of societies. Secondly, adults might have opinions on the amount of traffic in urban areas or the infrequency of bin collections but if those are merely expressions of frustration they are not political either. That is to say that they are not especially different from expressions of frustration on finding that one's glasses have gone missing or the milk has just run out.

Thirdly, to be a Simeon Stylites or a Lotus Eater may appear to some to be apolitical but that sort of position is an opting out. It could be described as a political statement. Fourthly, alienation that isn't chosen, if addressed, could translate into politics or simply a greater sense of involvement and integration into the society where the alienation was experienced.

No, much of this is about identity and there is a considerable amount about identity that is felt to derive from and even to be in contrast with one's past. I think it was Ken Clarke who said something along the lines that politics was a young man's game. If so, he has forgotten gender equality and in his own actions in older age ignored his own principal point. And yet there is quite a lot to that point in respect of who is more political and who less so. Unless you are a politician, there may be a time when you question if party political affiliation makes any more rational sense than support for a football team. Indeed, you may feel that it makes less sense when as almost everything changes some rigidly trot out their lifelong lines.

Not that it needs to have been the case that there ever was a strong party political affiliation. I may hold to the same sort of political position as I always had without specific reference to any one political party but it is increasingly theoretical and there is nothing I can do about it. Of the personal factors that shaped it, I am no longer in the same environments. Those environments in any case have changed both in themselves and in relation to me. Most of the relevant people who shaped my outlook - often not of their own design - have died. And if they were still alive, they would be different symbolically in that who they were would be utterly changed contextually by the very many social developments since they were alive.

Added to these factors are one's own age related changes. These may involve the loss of a belief in ideal solutions, the acceptance that opinion can mean little when any ability to influence is limited, a growing indifference to the plight of future generations however much that might go against human instinct and concerns about one's own finances and health now seen as principally narrow and not best met by having the highest hopes and broadest expectations in the round. In parallel, political types can seem consumed by their hubris.

And in my own case - which may be unusual - I am aware that my political position was originally in sync with a period of history before I was alive. For many years, I thought that in some sort of returning we could all move forward. Well, it hasn't happened and if it ever did I doubt that it would be the animal I had anticipated, nor would that animal be especially relevant to my identity. It might just be that true identity diminishes over time which in terms of politics should imply that one becomes less political and even ultimately apolitical.

(And on that point about future generations, which is likely to be the most contentious, I don't own vehicles, I don't fly, I haven't in employment been a polluter, I haven't sired ten children who will in turn each have four others, I have worked in environmental and peace keeping areas - I'm content and doubt I need a political position on, say, climate change)

[greenilex]

Your last paragraph in parentheses...if you have done environmental work, is there something which makes you feel what you did was time wasted?

If not, can there be a more important political aim?

[Lat-Literal]

Your last paragraph in parentheses...if you have done environmental work, is there something which makes you feel what you did was time wasted?

If not, can there be a more important political aim?

Well, I was working for governments so it was a political scenario although my principal objective was to earn a living. Whatever my personal opinions, I prided myself on my strict adherence to supporting the Government of the day as required (not all did or do so) and the 25 and a bit years divided roughly 50%-50% between Tory or Tory/Lib Dem governments and Labour governments. Mainly in each case I could personally support the policy objectives where I was working although it was also known that I did have quite strong political feelings (and again not all did or do so), hence I wouldn't put myself forward for any post where there was too much of a clash. One such area was nuclear power which I vehemently opposed although actually it did come into one job on the insignificant fringes and all these years down the line I neither oppose it or especially support it so these things can change.

I am pleased with the areas in which I worked, often more by luck than judgement. But when I look back on it, there is in the seven subject areas a pattern which "magically" reflected where I was in other areas of my life. It is as if it had been mapped but mainly I subconsciously orientated towards things which at the time didn't seem wholly obvious. Was I being political in that employment? No, I don't think so, not personally political for I know what being personally political means. In the last two years it meant in parallel opposing intended job cuts. What I did have in general terms was a political worldview which was consistent from my mid teens. It informed voting behaviour etc. It remains much the same but it is increasingly apolitical because it is now a museum piece, like a picture that exists in a coherent form but in a different frame from the social, political and cultural in the present day.

[french frank]

Imposing ones own definition of apoliticality on another would be even worse than defining oneself as apolitical.

But that is also not quite the point. Is a person who, objectively, is 'detached from, not interested in or concerned with, political issues or activities' apolitical or is involuntary ignorance of, and therefore disengagement from, all matters political in itself 'political'? Clearly the word exists so there's something about the way it's used which sets 'people's' teeth on edge. It could be 'a person describing him/herself as apolitical' (which was Richard's point, but was not what Bryn specified). Instead of the single word 'apolitical' that would have been quite clear if Bryn had said: "It really sets my teeth on edge when people say they're 'apolitical'." No?

[greenilex]

Simon Stylites was probably apolitical.

[P. G. Tipps]

Whatever might be 'Richard's point' my dictionary's definition of 'apolitical' is ... 'not interested or involved in politics'.

That's it! I know some very strange people like that even in my own family.

Worse, I even know some people who are not in the slightest interested in football or 'classical' music.