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I. This is a well written, engaging article, thanks for sharing. I absolutely agree that the thesis is true to an extent, though I would phrase it more broadly (perhaps "American culture is unusually individualistic" or "American local social communities are being replaced by online parasocial ones"). I don't see any reason to suspect that politics is taboo in Mongolia, or frequently debated in China! II. A huge part of this is just "the instigator is discussing relationships largely not based in work". You can't be fired from your apartment building or your family for being a little rude, but you can and will be fired from your job for causing even slight unrest. Applies to work friends across the world, I would imagine, and I'm guessing a recent immigrant has a higher ratio of those in his new home than his old one. III. The belief that politics are "abstract" is, itself, a controversial political stance. Imagine for the sake of argument that a small group of people start controlling huge portions of the economy and using it to knowingly and intentionally harm others for fleeting personal gains. Perhaps you could think of the villains in Don't Look Up letting the apocalypse happen over pride, or, for the conservatives among us, the villains in Atlas Shrugged who cultivate poverty and inequity as a lever for maintaining their power. Hopefully we can all agree that those situations wouldn't be ones of polite disagreement? To make it even more stark, imagine what you would say if one of your friends or family came out as an open Nazi -- it would be immoral to laugh off engagement in literal genocide as a personality quirk, IMO. IV. "In which a parent pretends he has time to write" is downright adorable and extremely relatable, even for someone who will likely never have children. Godspeed George, may you have many only-slightly-stilted team dinners in Austin ahead of you |
Is obviously daft in a country where, by the person's own admission, people get killed for their political views.