[jackcosgrove]

I think it's wealth and well-being.

The easier your life becomes, the more you live in the world of ideas and abstractions. When you and most people around you need to toil daily to stay afloat, it puts things in perspective. There's also a shared bond of work and survival which can smooth things over.

Politics being prominent in your life is a luxury. Even if the stakes are high for you personally, most people worldwide don't have the time and energy to dwell on that.

[bombcar]

This is it - watch people in a disaster; suddenly what needs to be done in the next minute, hour, day is clear, and politics doesn't matter.

It's like what they say about the fights in academia - they're so vicious because the stakes are so small.

Of course, nobody wants to admit this about politics (but look at the vast amount of what happens year in and year out that doesn't change at all).