What *Is* It about People and Their Politics?

I just got an email from a close friend of mine, my ex-husband, who stated, "I like it better when you are not all political ..." You see, we exchange emails on a daily basis; he tells me how my dogs are doing, what the weather's like in Montana, how triathalon training is coming along. I tell him how my house renovations are going, what classes are like, and tend to complain here and there about current events. Just the regular chit-chat among people of like minds...or are we?

He thinks he's much more conservative than he is, and I know I'm as liberal as I am. But there is no convincing him to see it my way, and I have to admit I'm much too emotional sometimes to handle political conversations with the appropriate saavy required when talking with him, or my mom, or my sister, especially, primaily because I'm attempting to convert them instead of having a rational conversation. This reminds me of the Tucker Carlson-Jon Stewart Crossfire debate (check it out on Youtube.com), in which general political "ribbing" became an all-out flame war.

There are probably those of you out there who never realize that things seem to be going fine...until something political comes up. The old saying "never bring up politics or religion at the dinnertable" seems to ring false here. What else are we supposed to be talking about that has anything remotely tanglible to do with our lives? The Cruise-Holmes wedding? Whether Blink 182 will ever get back together? Maybe for a few minutes, but then there has to be something bigger going on, about our lives, that takes up the space. If not, we're truly not acknowledging the real issues in our worlds.

In Talking Politics, author William Gameson studies people talking politics, those regular people who have issues and are willing to sit around and discuss it while being viewed. This is a brave experiment. Gameson's angle is to examine "the extent to which media and popular discourse define issues in collective terms" (p. 29). An issue can only become a collective conern if we talk about it. But getting to the point, being able to talk about issues like feminism, sexism, the environment, U.S. foreign policy, or even gas prices sometimes sets people (like me) on a defensive that then becomes a diatribe. So what do we have to do? We have to learn to listen, but we shouldn't shut down. Those conversations must happen, and I think they start at the dinnertable. Or through e-mail. Or on a billboard. I think I'll continue to talk politics, but maybe start small, like on lobbying reform, before I throw a left jab on the environment.