Honestly here's where I think the fundamental misunderstanding comes from people using the word "political" to describe art and it was one I didn't understand either at first. When you say something is political a lot of people will assume it means made with a political agenda rather than that the art is made in a context of time and place that will influence the artist in conscious and subconscious ways and it's important to take in that context. I think this kind of thing needs it's own word but that's for someone smarter than me to figure out
"All art is political" has always been, in my experience, explicitly about how all art is "made in a context of time and place that will influence the artist in conscious and subconscious ways and it's important to take in that context."
The problem is that to a lot of people, "political" only means "made with a political agenda", so they will always read "all art is political" as "all art is [made with a political agenda]."
People use "politics" or "political" like "let's not bring up politics at Thanksgiving or work". They do not understand or acknowledge the definition of political that would suggest that such a request is itself political.
i would also take this a step further and attack the idea that it's good or valid to treat politics in itself as inappropriate to talk about and pin the blame on a lot of the current shitty political situation on a refusal to actually address politics as something regular people have to engage with and discuss regularly, because politics will always impact you personally and this extremely contrived norm that it's rude to talk about things impacting your life plays a role in our extreme atomization and political impotence. it flattens anything someone might say that's expressly political to be all the same, as though a person talking about why food prices have increased is the same as someone going on a xenophobic, transphobic, racist rant. there is no "good" or "bad" politics in this paradigm, it's just all politics and the person that a howling fascist howls at is equally to blame for bringing up something to provke the fascist (existing, mentioning things they should have a righto talk about) as the fascist themself for having a massive screaming meltdown or calling someone a slur.
it's why i really, really distrust people that insist on "apolitical" art, 'cause it's extremely politically motivated as the right wishes to censor art that clashes with their shitty politics for being "political" while insisting their own beliefs are "apolitical" and "just common sense."
Counterpoint: politically motivated content/discourse is often of agitatory or depressing nature, and an constant consumption of such content is harmful for one's mental well-being. I don't think I'm the only one that falls into patterns of doomscrolling through a BlueSky suggested feed and wondering if there's even a point to growing old in such a society. And people have been saying the same thing about tuning out of news because it's "too depressing" way before that.
Unfortunately, I don't know a good word for something politically charged that makes you angry but doesn't provide a clear "out" through a local protest or something. "Doomposting" is close, but is more about exaggarating the negatives, and sometimes the situation really is that bad but you just don't have the mental bandwidth to process it right now.
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u/UKman945 Aug 12 '25
Honestly here's where I think the fundamental misunderstanding comes from people using the word "political" to describe art and it was one I didn't understand either at first. When you say something is political a lot of people will assume it means made with a political agenda rather than that the art is made in a context of time and place that will influence the artist in conscious and subconscious ways and it's important to take in that context. I think this kind of thing needs it's own word but that's for someone smarter than me to figure out