Practicality

It occurs to me that while elements of practical/pragmatic thinking entertain my political philosophy outlook, I certainly hold a wide variety of views which are well outside the mainstream of political debate.

Given that, it also occurs to me that I seem to have only two "safe" topics with the average person, food and sports. That is: this is a topic that I know and they will likely know enough to be able to hold a conversation with give and take features. Other topics I am liable to have very few common ground threads of knowledge with such people. Music and entertainment subjects, I watch differently for movies and TV (I like excellent writing and complex plots and detest bad writing and simple plots with considerable social inaccuracies). And while I am aware that music has continued since 2002 or so, I haven't paid that much attention to know enough to discuss it. In the same manner, I have little to say about it with music prior to that era. Conversations on guitarists aren't exactly things I am knowledgeable about. I'm also not likely to encounter people with extremely similar musical tastes. Someone who likes both the Beatles and Tupac is kind of odd already. I want social commentary in my cultural consumption. Most of the time. Hence my disdain for country music. Which has social commentary, but of a society I find outdated and incomprehensible for its overt religiousity, flag-waving nationalism, and so on. I'm far more comfortable listening to the words of the oppressed and downtrodden than people who think themselves and their compatriots exceptional for dint of having been born.

In the meantime, I expend a considerable amount of mental energy on topics that do not concern the average person. I follow civil liberties abuses. Most of us will, we hope, never have cause to notice such things. I push a thought experiment relating to multiple partner sexual and marital arrangements. I doubt most people would be interested even were it available, including myself. For that matter, I am more than willing to discuss, usually abstractly, sex. A taboo subject. Or religion. Another taboo. Or politics. Or money and finances. All taboos. When I've amassed some expertise discussing such things that most people do not want in polite conversations, it leads back to discussing only safe topics like sports and food with most people.