..why not talk about politics or religion?

29 comments

1. Politics are discussed in the US. It would be considered rude to do so with someone on vacation or, as you said, within the first 10 minutes of conversation.

2. My family has always been pretty political, but I think the reasoning behind it is that religious and political conversations in America are normally pretty tense. Many people (especially older people) here don’t have much practice when it comes to civil non-insulting debates.

   You generally don’t want the family to be tense during a get together or celebration.

3. Partially it’s just pretty personal, and we don’t tend to talk about anything that’s very personal with strangers or casual acquaintances. Also these topics are high risk, no reward. If you agree, there’s not much to talk about. If you disagree, it can turn unpleasant, and even the most cordial of conversations is unlikely to change anybody’s mind.

   So you’re better off not bringing it up.

4. Not everyone is into politics or religion and I can’t imagine having to talk about either ten minutes into a conversation

5. If by “talk” you mean lecturing someone on US politics as if the tourist is the President, that’s considered rude. I don’t think any American travels across an ocean to debate policy that they have no hand in, with Euros who often don’t know as much as they think they do.

   We don’t come to your country to criticize your obvious faults, and if we did, it’d be rude. Do us the same courtesy.

   >. Imo EVERYTHING is politics,

   There’s a difference between politics and government. Government though enacts policies. You can really discuss a lot of government actions in common conversation. Trash pickup, speed limits, , potholes, road construction. These can easily be broached and you can find common ground with a lot of residents.

   But Team Republican or Team Democrat drifts into partisan territory, and that’s different. You want to talk that? go call up your county party chair and get active.

6. People are pretty touchy about this here – and truly I think not a lot of practie talking about it.

   If you look at this subreddit you can see people getting very offended pretty quickly.

   ​

   I know we talk about religion and politics often here in Massachusetts. Seems weird to avoid things like current events – and a shame since it’s how we understand other points of view.

   Avoiding the conversations like this that are so important might be why we are so divided.

7. Everything is not politics, for fucks sake! That is so goddamn tiresome!

   I’m a seasoned traveler, I’ve been to quite a few countries and I never, ever bring up politics or discuss politics when I’m traveling, either for business or pleasure. If I’m on a business trip it’s a fucking minefield and expressly prohibited by my company’s guidebooks and codes of conduct. If I’m traveling for pleasure, why the *fuck* would I engage in a conversation about politics when im trying to absorb information about whatever it is im looking at, hearing or eating?

   It takes a special kind of douchebag to impose politics on an expressly non-political conversation.

8. I hate it when I’m traveling abroad and someone tries to discuss US politics with me. The conversation is relentless and often very heated domestically. People have very strong opinions and most of them I’m sick of hearing. I want to get away from thinking about it while I’m someplace else on vacation.

9. I didn’t realize it was considered rude, but there are a lot of ways the conversation can take a bad turn if the other person doesn’t agree with you. It’s very divisive here, I can’t even mention politics around my own dad because he gets all angry and will refuse to even talk to anyone about anything afterwards.

   I, personally, love hearing different perspectives, even if what they’re saying is 100% against my personal opinions, beliefs, whatever. I wish I could understand why some people become so aggressive about it.

10. I was in Estonia in 05 and some of the people I met constantly wanted to tell me their opinion on the invasion of Iraq. And when I say “tell me their opinion”, they talked to me like I was personally responsible for the invasion. This happened several times where the political discussion began as soon as they learned I am American.

    I used the “it’s rude to talk politics or religion” line mostly as a defense mechanism. I just didn’t feel like lectures from strangers I was never going to see again.

11. The same reason you don’t talk about money.

    It’s personal. Best case scenario you’re going to make everybody around you, *even people who agree with you,* uncomfortable. Worst case scenario, you’re going to piss somebody off, either by saying something they vehemently disagree with or because they’re tired of you needlessly making other people feel awkward like an asshole.

    People treating me like I was a foreign service officer was easily both the most inexplicable and the most obnoxious part of every trip I’ve taken to Europe. Especially because y’all’s idea of “talking” seems a whole lot more like evangelizing.

    Here’s the thing though. We don’t like being outwardly aggressive towards foreigners. Doubly so when they’re in our country, but even abroad. Those people would come up to me, start rambling, and sometimes we’d even have a perfectly pleasant conversation. If I was in the mood for one. Which was rare. And then they’d walk away and I’d be sitting there waving goodbye and smiling at them while thinking to myself “what a complete and utter fucking *jackass* that guy was.”

    So you may not have had a bad experience, but I’d really be interested in hearing what the people you talked to thought.

    >Imo EVERYTHING is politics

    This isn’t a common viewpoint here, and it’s one that’ll lead to the only people who are willing to put up with being around you being the kind of people who have no personality outside of politics. If that’s your crowd, more power to you, but it ain’t winning you any popularity contests.

    Like, I have *no doubt* that one of y’all could take my decision to be smoking a Montecristo over a Perdomo right now with my morning coffee as some kind of subconscious statement on US-Dominican relations over US-Nicaraguan relations or something, but the truth is that it was just on top of the pile in the humidor.

    If you *have* to talk about politics then

    1. It has to make sense in context. Not something that’s just brought up randomly out of the blue.

    2. You have to *know* the person. Both so that they know that you respect them enough that you’re not being rude simply for the sake of being rude, and so that you know where both of you draw your respective lines in the sand on certain topics.

12. 1. Not everything is about politics.
    2. It’s none of their business what you believe in. Religion is private. Who you vote for is your own choice.
    3. They’re going to be less informed about the matter than people living in the US, and that’s saying something.
    4. It’s a pointless conversation as they can’t vote.

    So spending 10 minutes trying to explain to someone a political system they don’t understand sounds awful and completely inconsiderate of the other person.

    Imagine I traveled to an inn in Germany and spent 10 minutes talking to the hosts about the foreign policy failures of Angela Merkel over the past 15 years. That would be incredibly rude. It’s not like I can vote for German officials. They’d probably get defensive, and rightly so. This is no different.

13. Because a lot of people don’t want to talk politics as much as they want to lecture us about their idea of US politics.

14. Well because it is simply just rude. In the US, topics such as religious beliefs and political opinions are very much considered personal things. Things you don’t really go around telling everyone. If I was visiting the UK and some random British chick suddenly wanted to talk about/give opinions on things like US Gun Control or Health Insurance, I don’t care if we agree on everything, it will be extremely off-putting.

    I don’t want to talk about this kind of stuff with somebody from another country who most likely has some uninformed/misinformed ridiculous opinion because they simply think that by watching CNN or reading the New York Times, they automatically know all they need to know about American society and can therefore inform the Americans with their “brilliant” outsider perspectives. If we agree than cool, you just kinda made things awkward. If we disagree than things are now needlessly tense. I’m not gonna go to the UK and give them shit over Brexit or talk about Boris Johnson so would you kindly not do the same with me and the US.

15. Our country is still divided by politics. So it makes sense why they wouldn’t want to talk about modern day politics

    Also they could have just been bored of talking politics

16. In addition to the very valid points that others have made, in the last few years some viewpoints are met with outright hostility and the ability to decline the topic feels like an important safety mechanism.

17. Politics are divisive. The parties are so ideologically at odds and one of them is [teetering on a personality cult](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/liz-cheney-there-is-absolutely-a-cult-of-personality-around-donald-trump-in-the-gop/). Simply saying “I’m a Republican” or “I’m a Democrat” carries with it connotations and assumptions that may be wildly inaccurate given our current state of polarization.

    I’ll talk about politics more freely with likeminded people. But bringing it up to casual acquaintances is kinda rude.

    As for religion, it’s mostly the same. Simply not necessary information most of the time.

18. Because the US is so diverse and so spread out, money, religion, and politics will lead to an argument. Think of it like how the English feel about their football teams. It’s like that.

    You can’t talk about your salary here. You can actually get in trouble for disclosing your salary at work.

    Religion is a highly divisive topic. Just open a history book.

    In the US politics are nearly as divisive as religion, if not more so. Unless you never want to speak to someone ever again, don’t talk politics with someone unless you know where they stand already.

19. You seein’ the shit that goes on in US politics? If it were socially acceptable to talk politics to random strangers in the US, the murder rate here would probably be significantly higher. And religion and politics are *very* intertwined here.

20. If both people can stay civil about it than it’s fine, but people are often very passionate about their political and religious opinions so it can quickly turn into a heated argument and most people don’t want that.

21. I personally don’t want to vacation to another country only to be lectured by Europeans about politics that I have no control over.

22. I personally love discussing politics on the internet, but I’d think it’s weird or annoying if someone just started talking to me about it while I was just trying to buy groceries or something or I am in a hurry because that topic usually requires at least an hour-long discussion in my opinion. I hate shopping anyways; I just want to get my shit and get out, standing there talking for long periods of time isn’t a comfortable position and everyone else would be able to hear your conversation as well. (Plus, I’ve always hated whenever my parents would stop and talk in a store growing up) However, if I know you and you’re a friend or family I don’t mind talking politics if I know that person can remain calm and there’s a place for it. Like inside our homes for example or I’m just hanging out with them because politics is actually very interesting to me, I used to talk politics all the time with one of my older cousins when he was staying with me and my dad. It turned out we have pretty similar views on things, so I enjoyed talking about it with him. We’re both what I would describe as moderate/center left libertarian.

23. Because the conversation gets heated up easily. People have different beliefs, and if that’s the case in a political or religious conversation, chaos often unfolds, and someone’s definitely going to get butt-hurt because someone had a different view from them.

    I prefer not to join in for this reason. Besides, I never got interested in anything political, and I respect people’s religious views whatsoever.

24. I’m pretty sure you were given an exception because you’re a visitor and it’s considered poor form to tell a visitor to go to hell.

25. I personally dont.

    Where I grew up, even devout people will typically ask before discussing religion. (If you’re *really* bored sometime, you can go back and see I barely discuss it at all with strangers.)

    I find people who make their moral relationship to the universe and everything in it into a little hat they wear for people to look at, to be tedious- at minimum.

    As for politics, people who are the most eager to talk about it are often kinda crackpots. Or trying to start a fight.

    Or think I remind them of someone they want to argue with, so (whatever I’m actually like), I’ll do. (This last one happened in the UK, a lot. People who wanted to have it out with a Real Live American basically didn’t care what my actual opinions were, I was the complaints department and that was that.)

    Edit: You may personally think everyone is informed and have valid opinions, but remember we regularly have to field comments from people who think mass shootings are haha goodtime bantz.

26. At the end of the day it comes down to me just not wanting to hear your or anyone else’s opinions on things, and our opinions shouldn’t matter to each other anyway.

    As a European, I’m sure you and I don’t share the same views in quite a bit.

    So if you brought up guns, for example, and I said I support gun ownership and *you* said something along the lines of “so you support children being massacred in schools?” Obviously I don’t, but shit like that gets said and like…what’s the point after that?

    You’re not convincing me, I’m not convincing you, so the conversation basically should never have happened.

27. > Imo EVERYTHING is politics, it is what the one factor that influences every single second of our lives

    This, right here, is the biggest problem with the question and quite frankly with reddit and political discourse in general.

    Everything may be *affected* by politics, but not everything IS politics, at all times.

28. > i’ve always talked politics, religion, culture when i was in the US (cali, nj, ny, pa, ma, +) and didn’t have too bad of an experience.

    Hate to break it to you, but even if people didn’t say anything negative to you, you didn’t make a very good impression. People almost certainly went home and talked about how rude you were.

29. ” Imo EVERYTHING is politics”

    Yeah because when I’m talking about quantum mechanics, the universe, how to make the best campfire, the best way to grill a steak, my favorite summer activity, how I got my baby to sleep through the night, how I navigated my divorce, and the purpose of life, politics are my number one concern lol.

    So I completely disagree with your core assumption, so there’s that.

    Also many Europeans idea of a ‘conversation’ is them lecturing about American politics as though they know more than we do. It’s bizarre. They genuinely believe that Twitter, the media, & Hollywood makes them experts.

    Not saying you did that, but you say you ‘didn’t have too bad of an experience,’ I’m curious how you know that. Americans are also very polite to guests and wouldn’t tell you to shut up, even if they were very uncomfortable. There have been multiple times I’ve been lectured to by a European about America and I’ve said nothing, only sort of smiled blandly. No idea if they thought htat meant the conversation went well!

    Finally, even if politics were a genuine discussion and not a lecture, a genuine discussion requires mutual trust, and you cannot have mutual trust within 10 minutes of meeting someone.

    Politics and religion require mutual trust and respect, and these are earned over time. And there are plenty of things to talk about beside these things. This is why we don’t just up and talk about politics.