A couple of weeks ago, I was at a work dinner with other members of my team. We were at an amazing restaurant in downtown Austin. The appetizers had come and gone, the drinks had arrived, and conversation had started to open up a bit from the perfunctory discussions of work projects and the weather. As inevitably happens, a lull in the conversation occurred and a member of our engineering team, Vinay (not his real name), piped up and asked if he could ask our table a somewhat sensitive question.
I love controversial conversations. I was also sitting right next to Vinay, so I piped right up and told him to fire away. There were about 8 people at our table, and I reckoned that even if the conversation got a bit spicy, the background din of the restaurant and organic cross-conversation could cover.
“Why is it impolite for Americans to discuss politics?”
He said it gently and urgently. It was obvious that he wasn’t spoiling for a heated conversation or baiting anyone at the table. He went on:
“In my hometown in India, everyone talks about politics all the time. And most of us don’t agree with one another. But that’s okay. I can even tease other people about our political disagreements and it doesn’t get in the way of friendships. Why isn’t that the case here in the US?”
People were fidgeting at the mere mention of the word politics, and another member of the engineering team sitting across from me chuckled as if to dispel the tension. “Well, it’s just something we’re all taught: politics and money aren’t topics for polite company!” He looked around as if to say “what can you do?”
But Vinay was having none of that.
“Sure, there is some social training here, but I’m betting you can all feel the tension of even just asking this question among coworkers. Why is that? Why can’t we disagree and remain friendly at work? It’s not like we are making policy decisions, we work at a tech company writing code.”
Another coworker interjected, “It’s so hard making friends as a parent, I don’t want to risk losing out on a friendship over political beliefs.” Several others nodded in agreement.
Vinay smiled in a self deprecating way, “I’m sorry, I have to push further on that. Why is it that a disagreement about something as abstract about politics is an acceptable reason to end a friendship? Do all Americans spend most of their weekends attending political rallies?”
I took a half-hearted swing at a response: “I think that in America, political beliefs and violence are more closely entwined than in other parts of the world. I’d be a bit worried about getting punched if I got too deep into politics with someone who disagreed with me.” I said that last bit sarcastically to help diffuse the tension.
Vinay smiled apologetically at me. “You know that people have been lynched in India in the last few months due to political violence, right? Americans think their politics are so polarized, but it’s worse in India right now. Has anyone been killed in America recently because they were a Democrat or Republican?”
I felt pretty stupid, I clearly didn’t have much of a handle on the political situation in India. I had to confess that nobody I’d heard of had died because of their party affiliation. And if that happened, I suspected I would have heard about it.
I meekly replied “I don’t think so, that’s a fair point.”
Fortunately, Vinay wasn’t interested in embarrassing me and continued, “In Bangalore, my family lives in an apartment building and when I go home to visit, I have conversations with a couple dozen people every day. If politics were as divisive as here in America, I’d have no friends left.”
That got me thinking. “You know, one thing that’s very different between most of the US and most of India is population density. I live in a suburb here in Austin and I have to actually go out of my way to see my neighbors at all.”
A couple of my coworkers were shaking their heads in agreement.
“Most of the time, it’s as if I don’t have neighbors. There’s a lot of physical space separating humans. If I have even a slightly uncomfortable situation with someone, it would be easy for me to never see them again.”
Vinay thought about that for a moment. “I couldn’t avoid most of the people in my apartment building if I wanted to, I almost trip over them when I come and go.”
Another coworker added. “This all lines up with my experiences. I’ve been trying to find a tennis partner to play with and the one guy that’s been the most dependable lives about 20 minutes away from me. If either of us said anything to offend one another, it would be super easy to make excuses not to play again. That’s one of the reasons we don’t talk about politics.”
As he concluded that thought, the entrees started to arrive. Vinay grudgingly accepted that something as trivial as population density could be an important catalyst for forming a cultural norm against offending others.
More food came, we drank and talked about other topics. You could feel the tension draining away as the dreaded “P” word was replaced with other more polite subjects.