Those are the two subjects to avoid if you want to keep your dinner party civil, right? And rightly so, as both of these topics have a singular thing in common with each other that other topics do not. They both form the basis for the way a person thinks and acts. People go out into the world and interact with the world while typically keeping in mind their particular political and religious views. Hence the reason for the un-civil nature in which these topics are often discussed.
I think some people might be tempted to assume that the reason these topics are so hotly argued is because they have the power of belief behind them, meaning that whoever the person is, they believe in their religion and their political stance and they aren’t keen to have that stance challenged. And while the second part of that is true, people don’t like having their politics or religion challenged, it’s not because of belief. History for instance is a believed subject. We weren’t present during the War of 1812, so all we have are books that tell us about it, and we believe those books because…well because everyone else believes them and because the books agree with each other. Although truthfully, not all the books agree with each other completely and some of them don’t agree with each other at all, but we do the best we can since we can’t go back in time and see it for ourselves…at least not yet. And then you might be tempted to say that this a particular phenomenon attributed just to History, but it goes for everything else as well. For instance, unless you actually perform the vast and myriad scientific experiments out there you don’t actually know for certain that all those experiments worked like they said they did. But we take it on faith that the scientific community is trustworthy…or at least portions of the scientific community are…usually…right? Either way, whatever knowledge you have about black holes and enzyme growth, chances are you haven’t actually done the experiments yourself, but have only read about them in a book or periodical.
But although 99% of what we know, we actually have only taken on authority, taking those things on authority doesn’t mean we integrate them into ourselves. Reading a book about World War II and taking on authority that the book is accurate is one thing. Deciding that killing off whole subsection of people is a bad thing because you read that book is another. The first thing is merely reading or hearing about things and taking on authority that those things are true, and the second thing involves thinking and reasoning which is based on those things. The act of thinking and reasoning things out ties those things to us much more closely than the act of reading or hearing about them and taking on authority their truth. A man or woman who has reasoned, via a chain of logic, that God exists or does not exist is far more adamant about their position than someone who has taken God’s existence or non-existence on authority. The same thing goes for economic policy. Not many people spend time on reasoning and logic chains when it comes to the weather, sports teams, history, or science (Which is not to say that people don’t at all, for surely the meteorologist, professional coach, historian, and scientist do spend time doing that, but it isn’t common to everyone).
So what’s the point? Well, because politics and religion are not just something most people take on authority and are indeed things people spend time and reason on, then they are important to those people. Important enough that they don’t like their logic being challenged on those subjects, whether that challenge was actually issued to them or was overheard by them. Now, when people argue about religion or politics it is unlikely that they will remain wholly civil, because of the importance it bears on their lives, unless 1) everyone agrees with each other on those points already, so the conversation isn’t challenging anyone (Which is a likely reason we tend to surround each other with likeminded people) or 2) everyone is doing their level best to stay civil (Like in an agreed upon debate, or in a very friendly setting). The reason these conversations typically degrade so quickly has little to do with either side’s actual argument, but more to do with their ability, or inability, to express their particular logic chain out loud and in a way someone else can understand. It’s dang hard to express a long bit of reasoning out loud to someone who doesn’t agree with you and likely doesn’t fully understand what you are saying (I think the understanding bit is particularly important, working where I do we spend an inordinate amount of time ensuring that communication is effective and the reason is because most of the time when we communicate we aren’t very good at it). So in the end to avoid shouting and name calling, such conversations are indeed best kept to the first two cases above, either with friends or in an agreed upon place and time and manner, and like was said earlier, avoid politics and religion if you want to keep things civil at the dinner party.
