I think the next step is then I can assail you with facts of every bad thing going on in this world and if you do nothing about it, you're cowardly abdicating your political responsibility, neh?
I might go a step further with your position and say that silence/speaking out are really two sides of the same coin. After all, silence and 'talk' is cheap. If you really want to fight the status quo you ought to commit your life and the majority of your money to the causes you believe in.
Absolutely, as a relatively well-off Westerner, me and my way of life absolutely are the direct and indirect cause of a lot of violence and harm around the world. I likewise creates a lot of CO2. Filling up my gas tank causes a lot of bloodshed. Doing this things is a part of the life I am used to, but absolutely yes I am passively supporting these things.
An activist against these things will likely take active steps to resist this passive support.
> if you do nothing about it, you're cowardly abdicating your political responsibility, neh?
No. My point is precisely if I tell you "we don't talk about those things, it's not polite, I want this to be an apolitical statement" that I am switching from passively supporting the status quo to actively. But by claiming that this is somehow "apolitical" that is the cowardly abdication of political responsibility. What I mean here is being responsible for your political choices.
Saying that "wow I do passively contribute to co2 emissions, I don't know what to do about it but I don't like it." is taking political responsibility. Say "don't talk about that at work!" and claiming your taking the neutral ground is abdicating that responsibility.
> If you really want to fight the status quo you ought to commit your life and the majority of your money to the causes you believe in.
This is literally the definition of activism, and I of course support it. But the source of all activism is 'talk', which is not a cheap as you make it out to be. People who 'talk' about unions at Google tend to lose jobs. People who 'talk' about questionable legal practices at their company tend to lose jobs. And 'talk' is the seed of activism.
no that's just surviving. It's not politically supporting "the status quo".
> abdicating political responsibility.
implying that everyone _has_ to have some political responsibility.
Not everyone cares enough - they believe climate change, but they also don't want to expend energy fighting it - that' snot a political stance. It sucks, but that's the majority of people.
Passive support for the status quo is that we all have to work and survive in this world. If you have to work for an airline to live, but hate what co2 emissions is doing for this world, you are passively supporting the currently political narrative.
Insisting that any belief that is non-status quo be silenced is active political action. You can pretend that it's passive, but that is just a cowardly way of abdicating political responsibility.