I just spent this day with my grandma and my uncle, at lunch they started speaking about politics and how things today are much better than 70 years ago, that we are middle class and we should be happy, also that im wrong at complaining for todays inequality and injustices.

Both of them started telling me personal stories of people they know as arguments, instead I was telling them that statistics like the Oxfam studies on wealth inequality show some few billionaires owning as much wealth as the poorest 2 billion people, and that of all new wealth created 2/3 of it go to the one percent and they simply disregard it and tell me to not complain.

I got angry with them, I have a short temper and I dont have time to explain every study on economics Ive read. Maybe I did wrong on getting angry but the conversation felt really condescending, they didnt give me any arguments on any studies, just personal stories and I felt silenced for telling what I know. Idk why but ive always been a economics and geopolitics nerd, I think I just wanted to understand the world that we live in and tried to gather as much info as I could, yet this info feels useless when speaking with them.

My uncle got really angry when I told him we cannot posibly be middle class, we would be without home if any of us stopped working, how is that not a lower class person needing to sell their labor to barely live?

He told me that all the youth are complaing about our bosses and we should be happy to have a job.

After that I told him I was sorry for geting angry but that I wasnt sorry for telling what I know.

So should I never speak about politics with them? Economic talk happens at every family gathering, I think again I will feel like I cant express myself for simply pointing at todays injustices, wtf do I do?

Just to be clear we live in a western european nation, that was under a dictatorship years ago, its no wonder that life is better now than under martial law the restoration after ww2.

  • Soviet Pigeon@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    8 months ago

    The dynamics in families differ a lot. But your question could also apply to any other situation, where you have to interact with people you probably disagree with on many things. You should question yourself if it is worth participating in such discussions then. There is nothing to gain if you are facing people who don’t want to have a proper discussion. Especially if it is just a circlejerk. In such situations, where I am somehow forced to participate (Like someone asks me directly) I simply say, that I disagree with them and that I don’t want to discuss this topic. You could say, that you don’t want to speak about negative things or politics generally.

    That’s what I do if there is no point in discussing some topics. “I disagree with you, but I’m also really not in the mood to talk about it”.