In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics... — George Orwell

In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

Author: George Orwell

Insight: There's a creeping discomfort most of us feel when someone says "I just don't follow politics." We nod politely, but something doesn't quite add up. That's Orwell pointing at a real trap: the idea that you can opt out of politics is itself a kind of fiction. When you decide where to work, what you buy, how you raise your kids, which neighborhoods are safe—those are all shaped by political choices someone else made. Staying silent about them doesn't make you neutral; it just means you're accepting whatever the current arrangement is. The harder part of what Orwell's saying is that he's not offering hope. Politics isn't a neutral system waiting for good people to fix it—it's genuinely tangled with contradiction and self-interest. That can feel paralyzing. But there's something useful in his bluntness. Once you stop expecting politics to be clean or logical, you can actually see what's happening more clearly. You're not looking for perfect answers anymore; you're just trying to understand whose interests are being served, what's being hidden, and where your own choices matter. That's not cynicism. That's just paying attention.