1+1 can be 3 or 0.

For me, political discussions often turn out to be either infuriating or downright exhilarating. I can disagree with someone and still learn a lot from our conversation, come away thinking. It can be about many things, from euthanasia to homophobia, from the roles churches have played to modifications in the world order, and so on and so forth, but in the end, it always come down to an essential matter to me. Do we share some basic principles we guide ourselves from? I mean, can we actually understand each other?

Because if we´re discussing a law for example and one of us is insisting on how necessary and great it is in spite of the other person trying to point out how it will negate some people´s rights... Instead of a debate, it turns out to be an argument where we repeat ourselves over and over and accomplish nothing. Imagine two people in a market who don´t speak the same language, put their hands at the same time on a pineapple and begin to talk at the same time, don´t understand each other, fight over the fruit, and end up walking away frustrated or disgusted. That´s what it feels like to me.

For instance, when I´m talking about sexual diversity with a gender-essentialist person, after pointing out how LGBT people have their dignity denied by laws and prejudice, and the other person keeps harping about moral values, I´m left with asking over and over in different ways why they don´t care about the people their attitudes severely damage, and they´re left with asking in a myriad ways why I care. Why what "these people" do should matter when it´s contrary to God´s will, nature and good values, or any other pretext they come with.

Well, there´s a barrier that´s hard to cross. I try to explain to them how those exact attitudes are ultimately what made it possible for things such as the night of Saint-Barthélémy or the Cambodian genocide to happen. Sorry; in the face of the mass murders, rapes and torture your ideas have caused, I really don´t give a flying sock about a woman who gives another woman pleasure without a penis (the horror!), a person who was named Joel when they were born but chooses to be Gabrielle later in life even if she still likes football, three men who are in love and raise a child with care, and just about every case that has them up in arms. I´m still waiting for a persuasive explanation of why an injustice is committed when queer people live peacefully.

Yes, when I find myself talking with somebody devoid of empathy towards actual beings, it just frustrates me and makes my guts churn to no end. Because it´s not a pineapple that´s at stake between all human beings. It´s the life and happiness and rights of all of us who share this Earth, it´s our legacy as sentient beings given a choice.
And then there are the other conversations. When I actually feel it in my stomach that the other person just loves life and living beings and tries as hard as I do to act with passion and uncompromising coherence, that they´re here for joy and justice for all. Skin tingles all over; clouds and night skies swirl in my head.

It makes it all worth it.