what is political?

05 Oct, 2026

Reading "Everything Is Political" by Shades of Purple reminded me of the contested delimitation of the realm of the political that many have tried to define, yet no one definition has become the scientific consensus. One of the definitions that I’m most familiar with is Carl Schmitt’s who was a Nazi lawyer and philosopher that provided the philosophical and legal legitimacy the Nazis needed to carry out their atrocities. It just so happens that this is also one of the more popular definitions that Shades of Purple is reproducing, whether knowingly or unknowingly.

Carl Schmitt argues that what becomes engulfed in the political must have been politicized beforehand. Any aspect of life that people don’t care about and take for granted is therefore outside the political, while what is a matter of debate is politicized through conflict and is therefore political. To Schmitt, the core of the political is conflict. We become political beings by defining ourselves against one another. If enough people go by the same definition and band together, they become a political community. Therefore, politics is primarily adversarial and ceases to exist without an adversary or opponent.¹ Because liberal democracy emphasizes political competition and opposition, he considered it to be a weakness of the nation which is why he made an argument for “harmonizing” public life and politics (Gleichschaltung in Nazi parlance). Feminist, queer, and disability activists have long resisted this definition because they consider indifference to their oppression to be itself the product of political choices and therefore within the realm of the political.

All that aside, assuming that oppression (in the private sphere) never faced opposition by the oppressed and was taken for granted is a fantastical belief that fascists like Schmitt share and propagate because their entire political agenda is based firmly in a mythological past they want their society to return to. Even the split between the private and public sphere itself was the product of a reactionary movement from the 17th and 18th centuries in response to the growing feminist movement. What the private-public schism required of women was to be wholly delegated to the private sphere while men, the only individuals capable of being political beings and therefore present in the public sphere, are to occupy the public sphere.

Shades of Purple argues that the State has no authority over the private sphere and any interference would be authoritarian. What this view ignores is that injustices in the private sphere are put in place, enforced, and guarded by the State either way. Politicizing the private sphere is an act of defiance by those confined to it to get justice for themselves. It was a political choice that confined them to it and further political choices robbed them of their autonomy. The only logical response is activism that politicizes that political choice to reverse it. What is appalling is calling politicizing what is private authoritarian when it leads to the State lessening of its instituted injustice. It follows a logic that deems equality, meaning a loss of relative advantage over others, as oppressive because one’s privilege was politicized and reduced.

The tone in Shades of Purple’s post seems to imply that what I just described was acceptable when it happened—now, in hindsight, of course—, but it seems they consider equality or justice to have been achieved and therefore any further politicization of the private sphere to be an overreach. This comes off as a very privileged position to hold when matters of female bodily autonomy in European countries² like Austria and Germany are still matters of public decision-making. Abortion in both of these countries is handled by their respective penal codes with exceptions to punishment if the procedure is performed within twelve weeks of pregnancy or when the mother’s life is in danger. Likewise, we’re living through a right-wing backlash to LGBTQ+ rights in terms of denying trans people’s right to gender-affirming care. Both of these issues—just from the top of my head—are matters of the private sphere and yet the State takes no issue in restricting them when they should be wholly the affected person’s prerogative. So is the political engulfing the private sphere acceptable as long as it is oppressive to disadvantaged classes but is unacceptable when it serves a liberatory function?

Lastly, I’m not sure where to place the “everything is a statement these days”-statement in reality. And by reality, I mean outside of social media. You live in a society surrounded by people who have opinions that will make them known to you when the chance presents itself. If you want to live your life without people commenting on your choices, you might want to clarify that you’re not interested in the alternative or the discussion. If they keep raising the issue, then you have a personal problem that you must deal with how you see fit. Disagreement is not oppressive, rather it’s part of a healthy political environment. But if voicing disagreement with your lifestyle choices is already an overreach, you might want to consider moving into a secluded cabin in the woods.

To conclude, as a consequence of living in a society organized by jurisprudence and legislature, everything becomes political because we have different needs that might diverge from the legal norm and therefore need to be politicized. Finally, the separation of the private and public sphere, one of which the law or public debate is shunned out of, serves to exempt the privileged from accountability to those their choices affect. For this reason, it should be opposed.

bibliography

Pateman, C. (1988). The Sexual Contract [EPUB]. Polity Press.

Schmitt, C. (1932). Der Begriff des Politischen (pp. 20–45).