This thread will probably be banned too, but I'm going to voice my opinion.
To ban politics—which can be broadly understood as relationships between individuals and groups—is ultimately to ban most topics of substance.
It's nearly impossible to talke about art without politics. You can only talk about surfaces. Many people will disagree with this, but give me a Socratic dialog and I'll prove it. Remove the possibility of discussing relationships like individual/society, individual/corporation, individual/nation, nation/society, society/government, subculture/society, subculture/government... not to mention art/society, art/government, art/world, art world / artist .... you have discussions of surfaces and tools.
There are arguments for pure formalism, as a rejection of the political. But this is a radically political position. You can't discuss formalism in depth without acknowledging this.
I understand that it's in everyone's interest to avoiding personal attacks. And that political and religious arguments sometimes lead down this road. But so do arguments about digital cameras. The trick is to ban personal attacks, not the substance of the message board.
The idea that the political is "something else" is too dumb for me sit back and agree too. Every time we talk beyond f-stops and chemicals and pixels we are entering, or at least flirting with, the political. Drawing arbitrary lines, like whatever one led to the shutting down of the recent MFA thread, just make this a shallower and dumber place.
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