People voice fearful knowledge privately but suppress it in public interview settings.

Evidence

The interchange began when I asked Clara about the nuclear issue. She responded that a nuclear battleship was di¡erent from a nuclear plant, and safer. Ron interrupted,A nuclear battleship is a nuclear plant.'' … She said she heard there were di¡erences and again Ron interrupted, If one of those babies melts down out there in the Sound, there won’t be any di¡erence to you!” To her, he detailed how a meltdown could happen, drawing on the large store of unspoken fearful knowledge many people in town shared. … Then I turned to Ron himself, to ask him about the nuclear issue. Suddenly, he sounded very di¡erent. He knew “some sharp people who work on the battleships” and trusted them not to make mistakes. — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 151

Categorization

• DEFINE: Concrete demonstration of how political avoidance operates: knowledge is spoken in some contexts and erased in others.
• corroborated: 5 independent passages support this claim — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 151
• XREF: connects to: People voice political opinions privately but suppress them in group settings.; Group silence about workplace harm coexists with genuine private sympathy — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 958; Activists suppress their systemic political analyses when speaking publicly. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 88 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Group silence about workplace harm coexists with genuine private sympathy #corroborates (0.90) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 958
• Activists suppress their systemic political analyses when speaking publicly. #exemplifies (0.82) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 88
• People publicly express more or less prejudice than they privately hold. #expands (0.80)
• Fear of seeming pessimistic suppresses citizens’ capacity to analyze present realities #expands (0.80) — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 150
• A diversity of listeners enables speakers to voice public-spirited ideas they otherwise suppress #qualifies (0.78) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 1472