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The Gentle Rebel PodcastAuthor: Andy Mort
The Gentle Rebel Podcast explores the intersection of high sensitivity, creativity, and the influence of culture within, between, and around us. Through a mix of conversational and monologue episodes, I invite you to question the assumptions, pressures, and expectations we have accepted, and to experiment with ways to redefine the possibilities for our individual and collective lives when we view high sensitivity as both a personal trait and a vital part of our collective survival (and potential). Language: en-us Genres: Arts, Education, Self-Improvement Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Is it Possible to Remain Apolitical?
Wednesday, 23 September, 2026
I’m sure you’re aware of the controversy surrounding Ed Sheeran’s 2026 Loop Tour. The situation escalated after billionaire tycoon and sports mogul Robert Kraft blocked Ed Sheeran’s support artist, Macklemore, from performing at Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts, following Macklemore’s declaration of solidarity with Palestinians in the face of the genocide being perpetrated by Israel. Under pressure from other stadium owners, Sheeran dropped Macklemore from the entire tour. After the other support artists and his backing band dropped out in solidarity with Macklemore, he continued on his own. He played the first show in Philadelphia last weekend, which he began by reading a prepared statement. This was uncomfortable for him because Sheeran has repeatedly described his commitment to being apolitical and inclusive. He has never wanted to be an “activist musician”. His goal is to create safe spaces where people can sing his songs together without bringing politics into the arena. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I explore how this situation has revealed that it’s not about the politics we carry into that arena (or leave at its door). It’s that politics IS the arena, which is what I want to explore a bit today. https://youtu.be/97b3zG6GW-s The Apolitical Arena Despite a strong interest that I’ve had for decades, I don’t explicitly talk about politics very often. I graduated in 2008 with a degree in Politics and International Relations from the University of Southampton. I would certainly say my interest in the subject underpins a lot of what I do and how I do it. It definitely informs my philosophical framework, especially to things like my critique of the self-help industry. I’ve always been more drawn to the underlying structure than the everyday spectacle of politics: how power, resources, and violence organise themselves, and how ideological narratives normalise those arrangements and maintain stability within society. This is Water Robert Kraft opened a rift and exposed a dimension that is usually well hidden. That rupture has revealed the political structure behind Ed Sheeran’s apolitical stance, which isn’t a particular political expression or belief. The author David Foster Wallace opened his famous commencement speech with the story, This Is Water. You’ve likely heard it. He described two young fish swimming along who meet an older fish swimming the other way. The older fish nods and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” The two young fish swim on for a bit, until one looks at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?” Wallace’s point was that the most obvious and important realities are often the hardest to see. The Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci talked about this in terms of ideological hegemony. Political power doesn’t operate only through laws, coercion, or direct force. It also operates through the things that come to feel normal, natural and obvious. The assumptions and boundaries we don’t think to question because we don’t notice them. Gramsci was interested in how systems of power could persist without constantly forcing people into submission, and how a particular social arrangement becomes Common Sense. Mark Fisher explored a similar idea through Capitalist Realism: the way capitalism has become so pervasive that it can feel less like an man-made idea than the water we move in, breathe in, think in, dream in, and relate to one another in. Ideology, in this sense, isn’t only a belief system someone actively subscribes to. It’s also the structural power relations beneath our words, actions, and beliefs. We can find ourselves acting within systems that tell a different story from the one we consciously believe. Political moments and political art can expose these structures. The Underlying Structure of a Political Belief Ed Sheeran describes his massive stadium tour as a neutral, apolitical space where people are free to sing together and love one another. I don’t doubt that he believes that’s what he is creating. Nothing implies he is being deliberately deceptive. He is describing the experience he wants people to have. But the concert doesn’t float outside of a power structure. And therefore, it doesn’t exist outside of a political context. It is anchored in labour relations, the flow of capital, and the decisions ultimately made by those who own the platforms the rest of us create and consume inside. Most of the time, this happens without us noticing. But in this situation, that rift opened, and we’ve had a little peek beneath the surface. We’ve been reminded that this is water. When we look around so much of life right now, it feels abundantly clear that we are in so many rooms we don’t have a meaningful power stake in. Most of the time we don’t notice. But every so often something happens to remind us. The rent goes up. We get closed down, lose access, or we can’t afford to stay. That is water.
