I want to be aware of enough to be productive, yes, but not so much that I get bogged down in the minutiae of corporate politics and can’t focus on my daily work.
Yes. I don't want to know the politics either, but on at least one occasion, for me, it gave me a very good and correct indicator of when to jump ship and saved me a lot of uncertainty (i.e. unemployment).
If you get stressed about that, imagine finding yourself redundant by close of business today, and job hunting from tomorrow.