Thank you for the work in creating Persuasion. I have put a question about the project in this comment, and would love to see an FAQ where questions could be posted.
I signed up for Persuasion for two reasons. The first is I ideologically agree with your thesis and ideology. I like to read ideas that agree with my model of the world.
The second is more worrying. I felt I had to support the project because other similarly "liberal" publications have become first and foremost about winning the culture war. In that goal, they seem to be slowly throwing away their limiting principles, and doing and saying whatever they can to win.
You are someone who I have seen trying to thread this needle. Both holding the liberal position without throwing away values I see as fundamental to the position. I believe in you, and that has been enough of a reason for me to give my own money.
But what are your plans to allow Persuasion to maintain this position? What processes and incentives will you put in place to prevent the organization from being pulled towards "winning the culture war"? This answer may be as simple as "hire the right people", but I worry this may not be enough.
One example of a process could be asking people to sign up for longer subscription cycles. This allows people to not be able to immediately cancel when they get an emotional rush. Another could be having explicit counter argument essays, forcing people to confront the strongest positions against the liberal position (and there are many).
Yes. I love the idea of having explicit counter argument essays - perhaps comparing and contrasting in a split page format (note: the first conversation will be a debate on the original premise espoused by Yascha - which is fantastic). Another idea that would be helpful to enable accessibility and accountability is to boil down the arguments to their bare essence. So often, the plot is lost by the use of inaccessible and/or flowery language.
For example, the argument that cancel culture is not new. All that is happening is the allowable range of ideas has shifted. Now "your" ideas are moving out of the realm of acceptability, and only when you are forced out of the public sphere of institutions can you see the forces that were already there.
Not convinced but I think it is a strong argument.
Your idea of side by side is interesting. The economist did a back and forth debate format for a while, don't think it took off but a good start nether the less.
Apologies if this is against protocol but on your point re: side by side please see the Flip Side. It has a news topic du jour where they do a side by side of op ed opinions (left v right). Super helpful for quickly separating the wheat from the chaff.
On your point re: cancel culture, yes, but there’s always a wrinkle - social media enables access to an idea but it obfuscates (or amplifies) the “weight” of that opinion. How many people really believe a given idea or said differently, how much “power” is behind that idea?
>>> all individuals get to pursue a meaningful life irrespective of who they are.
With respect, politely, and hopefully persuasively, I will suggest that this is a grossly inadequate core value. It is actually just a statement of fact. All individuals, even those imprisoned in poverty, or actually in prison, are free to pursue a meaningful life. And society has no obligation to make outcomes equal - to make everyone a millionaire. But one of the most critical problems in our society is that a huge fraction of our populace does not have a reasonable prospect of success in pursuing a meaningful, happy, fulfilled life because of conditions outside their control - the relative wealth of their parents, their race, their ethnicity, their gender or orientation, etc. I have joined because I think I understand where you are trying to go, and I am willing to support well-intentioned efforts even if I am not in agreement with every detail. But if you want to keep me long-term, I'll have to be convinced that the group's core values include crafting a society where all individuals are not just "free to pursue" but have a reasonable opportunity to actually *achieve* a life of meaning, happiness and reasonable material success. Historically (and you do a good job of making this point) liberal society has extolled the values of freedom, free thought, intellectual debate while turning a blind eye to inequalities of opportunity. One of the great challenges of our age is how to continue to promote these liberal values, but to refuse to accept that the price of these values is a society without equal opportunity. "Free speech" is a wonderful value to have when your stomach is full, when your child can go to college, when your dad can get the surgery he needs. If your children do not have the opportunity to live a meaningful life, cannot get into or afford good higher education, and are systematically oppressed, "free speech" is really pretty worthless. To be clear, I believe in a fairly absolutist version of free speech. But it't not enough for a society to guarantee everyone free speech if we can't also guarantee they have a chance of achieving whatever they consider the good life to be.
Thanks for creating this discussion space and for the articles and podcasts. As an educator I maintain that ultimately we must focus on how we can incorporate the values and discussions we have here into our education system. Otherwise we are just continuing top speak to one another and will change nothing. Is there a space in your vision to think about reaching out into our education systems: schools and universities? Thanks
An important question! I'll say a bit about this in my next article. But the short answer is: yes. I'm hoping this community will inspire all kind of spin-off efforts, and ensuring that the educational system conveys them better than it does now is one of the most important of these.
Thanks you Yascha for the response. As someone who teaches and does research at university level, I have always struggled with the very hierarchical and structured ways things are done and taught. Recent events and conversations has really highlighted these problems, and I am hoping that the wider societal change will also impact academia. We are after all sending our students out into the world expecting them to be 'good' citizens.
Thank you for making this community! To be honest, prior to the Harper's letter and the reaction to it, I didn't pay too much attention to cancel culture and thought of it as just an annoyance. The Harper's letter changed all of that. It was shocking to find so many prominent voices go against what I thought was a much needed and eloquent defense of free speech. And these people were supposed to be on the side of defending us from the dangers posed by Trump and right-wing populism.
I was heartened to find that in the comments of the NYT article
(Accidentally sent before finishing). ... the comments were overwhelmingly positive towards the Harper's letter. Knowing that the vast majority of commenters on the NYT were from a liberal persuasion, this gave me hope that regular people were overwhelmingly for the letter.
Looking forward to this. I worked a bit with Dave French in Iraq and have been following his work ever since. The other contributors look interesting and thoughtful as well. I want to thank you in advance for what I am confident will be an enriching experience!
Hello from Montreal 🇨🇦 This initiative feels like a glass of fresh water that you magically find in the middle of the desert. I often tell me friends and family that I’m grateful to be well alive at a time of critical / decisive/ impactful decisions. We are here and together we can shape the future so everyone finds it’s safe place.
I wrote a Facebook post a few weeks ago recommending a list of people to follow on social media in order to bypass the mainstream news and be informed by intelligent and well reasoned journalists and thinkers. Most of them are now contributors of this site. I must say that is very handy for me. I wish you all the best of luck and I can't wait to see the content you provide.
Very excited for this. I only recently encountered Haidt and McWhorter, and even more recently Mounk in his Atlantic article on not firing the innocent. I’ve been gobbling it up. Excited to have more to consume.
Heard about this on the Blocked and Reported podcast and signed up immediately. Big thank you to Yascha and all the incredible contributors for making this happen, I’m very excited to see how it goes.
Hi Yascha,
Thank you for the work in creating Persuasion. I have put a question about the project in this comment, and would love to see an FAQ where questions could be posted.
I signed up for Persuasion for two reasons. The first is I ideologically agree with your thesis and ideology. I like to read ideas that agree with my model of the world.
The second is more worrying. I felt I had to support the project because other similarly "liberal" publications have become first and foremost about winning the culture war. In that goal, they seem to be slowly throwing away their limiting principles, and doing and saying whatever they can to win.
You are someone who I have seen trying to thread this needle. Both holding the liberal position without throwing away values I see as fundamental to the position. I believe in you, and that has been enough of a reason for me to give my own money.
But what are your plans to allow Persuasion to maintain this position? What processes and incentives will you put in place to prevent the organization from being pulled towards "winning the culture war"? This answer may be as simple as "hire the right people", but I worry this may not be enough.
One example of a process could be asking people to sign up for longer subscription cycles. This allows people to not be able to immediately cancel when they get an emotional rush. Another could be having explicit counter argument essays, forcing people to confront the strongest positions against the liberal position (and there are many).
Thank you for your work,
Sam Taylor
Yes. I love the idea of having explicit counter argument essays - perhaps comparing and contrasting in a split page format (note: the first conversation will be a debate on the original premise espoused by Yascha - which is fantastic). Another idea that would be helpful to enable accessibility and accountability is to boil down the arguments to their bare essence. So often, the plot is lost by the use of inaccessible and/or flowery language.
For example, the argument that cancel culture is not new. All that is happening is the allowable range of ideas has shifted. Now "your" ideas are moving out of the realm of acceptability, and only when you are forced out of the public sphere of institutions can you see the forces that were already there.
Not convinced but I think it is a strong argument.
Your idea of side by side is interesting. The economist did a back and forth debate format for a while, don't think it took off but a good start nether the less.
Apologies if this is against protocol but on your point re: side by side please see the Flip Side. It has a news topic du jour where they do a side by side of op ed opinions (left v right). Super helpful for quickly separating the wheat from the chaff.
On your point re: cancel culture, yes, but there’s always a wrinkle - social media enables access to an idea but it obfuscates (or amplifies) the “weight” of that opinion. How many people really believe a given idea or said differently, how much “power” is behind that idea?
>>> all individuals get to pursue a meaningful life irrespective of who they are.
With respect, politely, and hopefully persuasively, I will suggest that this is a grossly inadequate core value. It is actually just a statement of fact. All individuals, even those imprisoned in poverty, or actually in prison, are free to pursue a meaningful life. And society has no obligation to make outcomes equal - to make everyone a millionaire. But one of the most critical problems in our society is that a huge fraction of our populace does not have a reasonable prospect of success in pursuing a meaningful, happy, fulfilled life because of conditions outside their control - the relative wealth of their parents, their race, their ethnicity, their gender or orientation, etc. I have joined because I think I understand where you are trying to go, and I am willing to support well-intentioned efforts even if I am not in agreement with every detail. But if you want to keep me long-term, I'll have to be convinced that the group's core values include crafting a society where all individuals are not just "free to pursue" but have a reasonable opportunity to actually *achieve* a life of meaning, happiness and reasonable material success. Historically (and you do a good job of making this point) liberal society has extolled the values of freedom, free thought, intellectual debate while turning a blind eye to inequalities of opportunity. One of the great challenges of our age is how to continue to promote these liberal values, but to refuse to accept that the price of these values is a society without equal opportunity. "Free speech" is a wonderful value to have when your stomach is full, when your child can go to college, when your dad can get the surgery he needs. If your children do not have the opportunity to live a meaningful life, cannot get into or afford good higher education, and are systematically oppressed, "free speech" is really pretty worthless. To be clear, I believe in a fairly absolutist version of free speech. But it't not enough for a society to guarantee everyone free speech if we can't also guarantee they have a chance of achieving whatever they consider the good life to be.
Thanks for creating this discussion space and for the articles and podcasts. As an educator I maintain that ultimately we must focus on how we can incorporate the values and discussions we have here into our education system. Otherwise we are just continuing top speak to one another and will change nothing. Is there a space in your vision to think about reaching out into our education systems: schools and universities? Thanks
An important question! I'll say a bit about this in my next article. But the short answer is: yes. I'm hoping this community will inspire all kind of spin-off efforts, and ensuring that the educational system conveys them better than it does now is one of the most important of these.
Thanks you Yascha for the response. As someone who teaches and does research at university level, I have always struggled with the very hierarchical and structured ways things are done and taught. Recent events and conversations has really highlighted these problems, and I am hoping that the wider societal change will also impact academia. We are after all sending our students out into the world expecting them to be 'good' citizens.
Looking forward to the promise of free—and respectful!—dialogue. Much like your podcast has offered.
Look forward to meeting you and other members of the community!
Thank you for making this community! To be honest, prior to the Harper's letter and the reaction to it, I didn't pay too much attention to cancel culture and thought of it as just an annoyance. The Harper's letter changed all of that. It was shocking to find so many prominent voices go against what I thought was a much needed and eloquent defense of free speech. And these people were supposed to be on the side of defending us from the dangers posed by Trump and right-wing populism.
I was heartened to find that in the comments of the NYT article
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/07/arts/harpers-letter.html#commentsContainer
(Accidentally sent before finishing). ... the comments were overwhelmingly positive towards the Harper's letter. Knowing that the vast majority of commenters on the NYT were from a liberal persuasion, this gave me hope that regular people were overwhelmingly for the letter.
Looking forward to this. I worked a bit with Dave French in Iraq and have been following his work ever since. The other contributors look interesting and thoughtful as well. I want to thank you in advance for what I am confident will be an enriching experience!
Hello from Montreal 🇨🇦 This initiative feels like a glass of fresh water that you magically find in the middle of the desert. I often tell me friends and family that I’m grateful to be well alive at a time of critical / decisive/ impactful decisions. We are here and together we can shape the future so everyone finds it’s safe place.
Thank you for leading the change 🙏
I wrote a Facebook post a few weeks ago recommending a list of people to follow on social media in order to bypass the mainstream news and be informed by intelligent and well reasoned journalists and thinkers. Most of them are now contributors of this site. I must say that is very handy for me. I wish you all the best of luck and I can't wait to see the content you provide.
I'm in. Flex Your Head.
Very excited for this. I only recently encountered Haidt and McWhorter, and even more recently Mounk in his Atlantic article on not firing the innocent. I’ve been gobbling it up. Excited to have more to consume.
Thank you for creating this "safe" space. Very excited to meet new people and learn new things!
Hello from Ontario Canada
Hopefully not too safe! :) Can't wait to get to know everyone who is signing up...
Very excited for the future of this platform.
Me too! Welcome to the community...
Heard about this on the Blocked and Reported podcast and signed up immediately. Big thank you to Yascha and all the incredible contributors for making this happen, I’m very excited to see how it goes.
We have so much work head. But I'm really energized. Let's make it great!
coucou c'est coucouille @kyrios8888 sur twitter
Coucou, coucouille.
Thanks for accepting me here.
Looks like a wonderful team, and worthy cause. Looking forward to the book club.
Look forward to seeing you in the book club!
Just signed up! Thanks for doing this
Thanks for helping to lead one of our book clubs, Richard!