My apologies if you have already read these but I thought they were apt. I think having some guiding principles (as you have articulated) will enable your audience to recognize that there are lessons to be learned from heroes and villains but learning doesn't equal idolizing. Keep up the good work.
As I was reading your article, I kept remembering the book "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt. The book explores how people often make decisions based on emotions and then use logic to back up those decisions.
After reading the book, I began to stay away from political discussions as much as possible. I realized that most people are not interested in hearing or understanding the other person's point of view. They just want to persuade the other party of their beliefs.
Alina - Thanks! I have taken a similar stance toward politics . I guess the challenge is that more things are becoming political. How are you thinking about how to approach or avoid topics in your niche that you are passionate about that have become politicised?
I've moved away from offering general career advice to focusing on career intelligence (i.e., data on different careers). So many areas of career advice can be twisted and become polarized and divisive. Take the topic of values as an example. It's common advice that you should work for a company that aligns with your values. Our personal values are often tied to the social causes we support. Discussing corporate social responsibility can get political very quickly.
You may want to check out Daily Chartbook (https://www.dailychartbook.com/). They are a daily newsletter focused on delivering data for investors in the form of charts. Might give you ideas for how to format the data.
Thanks for your in-depth thoughtfulness on this topic! It's something I think about daily, but it's hard to know how to enter the conversation. I'll give it a try with a few reflections on your piece:
1) There used to be an idea of writing--but not sending--an email rant to process one's feelings. But now, social media incentivizes short circuiting impulse control and pressing publish. Everyone has reckless thoughts, we just haven't always shared them--or been rewarded for doing so.
2) Regarding principle #9, and #6....Mary Beard, the Roman historian, suggests that instead of taking down the statues of historical figures because of some of their traits that we now disapprove of, we could leave them up as warnings against self-righteousness. How will people 200 years from now regard the positions people now cling to with such moral certainty?
3) The willingness to cancel or cut people off, and view to view them as all-bad or all-good reflects a rise of tribal thinking. It's one thing to recognize the human tendency towards tribalism, but another to actually embrace that tendency.
According to Susan Neiman in her book "Left is Not Woke," the growth of tribalism in the public sphere has specific philosophical roots that involve a rejection universalist Enlightenment ideals--which she thinks is a mistake. It seems to me that a lot of current public debate happens downstream of the crucial question of whether we embrace those ideals, or not.
I had not heard of Susan Neiman before. I just queued up some of her videos to watch later. Love the idea of moving beyond right/left and understanding the philosophical underpinnings.
Very interesting thoughts and it amazes me that you are able to pinpoint thoughts I have but haven't been able to formulate.
I'm so fascinated and also worries how the public shaming forces so many people from one in group to another with radically opposite views and how people continue to think this is a good thing.
Personally I have almost left social media because of the polarization and hateful atmosphere makes me so depressed.
This was going to be my comment! The idea that we can agree to disagree allows a diverse group of humans to share the planet. It is so much more enjoyable to be curious than judgmental, at least for me. 30 years ago I participated in a game during a communication workshop. Individuals were assigned roles as representatives of the countries of the world. We were given objectives and there were rules about how things could be done. This particular day the group of people in the game created world peace. The workshop leader commented that our group was the only group he had ever seen that created peace. I think it happened b/c the people in the group somehow agreed on the value of win/win solutions to problems. Thanks for a powerful and thought-provoking article, Micheal! I personally saw great value in all 10 principles.
Interesting article. Your comments/analysis remind of a piece written by Gurwinder -- he wrote one on audience capture ( https://gurwinder.substack.com/p/the-perils-of-audience-capture ), which seems to be the peril of those taking up the cause of public discourse and recently he wrote about the problem of being an NPC (see: https://gurwinder.substack.com/p/why-you-are-probably-an-npc ).
My apologies if you have already read these but I thought they were apt. I think having some guiding principles (as you have articulated) will enable your audience to recognize that there are lessons to be learned from heroes and villains but learning doesn't equal idolizing. Keep up the good work.
I've heard of Gurwinder, but haven't read any of his writing. Thanks for pointing me to these two articles.
So many deep insights here!
As I was reading your article, I kept remembering the book "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt. The book explores how people often make decisions based on emotions and then use logic to back up those decisions.
After reading the book, I began to stay away from political discussions as much as possible. I realized that most people are not interested in hearing or understanding the other person's point of view. They just want to persuade the other party of their beliefs.
Alina - Thanks! I have taken a similar stance toward politics . I guess the challenge is that more things are becoming political. How are you thinking about how to approach or avoid topics in your niche that you are passionate about that have become politicised?
I've moved away from offering general career advice to focusing on career intelligence (i.e., data on different careers). So many areas of career advice can be twisted and become polarized and divisive. Take the topic of values as an example. It's common advice that you should work for a company that aligns with your values. Our personal values are often tied to the social causes we support. Discussing corporate social responsibility can get political very quickly.
Very cool. Love the shift on switching to data.
You may want to check out Daily Chartbook (https://www.dailychartbook.com/). They are a daily newsletter focused on delivering data for investors in the form of charts. Might give you ideas for how to format the data.
Thanks for your in-depth thoughtfulness on this topic! It's something I think about daily, but it's hard to know how to enter the conversation. I'll give it a try with a few reflections on your piece:
1) There used to be an idea of writing--but not sending--an email rant to process one's feelings. But now, social media incentivizes short circuiting impulse control and pressing publish. Everyone has reckless thoughts, we just haven't always shared them--or been rewarded for doing so.
2) Regarding principle #9, and #6....Mary Beard, the Roman historian, suggests that instead of taking down the statues of historical figures because of some of their traits that we now disapprove of, we could leave them up as warnings against self-righteousness. How will people 200 years from now regard the positions people now cling to with such moral certainty?
3) The willingness to cancel or cut people off, and view to view them as all-bad or all-good reflects a rise of tribal thinking. It's one thing to recognize the human tendency towards tribalism, but another to actually embrace that tendency.
According to Susan Neiman in her book "Left is Not Woke," the growth of tribalism in the public sphere has specific philosophical roots that involve a rejection universalist Enlightenment ideals--which she thinks is a mistake. It seems to me that a lot of current public debate happens downstream of the crucial question of whether we embrace those ideals, or not.
Great thoughts Chris.
I had not heard of Susan Neiman before. I just queued up some of her videos to watch later. Love the idea of moving beyond right/left and understanding the philosophical underpinnings.
Very interesting thoughts and it amazes me that you are able to pinpoint thoughts I have but haven't been able to formulate.
I'm so fascinated and also worries how the public shaming forces so many people from one in group to another with radically opposite views and how people continue to think this is a good thing.
Personally I have almost left social media because of the polarization and hateful atmosphere makes me so depressed.
Yea, I hear you.
We need the equivalent of a Moon Shot for understanding how human differences can be an opportunity for integrative growth rather than division.
This was going to be my comment! The idea that we can agree to disagree allows a diverse group of humans to share the planet. It is so much more enjoyable to be curious than judgmental, at least for me. 30 years ago I participated in a game during a communication workshop. Individuals were assigned roles as representatives of the countries of the world. We were given objectives and there were rules about how things could be done. This particular day the group of people in the game created world peace. The workshop leader commented that our group was the only group he had ever seen that created peace. I think it happened b/c the people in the group somehow agreed on the value of win/win solutions to problems. Thanks for a powerful and thought-provoking article, Micheal! I personally saw great value in all 10 principles.
I really enjoyed this article, and have some questions.
How do apologies fit in? What about retractions or clarifications?
If someone puts their foot in their mouth, what are the characteristics of a proper apology or correction?
How can we have immediate and sincere communication on the permanent record of the internet without an 'undo' button? :)
Good questions. I'm going to have to reflect on these as I don't have good answers on them.
Really well said. Particularly resonate with the first two sentences.
It is interesting to observe the extent to which:
1. We filter knowledge through people.
2. We value the knowledge based on whether we like that person or not. (or there part of our in-group).