Thread by @wolfejosh

1/ Personal note:

I am generally ‘center left’
i believe in liberal democracy + free market capitalism

our current political moment is imperfect democracy + oft illiberal

our current market moment is distorted with speculative excess, wittingly corrupt promoters + cronyism...

2/
I believe in reducing human suffering + broadly expanding human rights—which means eliminating + shaming discrimination against skin/hair/eye color, body size/shape, gender, sexual preferences, religious beliefs, food, music, clothing choices.

I also believe in free speech

3/ Believing in free speech means the right to criticize and say things that may offend—and having no right to not be criticized or offended.

I can say something you find insulting
and you can correct my ignorance
and respect my subjectivity...

4/ I can respect your right to believe in an omniscient omnipotent invisible man in the sky who has financial problems and needs your money—and criticize that belief (not you) even if sacred and insulting to you... and you can see my criticism (not me) as disrespectful +insulting

5/ I can believe that self-identity ought be respected and acknowledged just as a name is—-

but that like a name, identity is sometimes but not always originated from within but sometimes given to you by others...

6/ ...that the VIRTUE of seeing + celebrating a heterogenous individual can in extremis be overridden by the VICE of individual identity dissolving into larger homogenous set that can be segregated + exclusive—the opposite of diverse + inclusive (nationality, religion, race)

7/ In almost all institutions (from schools to media companies to political institutions to companies) I see many OLD wrongs being righted anew—but also see NEW wrongs unintentionally being created...

8/ I have seen people I admire who stood and delivered for decades against injustices being forced into passive silence out of fear that forces of active voices—without allowance for nuance—would punish small disagreements with equivalence of ‘with us or against us’ declarations

9/ I see it happening amongst people prefering to pull kids from schools (exit) than argue (voice) for principles—out of fear of ironically...being given an identity (racist, sexist, worse) they reject, disagreeing in degree not totality with identity indoctrinations.

10/ I see it happenning at media companies where like blades of grass, anyone not disagreeing isn’t showing consent or agreeing but instead laying low, scared to get cut down with dissent....

11/ What catalyzes a return to center?
Do we have permanent pull at extremes
creating volatility in a virtues tug-of-war

Like a steering wheel on icy road
when systems oversteer one way
they tend to oversteer the other
before centering again
or else spinning out + crashing...