Thread by @iyad_elbaghdadi

I recently asked, what would you disagree with your former self on? When I go through my old writings there's a clear shift in how I think about ideological change. I used to think making the argument was the most important thing. Now I don't.

I mean, 2015/2016 Iyad thought that if you make the right arguments, people will change their minds. He was involved in such projects as @IslamandLiberty, wanting to do just that. He wanted his ideas to compete for the mainstream. He was looking for ideological change.

Meanwhile 2021 Iyad disagrees on several levels (let me see if I can express this clearly). I mean, I understand that my 5-years-younger self saw an ideological problem and wanted it solved. That, I agree with. But I no longer think that making arguments solves that problem.

Rather, I now see that the real problem to solve is why people come by their ideas in the first place. Think of it this way - we know that our physical condition affects our emotional mood and our emotional mood affects our ideas. Now take this and apply it to societies

I now see that trying to endlessly argue with people who are forced into a certain lived reality is futile, even cruel. Their lived realities - economic, social, etc - are ultimately a result of political repression. Dictatorship is morally responsible for all these ideas.

This isn't to say that some people won't transcend their present lived realities. Some will. It's extraordinary when people transcend their lived realities but it's ordinary when they don't. You do not build a mainstream based upon the extraordinary but the ordinary.

I was 33 when the 2011 uprisings started. Before them, our societies were in a state of intellectual stagnation. Within weeks, we were in an actual spring. Everything was being questioned. It's like our intellectual history was on pause and someone pressed the play button.

Nothing in my lifetime - no government program or UN initiative or great philosopher - caused as big a movement in the Arab mind as the Arab Spring. Once free to speak and question, many of us reached similar conclusions. We had intellectual agency. No thought leaders needed.

Maybe I'm talking too much, but I hope I expressed what I want to say. I no longer believe that what's blocking ideological change is a lack of the "right" ideas. It's the lack of political freedom. Even the current social norms are a consequence of a lack of political freedom.

But here's another thing I don't get any more about my 5-years-younger self. Why are you so eager for your ideas to win over the mainstream, anyway? I no longer care about that. I mean yes, I have some ideas and will be putting them out as long as I'm around (that's what I do)...

But, I'm no longer attached to my ideas. I want them to be a few flowers in a garden of a million flowers. I don't want to put out ideas that save the world, but I do want to be an agent in securing people's freedom so they do the rest of the ideological work themselves.

Maybe along the way I'll put out a few decent ideas that another generation can build upon to create something truly great. But for that to happen, they need the freedom to think, build, create. We don't have to be guardians over their future, we just have to ensure they have one

We're putting this thinking into our new strategy. We'll still be putting out lots of content, but we'll also be focusing on community building, trauma & healing, art & culture, storytelling, etc. Things change when you start to think of what can be done in 20 years, not 2 or 3.

I mean, I hope I get 20 years. But if I don't, it's gonna be okay anyway. History doesn't ride on any one person or team or movement. Everything that we'll achieve will be achieved with us or without us. It would just be a deep honor if we play a role in birthing a new world.

Just realized that around 10 years ago, in March 2011, I started the #ArabTyrantManual hashtag. What a decade. Looking forward to the next two.