#pluralism

[pluraljoyis]

plural joy is finding another system and several of your alters start dating several of their alters before the two hosts realize wow yeah we're. oh my arc we're gay for each other /silly

~ 🔺🔻

if that's available?

Aww that's so cute!! I'm happy for you two :D

[justalittlesolarpunk]

It’s solar and wind and tidal and geothermal and hydropower.

It’s plant-based diets and regenerative livestock farming and insect protein and lab-grown meat.

It’s electric cars and reliable public transit and decreasing how far and how often we travel.

It’s growing your own vegetables and community gardens and vertical farms and supporting local producers.

It’s rewilding the countryside and greening cities.

It’s getting people active and improving disabled access.

It’s making your own clothes and buying or swapping sustainable stuff with your neighbours.

It’s the right to repair and reducing consumption in the first place.

It’s greater land rights for the commons and indigenous peoples and creating protected areas.

It’s radical, drastic change and community consensus.

It’s labour rights and less work.

It’s science and arts.

It’s theoretical academic thought and concrete practical action.

It’s signing petitions and campaigning and protesting and civil disobedience.

It’s sailboats and zeppelins.

It’s the speculative and the possible.

It’s raising living standards and curbing consumerism.

It’s global and local.

It’s me and you.

Climate solutions look different for everyone, and we all have something to offer.

[nikonikonek000]

[wingedcreaturecomics]

How to Talk to Plurals (1/2)

(description: Girl typing on phone: I'm plural! Mom replies: That's scary. Deirdre: Bzzt! Nope, wrong! Plurality is not scary.

Deirdre: If someone comes out to you as plural, they have put a great amount of trust in you, and your response may have great weight to them. It is imperative that you understand their condition before you make declarative statements about it.

Mom (thinking): That sounds scary... but let's ask what she thinks.

Mom (typing): Oh, really? Tell me more about it!

Girl: I think it's fascinating! / I'm still figuring it out... / It's exciting... but a little scary.

Deirdre: These are examples of ways they may respond depending on their situation. Plurality is a very broad concept, and everyone's case is unique.

Deirdre: For some, it may be scary! In that case, be extra careful not to exacerbate their fear. You hold the power to accept them.

Header: Some good general questions include... "How would you like to be addressed? Do you have new pronouns or names?" / "Are you a plural system? What are the other members of your system like?")

[monoconsciouscultureis]

monoconscious culture is not being able to tell if you're just fixating on a certain character or if you actually are said character

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

There was a time I would reject those who were not of my faith. But now, my heart has grown capable of taking on all forms. It is a pasture for gazelles, An abbey for monks. A table for the Torah, Kaaba for the pilgrim. My religion is love. Whichever the route love’s caravan shall take, That shall be the path of my faith.

Ibn Arabi

[thebrokenheartvillage]

LOL KEKW ENDOS

[cncleric]

As a switch, having a partner who experiences plurality is fucking amazing. Especially because of the two alters who front the most; one is very dominant and one is very submissive.

That means last week we had a whole night where I got to take someone apart piece by piece and hear whimpering and moaning and pleas.

Last night on the other hand... Let's just say the tables were rather turned.

[shifting-schrodinger]

What are other people's headspaces like?

Could my maladaptive daydreaming have been a way to externalize my headspace since I can't access it internally?

[unwelcome-ozian]

[friendinstrument]

The wonderful thing about pluralism is that it allows you to see the truth that has been disputed, hidden, hated, and fought for so much of the history of Christianity.

Just as God loves and has a mighty use for all of his children, he similarly loves and has mighty uses for all of his Christians.

I was raised in the evangelical Baptist tradition, and there is truth in a church of equals where the gospel is discussed plainly. There is also beauty in Catholic and Orthodox art, and God can be a mighty muse. Every tradition of Christianity has its wonderful beauty.

Every faith has its divine-inspired beauty. I adore the sound of the Shofar and the Azzan, the serenity and peace of Buddhist temples, and the wonderful cornucopia of ways that people worship God in their own way, in whichever of God's faces they praise.

[pluraljoyis]

autistic plural joy (as a fictive) is learning that your source is just as important to the rest of your collective as it is to you (if for different reasons), and being able to know that you won't be expected to let it go

That's so sweet! I'm glad you're accepted here

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Ouroboros Der Siebente Ring Stefan George Illus. by Melchior Lechter Berlin: Blaetter für die Kunst, 1907.

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 7, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Dec 08, 2024

On Thursday, December 5, in Chicago, Illinois, former president Barack Obama gave the third in an annual series of lectures he has delivered since 2022 at his foundation’s Democracy Forum, which gathers experts, leaders, and young people to explore ways to safeguard democracy through community action.

Taken together, these lectures are a historical and philosophical exploration of the weaknesses of twenty-first century democracy as well as a road map of directions, some new and some old, for democracy’s defense. In 2022, Obama explored ways to counteract the flood of disinformation swamping a shared reality for decision making; in 2023 he discussed ways to address the extraordinary concentration of wealth that has undermined support for democracy globally.

On Thursday, Obama explored the concept of “pluralism,” a word he defined as meaning simply that “in a democracy, we all have to find a way to live alongside individuals and groups who are different than us.”

But rather than advocating what he called “holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’” as we all tolerate each other, Obama described modern pluralism as active work to form coalitions over shared issues. His argument echoed the concepts James Madison, a key framer of the Constitution, explained in Federalist #10 when he was trying to convince inhabitants of a big, diverse country that they should endorse the newly written document.

In 1787, many inhabitants of the fledgling nation objected to the idea of the strong national government proposed under the new constitution. They worried that such a government could fall under the control of a majority that would exercise its power to crush the rights of the minority. Madison agreed that such a calamity was likely in a small country, but argued that the very size and diversity of the people in the proposed United States would guard against such tyranny as people formed coalitions over one issue or another, then dissolved them and formed others. Such constantly shifting coalitions would serve the good of all Americans without forging a permanent powerful majority.

Obama called the Constitution “a rulebook for practicing pluralism.” The Bill of Rights gives us a series of rights that allow us to try to convince others to form coalitions to elect representatives who will “negotiate and compromise and hopefully advance our interests.”

Majority rule determines who wins, but the separation of powers and an independent judiciary are supposed to guarantee that the winners “don’t overreach to try to permanently entrench themselves or violate minority rights,” he said. The losers accept the outcome so long as they know they’ll have a chance to win the next time.

Obama noted that this system worked smoothly after World War II, largely because a booming economy meant rising standards of living that eased friction between different groups: management and labor, industry and agriculture. At the same time, the Cold War helped Americans come together against an external threat, and a limited range of popular culture reinforced a shared perspective on the world—everyone watched the sitcom��Gilligan’s Island.

Most of all, though, Obama noted, American pluralism worked well because it largely excluded women and racial, gender, and religious minorities. He pointed out that as late as 2005, when he went to the Senate, he was the only African American there and only the third since Reconstruction. There were two Latinos and fourteen women.

In the 1960s, he noted drily, “things got more complicated.” “[H]istorically marginalized groups—Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans; women and gays and lesbians; and disabled Americans—demanded a seat at the table. Not only did they insist on a fair share of government-directed resources, but they brought with them new issues, born of their unique experiences that could not just be resolved by just giving them a bigger slice of the pie. So racial minorities insisted that the government intervene more deeply in the private sector and civil society to root out long-standing, systemic discrimination.”

Women wanted control over their own bodies, and gays and lesbians demanded equality before the law, challenging religious and social norms. “[P]olitics,” Obama said, “wasn’t just a fight about tax rates or roads anymore. It was about more fundamental issues that went to the core of our being and how we expected society to structure itself. Issues of identity and status and gender. Issues of family, values, and faith…. [A] lot of people…began to feel that their way of life, the American way of life, was under attack” just as increasing economic inequality made them think that other people were benefiting at their expense.

Increasingly, that economic inequality cloistered people in their own bubbles as unions, churches, and civic institutions decayed. “[W]ith the Cold War over, with generations scarred by Vietnam and Iraq and a media landscape that would shatter into a million disparate voices,” he said, Americans lost the sense of “a common national story or a common national purpose.” Media companies have played to extremes, and “[e]very election becomes an act of mortal combat.”

With that sense, there is “an increasing willingness on the part of politicians and their followers to violate democratic norms, to do anything they can to get their way, to use the power of the state to target critics and journalists and political rivals, and to even resort to violence in order to gain and hold on to power.”

For all that he was speaking in 2024, Obama could have been describing the realization of the fears of those opposed to the Constitution in 1787.

But he did not agree that those anti-Federalists had won the debate. Instead, he adapted Madison’s theory of pluralism to the modern era. Obama stood firm on the idea that the way to reclaim democracy is to build coalitions around taking action on issues that matter to the American people without regard to personal identities or political affiliations. Pluralism, Obama said, “is about recognizing that in a democracy, power comes from forging alliances, and building coalitions, and making room in those coalitions not only for the woke but also for the waking.”

And that, in many ways, identified the elephant—or rather the donkey—in the room. In the 2024 election, the Democratic Party under Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota governor Tim Walz very deliberately moved away from so-called identity politics: the idea that a person builds their political orientation around their pre-existing social identity. During the campaign, Harris rarely referred to the fact that if elected, she would be the first woman, as well as the first woman of color, to hold the presidency: when attendees at the Democratic National Convention wore white in honor of the suffragists, Harris wore black.

Instead, Harris and Walz embraced investing in the middle class and supporting small businesses. But that shift to the center did not translate into a presidential victory in 2024, and those on the political left, as well as progressive Democrats, are not convinced it was a good move.

Since the rise of Donald Trump, the MAGA party has been the one championing identity politics, rejecting American pluralism in favor of centering whiteness, a certain kind of individualist masculinity, Christianity, and misogyny. Making common cause with Republicans, even non-MAGA Republicans, in the face of such politics seems to the left and progressive Democrats self-defeating.

Obama disagrees. “[I]t’s understandable that people who have been oppressed or marginalized want to tell their stories and give voice fully to their experiences—to not have to hold back and censor themselves, especially because so many of them have been silenced in the past,” he said, “But too often, focusing on our differences leads to this notion of fixed victims and fixed villains.”

He stood firm against compromising core principles but said: “In order to build lasting majorities that support justice—not just for feeling good, not just for getting along, to deliver the goods—we have to be open to framing our issues, our causes, what we believe in in terms of ‘we’ and not just ‘us’ and ‘them.’”

And he emphasized that such cooperation works best when it’s about action, rather than just words, because action requires that people invest themselves in a common project. “It won't eradicate people's prejudices, but it will remind people that they don't have to agree on everything to at least agree on some things. And that there are some things we cannot do alone.” “It’s about agency and relationships.”

Then Obama addressed the political crisis of this moment, the one the anti-Federalists feared: “What happens when the other side has repeatedly and abundantly made clear they’re not interested in playing by the rules?” When that happens, he said, “pluralism does not call for us” to accept it. “[W]e have to stand firm and speak out and organize and mobilize as forcefully as we can.” Even then, though, “it’s important to look for allies in unlikely places,” he said, noting that “people on the other side…may share our beliefs in sticking to the rules, observing norms,” and that supporting them might help them “to exert influence on people they’ve got relationships with within the other party.”

The power of pluralism, he said, is that it can make people recognize their common experiences and common values. That, he said, is how we break the cycle of cynicism in our politics.

Obama’s argument has already drawn criticism. At MSNBC, Ben Burgis condemned Obama’s “centrist liberalism” as inadequate to address the real problems of inequality and warned that his political approach is outdated.

But it is striking how much Obama’s embrace of pluralism echoes that of James Madison, who had in his lifetime witnessed a group of wildly diverse colonists talk, write letters, argue, and organize to forge themselves into a movement that could throw off the age-old system of monarchy in favor of creating something altogether new.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[nikonikonek000]

[wingedcreaturecomics]

Walking about town