#political epistemology

[coruscatingdust]

image: from @dailyphilosopher on Instagram

The immersive nature of self-as-object processing is manifest in the way we typically do not regard our thoughts as just thoughts.

Rather, we implicitly or explicitly take this mental activity to reflect reality more or less accurately.

It can be morally and epistemically problematic when people do not recognize that their perceptions and beliefs is in fact, a model —schematic or working hypothesis about reality rather than reality itself.

People are incontrovertibly egocentric, self-relevant information is preferentially processed and remembered, and people strive to protect their self-views to the point that they selectively seek confirmatory evidence and otherwise distort reality.

[calling-abraxas]

The Mythic Liberal Voter in the Solid Crystal of Society:In Response to Michael Hannon’s “Disagreement or Badmouthing?”

            This document came about because of a public (however small that public might’ve been) Twitter conversation. I lamented that people fail to read a great deal of very useful political epistemology literature. As evidence, I (not realizing that what I took to be an inconsequential complaint would unexpectedly turn) pointed to what I saw as a disappointing volume—that which Michael…

[omegaphilosophia]

The Dance of Perspectives and Beliefs: Shaping Our Worldview

Our lives are a delicate interplay of perspectives and beliefs, two elements that quietly sculpt the contours of our worldview. As we navigate the complex tapestry of existence, our perspectives serve as the lens through which we view the world, while our beliefs lay the foundation upon which our decisions and actions are built.

Perspectives Shape Beliefs: Our perspectives, which are influenced by our upbringing, culture, experiences, and personal values, play a significant role in shaping our beliefs. When we encounter new information or ideas, our existing perspectives filter and interpret that information, leading to the formation or reinforcement of our beliefs.

Beliefs Influence Perspectives: Conversely, our beliefs also influence our perspectives. When we strongly hold a particular belief, it can color the way we perceive and interpret the world around us. This can lead to confirmation bias, where we tend to seek out information that supports our existing beliefs and filter out information that contradicts them.

Openness to New Perspectives: Philosophically and intellectually, being open to new perspectives is a key aspect of critical thinking and personal growth. It involves being willing to challenge and reconsider our beliefs when presented with new evidence or alternative viewpoints. Without this openness, perspectives can become rigid and closed.

Diversity of Perspectives: A diverse range of perspectives in society is essential for a well-rounded and vibrant exchange of ideas. When people with different perspectives come together, it can lead to constructive dialogue, innovation, and a deeper understanding of complex issues.

Cognitive Dissonance: When our perspectives and beliefs come into conflict, it can create cognitive dissonance — a state of mental discomfort. This discomfort often motivates individuals to either adjust their beliefs or seek out information that confirms their existing beliefs, depending on various factors such as the strength of the belief and the individual's willingness to confront contradictions.

Worldview: Our perspectives and beliefs collectively form our worldview, which is the overarching framework through which we interpret and make sense of the world. A worldview encompasses our views on ethics, reality, purpose, and the nature of existence, among other things.

In summary, perspectives and beliefs are deeply intertwined, with each influencing and being influenced by the other. They shape our understanding of the world, our values, and our interactions with others, making them essential components of human cognition and experience.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Julian Adorney and Mark Johnson

Published: Jun 10, 2024

There’s a sense that the liberal order is eroding.

What do we mean by that? By “liberal order” we mean three things: political liberalism, economic liberalism, and epistemic liberalism.

Politically, it’s tough to shake the sense that we’re drifting away from our liberal roots. Fringes on both sides are rejecting the liberal principle that all human beings are created equal and that our differences are dwarfed by our shared humanity. On the left, prominent activists are endorsing the idea that people with different immutable characteristics (race, gender, etc.) have different intrinsic worth. For instance, in 2021, Yale University’s Child Study Center hosted a psychiatrist who gave a speech titled, “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind,” where she compared white people to “a demented violent predator who thinks they are a saint or a superhero.” In response to Hamas’ brutal attack on Israeli civilians on October 7, Yale professor Zareena Grewal tweeted, “Settlers are not civilians. This is not hard.” Across the political aisle, Dilbert comic creator Scott Adams called black Americans a “hate group” whom white Americans should “get the hell away from.”

If a core component of political liberalism is that all human beings are created equal, then many prominent voices are pushing us rapidly toward an illiberal worldview where one’s worth is determined by immutable characteristics. 

Increasingly, members of both parties seek to change liberal institutions to lock the opposition out of power. Their apparent goal is to undermine a key outcome of political liberalism: a peaceful and regular transfer of power between large and well-represented factions. On the right, prominent Republicans have refused to concede Trump’s loss in 2020, and many are refusing to commit to certifying the 2024 election should Trump lose again. “At the end of the day, the 47th president of the United States will be President Donald Trump,” Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) said in response to repeated questions about whether or not he would accept the election results. On the left, prominent Democrats advocate for abolishing the Electoral College, partly on the grounds that it favors Republicans; and for splitting California into multiple states to gain more blue Senate seats. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tina Smith (D-MN), among others, have called for expanding the Supreme Court explicitly so they can pack it with Democrats.

This disdain for democratic norms isn’t limited to political elites on right or left; it is permeating the general populace. According to a 2023 poll, only 54 percent of young Americans (aged 18-29) agree with the statement, “Democracy is the greatest form of government.”

Economic liberalism is also under attack. In 2022, Pew found that only 57 percent of the public had a favorable view of capitalism. Those numbers are even worse among young Americans; only 40 percent among those aged 18-29 had a positive view of capitalism. By contrast, 44 percent of the same age group reported having a positive view of socialism. Faced with the choice of which system we should live under, it’s unclear whether young Americans would prefer economic liberalism over the command-and-control systems of socialism or communism. And while young people typically hold more left-of-center views and often become more conservative as they age, the intensity of young peoples’ opposition to capitalism should not be discounted. From 2010 to 2018, a separate Gallup poll found that the number of young Americans (aged 18-29) with a positive view of capitalism dropped by 23 percent. 

Epistemic liberalism is on the ropes too. As the Harper’s Letter warned, “The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted.” In recent years, even prominent intellectuals have been terrified of being canceled for daring to write outside of the lines set by a new and predominantly left-wing orthodoxy, adversely affecting out discourse. Again, this disdain for liberalism is more acute among young people: a 2019 survey found that 41 percent of young Americans didn’t believe that the First Amendment should protect hate speech. Furthermore, a full majority (51 percent) of college students considered it “sometimes” or “always acceptable” to “shout down speakers or try to prevent them from talking.”

As Jonathan Rauch argues in The Constitution of Knowledge, a necessary precondition of epistemic liberalism is that everyone should be allowed to speak freely, a precondition increasingly unmet in recent years.

In their book Is Everyone Really Equal?, Robin DiAngelo (of White Fragility fame) and Özlem Sensoy even challenge the foundation of epistemic liberalism itself: the scientific method. This method mandates that hypotheses be tested against reality before acceptance. “Critical Theory developed in part as a response to this presumed infallibility of scientific method,” they write “and raised questions about whose rationality and whose presumed objectivity underlies scientific methods.” Of course, once we jettison the principle that ideas should be tested by holding them up to reality, all we have left are mythologies and accusations. One of the great triumphs of the Enlightenment was giving us the scientific tools to more accurately understand the world, but those tools—like other facets of liberalism—are increasingly under attack.

So, what went wrong? Why do so many Americans, particularly young Americans, harbor such disdain for our liberal order? Why have we seen the rise of widespread social censorship, and why do books telling us that not all humans are created equal become mega-bestsellers? We believe a key reason is that too many proponents of the liberal order (ourselves included) have failed to defend our ideals vigorously. In the face of our complacency, a small but impassioned minority intent on dismantling the pillars of liberalism has been gaining ground, both within institutions and within the hearts and minds of the younger generation.

Why haven’t many of us stood up for our ideas? We posit two reasons. First, there is a sense of complacency: a lot of us look at illiberalism and think, “It can't happen here.” The United States was founded as an essentially liberal country. We were the first country to really seek to embody Enlightenment ideals (however imperfectly) from our birth. Throughout our 250-year history, despite fluctuating levels of government intervention in Americans' social and economic lives, we have never lost our political, economic, or epistemological liberal foundations. This long track record of resilience has led many of us to overlook the rising threat of illiberal ideals, assuming our liberal system is too robust to be torn down.

Adding to this complacency is the fact that many threats to our liberal social contract are largely invisible to those outside educational or academic circles. Cloaked in the guise of combating racism, Critical Race Theory takes aim at the liberal order; however, most people who haven’t been inside the halls of a university in the last 10 or so years may not be aware of this aspect. Critical Theory—including Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory, Post-Colonial Theory, and others—generally opposes Enlightenment thinking, but its arguments are wrapped in jargon and mostly live in academic papers. For example, the book Is Everyone Really Equal? criticizes political, economic, and epistemic liberalism, but it’s not a mainstream bestseller; instead, it’s a widely-used textbook for prospective teachers. What begins in the academy often seeps out into schools and eventually permeates the broader society, and many teachers and professors of these ideologies explicitly describe themselves as activists or as scholar-activists whose goal is to turn the next generation onto these ideas. The threat is real, but the more anti-liberal facets of these ideologies aren’t exactly being shouted by CNN, which makes it easy to miss.

Second, as humans, we often abandon our ideals in the face of social pressure. Consider an organization consisting of ten people: one progressive and nine moderates. In 2020, each member starts to hear about Black Lives Matter (BLM). The progressive enthusiastically supports BLM, and loudly encourages his colleagues to do the same. What happens next illustrates how prone we are to jettison our ideals if doing so brings social rewards.

The first moderate faces a choice. He could thoroughly research BLM by investigating police violence nationwide, examining the evidence of systemic racism or system-wide equality, exploring BLM’s proposed program and what they actually advocate for, and making an informed decision about whether or not he supports the organization. But that’s a lot of work for not a lot of return. After all, his job doesn’t require that he understand BLM; the only immediate consequence is his colleague’s opinion of him. Consequently, he engages in what Nobel Prize winning economist Daniel Kahneman calls “substitution.” As Kahneman explains in Thinking, Fast and Slow, “when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, usually without noticing the substitution.” For example, when participants were asked how much money Exxon should pay for nets to prevent birds from drowning in oil ponds, they did not perform an economic calculation. Instead, what drove their decision-making process was emotion: “the awful image of a helpless bird drowning, its feathers soaked in thick oil.”

Thus, the moderate engages in substitution. Instead of tackling the complex and difficult question “What do I think of BLM?” he asks himself an easier but more emotional question: “How much do I care about black people?” For any decent person, the answer is “quite a lot”—and so he signs on with his progressive colleague. The fact that he’s now supporting an illiberal ideology—one of BLM’s co-founders said in 2019 that “I believe we all have work to do to keep dismantling the organizing principle of this society"—never occurs to him.

When the next moderate is asked the same question about whether he supports BLM, he has the same incentive as his colleague to engage in substitution, but with added social pressure: now two of his nine coworkers support BLM, and he risks losing social capital if he does not. As humans, we are social animals. Sociologist Brooke Harrington explains that we often value others’ perception of us more than our own survival, as social ostracism in our distant past often meant death anyway. As she puts it, “social death is more frightening than physical death.” And so, motivated by the social rewards for supporting BLM and the fear of social punishment if he does not, one coworker after another agrees to support BLM.

Adding to our social calculus is the fact that we all want to be seen as (and, even more importantly, see ourselves as) empathetic. In the example of BLM, we don’t want to be perceived as racists. If this means going along with an organization that says that police “cannot [be] reform[ed]” because they were “born out of slave patrols,” then that’s a small price to pay. This same desire to be seen as empathetic (again, especially by ourselves) holds when we are called to cancel a professor for saying something insensitive, or to condemn cultural appropriation, or to read and praise books and articles claiming that liberalism has failed marginalized people and that a new, totalitarian system is necessary for their salvation.

But why shouldn’t we be complacent? Why shouldn’t we go along to get along, and let our values bend here and there so we can fit in with the new illiberal crowd? One reason is that the stakes are no longer trivial. There is nothing magical about the liberal order that guarantees it will always triumph. History shows us that liberalism can give way to totalitarianism, as it did in Nazi Germany; or to empire, as in ancient Rome. In England, new rules regulate what people are allowed to say, with citizens facing fines or imprisonment for saying something the political establishment does not like. In Canada, a new bill supported by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would criminalize speech that those in power consider hateful. The United States is not immune to these dangers. Our Constitution alone is not a sufficient defense, because laws are downstream from culture. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights can be interpreted by illiberal justices (and have been in the 20th century); and when this happens, our rights can erode very rapidly indeed. Our freedom is sustained not by our geography or even our founding documents, but by our willingness to fight for liberalism—to defend it in the court of public opinion.

If we’re going to preserve the freedoms we cherish, that is what it will take. We must find the courage to stand up for our ideals—to speak and act based on principle alone. We must be open to new evidence that might change our views, but at the same time resist having our minds changed for us. We must prioritize truth over popular opinion.

In essence, we must think and act more like August Landmesser.

[ Source: The Lone German Man Who Refused to Give Hitler the Nazi Salute (businessinsider.com) ]

--

About the Authors

Julian Adorney is the founder of Heal the West, a Substack movement dedicated to preserving our liberal social contract. He’s also a writer for the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR). Find him on X: @Julian_Liberty.

Mark Johnson is a trusted advisor and executive coach at Pioneering Leadership and a facilitator and coach at The Undaunted Man. He has over 25 years of experience optimizing people and companies—he writes at The Undaunted Man’s Substack and Universal Principles.

==

Whatever its flaws, every alternative to liberalism is a nightmare.

[faaun]

oh my god ! haha . anyway a bit buzzed perhaps. anyway here's what happened on the date

[tmarshconnors]

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something."

Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. In Athens, Plato founded the Academy, a philosophical school where he taught the philosophical doctrines that would later become known as Platonism

[chicago-geniza]

immediate echolalic template - inverted commas, like vogel's white words, to denote/demarcate a purely utilitarian phrase, so overused as a cliche or discursively circumscribed it had become wholly instrumental and voided of meaning!!! - '"as a survivor" of actual child abuse i have the moral and epistemic authority to tell you to shut the fuck up'

[metamatar]

Broader cultural norms – the sort set in motion by prefacing statements with “As a Black man…” – cued up a set of standpoint-respecting practices that many of us know consciously or unconsciously by rote. However, the forms of deference that often follow are ultimately self-undermining and only reliably serve “elite capture”: the control over political agendas and resources by a group’s most advantaged people. If we want to use standpoint epistemology to challenge unjust power arrangements, it’s hard to imagine how we could do worse.

...

Doing better than the epistemic norms we’ve inherited from a history of explicit global apartheid is an awfully low bar to set. The facts that explain who ends up in which room shape our world much more powerfully than the squabbles for comparative prestige between people who have already made it into the rooms. And when the conversation is about social justice, the mechanisms of the social system that determine who gets into which room often just are the parts of society we aim to address.

...

Elites from marginalized groups can benefit from this arrangement in ways that are compatible with social progress. But treating group elites’ interests as necessarily or even presumptively aligned with full group interests involves a political naiveté we cannot afford. Such treatment of elite interests functions as a racial Reaganomics: a strategy reliant on fantasies about the exchange rate between the attention economy and the material economy.

Perhaps the lucky few who get jobs finding the most culturally authentic and cosmetically radical description of the continuing carnage are really winning one for the culture. Then, after we in the chattering class get the clout we deserve and secure the bag, its contents will eventually trickle down to the workers who clean up after our conferences, to slums of the Global South’s megacities, to its countryside.

But probably not.

...

How would a constructive approach to putting standpoint epistemology into practice differ from a deferential approach? A constructive approach would focus on the pursuit of specific goals or end results rather than avoiding “complicity” in injustice or adhering to moral principles. It would be concerned primarily with building institutions and cultivating practices of information-gathering rather than helping. It would focus on accountability rather than conformity. It would calibrate itself directly to the task of redistributing social resources and power rather than to intermediary goals cashed out in terms of pedestals or symbolism. It would focus on building and rebuilding rooms, not regulating traffic within and between them – it would be a world-making project: aimed at building and rebuilding actual structures of social connection and movement, rather than mere critique of the ones we already have.

...

The constructive approach to standpoint epistemology is demanding. It asks that we swim upstream: to be accountable and responsive to people who aren’t yet in the room, to build the kinds of rooms we could sit in together, rather than merely judiciously navigating the rooms history has built for us. But this weighty demand is par for the course when it comes to the politics of knowledge: the American philosopher Sandra Harding famously pointed out that standpoint epistemology, properly understood, demands more rigour from science and knowledge production processes generally, not less.

Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Being-in-the-Room Privilege: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference

[thatfrenchacademic]

Hi. I just read your answer to the nonnie who asked about some theory. I, too, am a student of IR (second year) and I was wondering (if you have spoons, of course)... what exactly is positivism? I just don't get it. I read the book you mentioned in your answer, I also read the books our profs recommended, I even googled and read different articles, but... I just don't get it. I can't explain what is positivism in IR: I was wondering if you could, maybe, explain it, like "Positivism and postpositivim for dummies". Thanks a lot! :)

Hello Anon!

You have no idea how happy this question makes me, because I genuinely think it is one of the most under-explained aspects of IR to undergrad, despite how key it is. So here is your "positivism and post-positivism in IR 101" under the cut!

So get this.

To understand what we are talking about, we are going to talk about ontology and epistemology - and stay with me here, I swear it is actually fun and not very hard to understand.

We are in the XIXth century, and French sociologist August Compte had the (at the time) brand new idea that rather than wondering how society should, how people should behave, or more metaphysical questions, we should just look at how society works, and understand how it works. Just like you would study why plant grow in certain environment and not others, how alloys are formed or how the body works, you can study society, politics (international relations!) and find out rules, laws, to explain how things work. If you drop a ball from a building, it will always fall toward the ground at a given speed. If you have two equal superpowers dominating international politics, the system will always be more stable than if you have more.

Now, there are actually a whole lot of assumptions, here. First, ontological assumptions (="what is reality?): you assume something about reality. You assume that there is a single thing, called "society", that EXIST, and we can all have the same understanding of what it is. But ok, most theories would agree with this today. But then, you have an epistemological assumption (=how can we KNOW reality?): you assume that not only this reality, in theory, exist, but that we can gain knowledge of what it is, in an objective fashion. We can research it, empirically, because we all experience the exact same reality, we can gain a shared, common understanding of what is society, and how it works. THIS, is positivism.

Therefore, positivist theories are those who really treat political science (including international relations) like a SCIENCE. It tries to uncover an objective truth, which not only DOES EXIST (ontology), but that we CAN EMPIRICALLY DISCOVER (epistemology).

This why so many positivist authors will refer to philosophers of science like Popper, Kuhn, Hempel, coming up with theories which must then be tested against reality, in a way that is transparent, falsifiable, replicable. Really see it as "biology, but about society". If it ain't testable, replicable and generalizable to other situations, it ain't a good theory.

Now.

The thing is, for International relations at least, this was developed mainly by white straight men based in the US, from the 50s to the 00s. In a sense, because the pool of researchers was so uniform, they never doubted that there is a shared single reality, that they can all agree on what it is, that they get to experience the same reality, that they are objective in their research.

But you know. At some point, people who were NOT cishet white US males started to be heard as researchers (finally). And we realised that those ontological and epistemological assumptions we had ? They might not be THAT obvious. Maybe you cannot, actually study society with the same objectivity as you study plants. Because you are PART of society, as a researcher. Or because society itself is not a single, unique thing which can be explained and understood empirically through general laws.

Classification, here, becomes a bit more tricky, so here is an attempt (but I have seen other classifications just as good and valid).

Post-positivism tends to agree ontologically (there is a single reality, out there, somewhere) but not empistemologically (we don't get to empirically explore it like we would for astronomy, because each theory and theory-testing cannot be free from the structure of powers in which they are created).

This includes all theories like feminist theories, queer theories, post-colonial theories... Typically, they do not try to "explain", to provide big all-encompassing laws of how IR work - because you can't, according to them. Instead, they look at everything in context, reflecting on their own subjectivity and the subjectivity of everyone else, accepting that they will explain an event rather than test a theory through said event. There is often an emphasis on discourse, meanings, agendas, values, and time-place specific understanding of it all, as well a power dynamics between various communities and how it shapes both IR and IR theories.

Interpretivism tends to disagree ontologically (there is not single reality of society which exist in theory, society does not exist in and of itself but only through experience, therefore there can never be a single "society", only individualized experiences of it) and therefore also disagrees epistemologically.

I am much less familiar with interpretivism, but from what I understand, it focuses quasi-exclusively on subjectivity and individual experiences - therefore, I am not sure how well developed in could be in international relations? The idea is that nothing is taken for granted, no concept existing in one time-place can be assumed to also exist, in a comparable manner, in another time-place. Halperin and Heath have a really great discussion in their manual and if you are curious about it, they can explain it much better than I every could - but once again, not sure how relevant this one would be to IR.

So there it is.

Hopefully that will have been of some help. There is really no way around it, you need to go back to some basics of philosophy of science to understand what is happening with positivism and post-positivism ! But you do not need to read through all of Popper (derogatory) to understand what's up either. You've got this!

[mousey-toy]

ive said it before but it bears reiteration: cartesian dualism and the separation and privileging of the mind / soul / spiritual realm over the taken-for-grantedness and perceived baseness of the body / physical / sensory is the greatest spiritual and philosophical red herring of our era

[lordascapelion]

Ya know honestly at this point, I care less about what people believe and more how they believe it.

[romcathchrist]

How We Know Truth, and Why It Matters

Dear readers, We have a clear moral and political dichotomy in America and throughout the western world. The political left is replete with politicians who reject reality and desire to be their own and everyone else’s god. They claim that lies are truths, that abortion is not murder, that we must celebrate homosexual behavior, that slicing and dicing body parts (even of children) in the name of…

[omegaphilosophia]

Theories of Leadership

Leadership theory is a vast field with various approaches and models that attempt to explain and guide leadership practices. Here are some prominent theories of leadership:

Trait Theory: This early theory posits that effective leaders possess specific traits or characteristics, such as intelligence, confidence, charisma, and determination, which make them natural leaders.

Behavioral Theories: These theories focus on the actions and behaviors of leaders rather than inherent traits. They classify leadership styles into categories like autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire leadership, and assess their effectiveness.

Contingency Theories: Contingency models, including Fiedler's Contingency Model and Hersey-Blanchard's Situational Leadership Theory, propose that effective leadership depends on various situational factors, such as the leader's style, the followers, and the context.

Transformational Leadership: Transformational leaders inspire and motivate their followers to achieve higher levels of performance. They often use charisma, vision, and individualized consideration to encourage personal growth in their teams.

Transactional Leadership: Transactional leaders focus on exchanges with their followers. They set clear expectations, provide rewards or punishments based on performance, and ensure that their followers meet certain standards.

Servant Leadership: This philosophy emphasizes leaders' role as servants to their followers. Servant leaders prioritize the well-being of their teams and aim to serve and support their needs.

Authentic Leadership: Authentic leaders are genuine, self-aware, and lead by example. They align their actions with their values and encourage open and honest communication within their teams.

Situational Leadership: Developed by Hersey and Blanchard, this theory suggests that leadership style should adapt to the readiness and development level of the followers. Effective leaders adjust their behavior to the specific needs of their team members.

Path-Goal Theory: This theory, proposed by Robert House, posits that leaders should help followers achieve their goals by clarifying paths, removing obstacles, and providing support, which can improve job satisfaction and performance.

Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory: LMX theory focuses on the unique relationships that develop between leaders and their individual followers. It suggests that leaders often have varying relationships with different members of their teams.

Charismatic Leadership: Charismatic leaders inspire followers through their personal charm, vision, and charisma. They have a strong influence on their teams and can create a sense of shared mission.

Trait and Skills Theory: This modern approach combines trait-based leadership research with the development of leadership skills. It recognizes that while certain traits are beneficial, leadership can also be learned and developed.

Ethical Leadership: Ethical leadership places a strong emphasis on moral and ethical principles. Ethical leaders act with integrity, model ethical behavior, and make ethical decisions.

Distributed Leadership: This perspective suggests that leadership is not the sole responsibility of one individual but can be distributed among team members. It emphasizes shared leadership and collaboration.

Adaptive Leadership: Adaptive leaders focus on facilitating change and guiding organizations or teams through challenges. They encourage flexibility and innovation.

These are just a few examples of the many leadership theories and models. Leadership scholars and practitioners often draw from multiple theories to adapt their leadership approach to specific situations and contexts.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Full interview:

I wrote an an essay about it, you know, "Is liberalism the best way to beat wokeness?" and the answer to that ism it depends on what society you want to live in.

If you want to live in one where you don't have to pretend to believe anything you don't believe in, you don't have to fear cancellation for saying the wrong thing, then you have to aim for a liberal society.

There are other growing movements that could potentially have more power to push out liberalism, but then we would likely find ourselves in a frying pan-fire situation.

I don't want to be cancelled for criticizing the monarchy any more than I want to be cancelled for criticizing critical social justice.

So, I would ask those people, are you considering, when you're thinking about liberalism and whether it is the best way to create a society that is sound, that is just, are you using liberalism as a tool to get to something else, or is liberalism the end goal?

And for me and for liberals generally, a liberal society is the end goal.

We have we have two choices, really. If we want to defeat authoritarianism, we can either get more firmly liberal and just not - and very strongly not - tolerate impositions. There's nothing anti-liberal in saying, no we are not going to let you institutionalize your ideology, in the same way that we wouldn't let you institutionalize your Christian faith, say.

We wouldn't let you make everybody recite the Apostle's Creed, you shouldn't have to do a Diversity Equity and Inclusion statement.

So, it's perfectly liberal to put laws in place to say to defend that kind of freedom of belief.

Because the only other possibility to more strongly defending liberalism -- and I think that is the weakness, we have not defended liberalism strongly enough, we have not noticed when things are that are illiberal are getting power to deny other people freedom.

-- or we can can go and pick something else which we think will push wokeness out better and get behind that.

And then where are we? Where are we going to be? And this is what I ask people if they ask me, do you really think liberalism can work, wouldn't it be better to try something else -- they're usually talking about a form of social conservatism.

I say, well what would I have to pretend to believe in your new society? What would I not be allowed to say in public? What would prevent me from being employable? If the answer is nothing, you're still free to say and believe whatever you want, then you're still looking for a liberal society.

It really is quite black and white.

[whats-in-a-sentence]

It became clear to me that the reasoning of those who reject an inclusive approach relies on what they call a 'plain' or 'common sense' reading of the Bible. In his book A Place at His Table Joel Hollier explains that:

In many Protestant (especially Reformed, evangelical) circles, there is a stated theological method that seeks to take any given text at face value – we call it the 'plain reading' of a passage . . . [It] is rather more enigmatic than we would often like to admit. The reality is that everything that we read in the Bible is filtered by 2,000 years worth is theologizing through social, cultural, and political data, culminating in a strangely personalized framework . . . radically informed by our class, gender, family history, education, and political persuasions . . . If all my years in theological education taught me one thing, it is that those who hold that there are plain readings of a text are, in a strange way, misguided. There are 'informed readings', and there are 'more informed readings', but nobody approaches any text entirely neutral.

This, then, calls for epistemic humility, by which I mean a willingness to listen lots and form a view carefully.

"In/Out: A Scandalous Story of Falling Into Love and Out of the Church" - Steph Lentz

[tmarshconnors]

“The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and wisdom.”

Plato, born Aristocles, was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms.

Born: Classical Athens

Died: Athens, Greece

Founder of the Academy: Plato founded the Academy in Athens around 387 BCE, which is often considered the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. The Academy remained an influential philosophical and scientific research centre for several centuries.

Socratic Dialogues: Plato is best known for his dialogues and written works in which he uses the character of his teacher Socrates to explore philosophical ideas. These dialogues cover various topics including ethics, politics, metaphysics, and epistemology. Famous examples include "The Republic," "Phaedo," "Symposium," and "Timaeus."

Theory of Forms: One of Plato's central philosophical concepts is the Theory of Forms. According to this theory, the physical world is not the true reality but rather a shadow of the true reality, which consists of abstract, perfect, unchanging forms or ideas. For example, all circular objects are imperfect copies of the perfect form of a circle.

Influence on Western Thought: Plato's work has had a profound and lasting impact on Western philosophy and science. His ideas laid the groundwork for much of Western metaphysical and epistemological thought and influenced later philosophers, including his student Aristotle and many medieval and modern thinkers.

Political Philosophy: In "The Republic," Plato presents his vision of an ideal state, ruled by philosopher-kings. He advocates for a society governed by wisdom and reason rather than power or wealth. His political philosophy addresses justice, the role of the individual within society, and the importance of education and virtue.