Blog
If you’re told your position is harmful
Someone’s mad at your car. Did you almost run them over? I can pause and apologize. I care about others. I recognize that their perspectives are valid and their observations about my behavior might be correct.
I just want to select NO
The worst YES/NO interface design I’ve seen. We can create a nonviolent culture with the first questions we ask, being willing to hear an answer that’s polarized or ambivalent, loud or quiet.
Why someone complained about the review you posted to Goodreads
Their reason wasn’t as complicated as they made it sound. They say it’s too short. Or too long. What are they really complaining about? What don’t they like about your review?
We are the book we’re talking about
And we are what’s at stake in truth-telling. If the interlocutor opposes me because of who I am, will they be impressed that I read a book? No. Even if it is a book they have heard of? No.
Humility: A needed balance
On early modern philosophers and online trolls. In Lewis Carroll’s ‘You Are Old, Father William,’ a young person asks: ‘You balanced an eel on the end of your nose - / What made you so awfully clever?’
What is human dignity?
Where does it come from? How do we know it exists? Does dignity need to be pinned to God, or can it have secular grounding? Is it about humility, pride, or both? What does interdependence have to do with it?
When we disagree on politics and I lose a friend
I have to be a good person, and even then, it’s up to someone else if they want to be my friend. They don’t owe me what I gave as a gift, and certainly they don’t owe me what I never gave at all.
Does ‘woke’ mean saying — or not saying — certain words?
In any case, careful speech—including refraining from speaking — can build trust. When the right wing refers to “woke,” they may want to prevent others from saying certain words—or to reserve certain words for themselves.
It’s not ‘free speech,’ it’s bigotry
If they really believe in free speech, this is how we’ll know. There are many reasons why people have prejudices and why they devote their speech to expressing bigotry. Not high on the list: commitment to free speech.