What we’re about
This meetup started as a group for people in the Philadelphia area who were concerned with the current political turmoil in America, but who also felt that the prevailing liberal-vs-conservative political paradigm is unnecessarily limiting our ability to think rationally about politics & search for policy solutions. Since we shifted to mostly online meetups in 2020, we've opened the group up to people everywhere. If you like to talk politics but you've got some moderate or unconventional views that leave you feeling out of place at most of the activist groups, party meetings & political rallies in your area, this meetup is for you!
However, if your political views put you on the far left or far right of the political spectrum - i.e. you're a Marxist, anarchist, "woke" left-wing identitarian, fascist/ethno-nationalist, Islamist, Black Hebrew Israelite, Christian fundamentalist, etc., or sympathetic to these positions - please go elsewhere. Also, if you consider yourself a moderate Republican or moderate Democrat but your views are just generic talking points you've gleaned from listening to Fox News or MSNBC, this group is not for you. It may seem uncharitable to exclude people, but from past experience our discussions just don't work very well with these folks, since they tend to be close-minded and see all of our problems as the result of only one of our political parties - i.e. they're not even remotely "agnostic".
"Political Agnosticism" is a term I came up with back in 2015 to represent a non-dogmatic approach to politics that acknowledges uncertainty and the validity of multiple perspectives, and looks for practical solutions without worrying about adherence to an overarching political ideology. The purpose of this agnostic, skeptical & free-thinking approach is to avoid treating politics as a "culture war" based on group identities or a clash of "political religions" based more on devotion to a party than knowledge of the issues. Instead, when we cover a political issue, we look at what experts in various disciplines know (and don't know) about it, tease out the ethical implications, note the tradeoffs between different policy approaches, and then look at potential solutions that encompass everything we've learned.
The only political values that are prerequisites for members are a belief in civility & tolerance towards those we disagree with, a belief in traditional civil liberties like the freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of association, and the right to privacy, as well as respect for institutional norms like separation of church & state, academic freedom, press freedom, government transparency, due process, judicial impartiality, and free & fair elections. These principles of an "open society" form the preconditions for the existence of a non-partisan political forum like ours.
Our general approach to politics is based on a concept we've borrowed from another organization, the Circle of Reason, called "pluralistic rationalism" – i.e. a personal commitment to reasoning, regardless of one's worldview. We start by assuming that reasonable people can differ in their cores values, whether it's framed as a preference for freedom vs security, tradition vs progress, individualism vs communitarianism, meritocracy vs egalitarianism, patriotism vs cosmopolitanism, etc. However, this approach is also premised on the belief that we should all commit to following the rules of logic & evidence-based reasoning. "Pluralistic Rationalism" is based on 3 tenets: (1) Factualism (as opposed to Denialism) for sourcing knowledge, (2) Skepticism (as opposed to Dogmatism) for vetting knowledge, and (3) Moderation (as opposed to Emotion) for expressing knowledge. To learn more about "pluralistic rationalism", see the Circle of Reason's website: http://www.circleofreason.org/
We are committed to creating a space for non-partisan political discussion based on intellectual honesty, mutual respect & civility. That means adopting the conversational principles of charity & good faith, avoiding name-calling, and trying to understand the best arguments that can be made for each side.
The goals for this meetup group are as follows:
(1) We try to understand why people - including ourselves - are predisposed by inherent psychological traits, cultural milieu & life experiences to have different moral intuitions & political orientations. We generally use a mix of the Big Five personality traits & Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory.
(2) We look at moral philosophy to try to better understand how moral axioms logically connect to one another and form ethical systems like deontological ethics, utilitarianism, and contractarianism. We examine how these ethical systems form the basis for political philosophy, legal philosophy, and normative theories in the social sciences.
(3) We try to increase our level of rationality by learning how to spot logical fallacies, cognitive biases, flawed statistics, and irrational forms of thought like conspiracy theories & moral panics. The work of the "rationalist community" (e.g. Robin Hanson, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Scott Alexander, Julia Galef, Spencer Greenberg, Stefan Schubert) as well as certain members of the "scientific skeptic" movement that often address common fallacies in our thinking on social issues (e.g. Michael Shermer, Carol Tavris, Jerry Coyne, Ben Radford, Harriet Hall, Robert Bartholomew) are big influences in this area.
(4) We try to educate members on both the fundamentals and the latest research from the social sciences, and we discuss how this relates to current events & trending political topics. Aside from looking at academic research, a lot of our reading material comes from data/explainer journalism sites, econ & policy blogs, as well as the major public intellectuals & pundits from across the political spectrum.
(5) We try to imagine alternative types of political & economic systems that could provide better outcomes for the future based on both theory & empirical data. This often involves looking at various "maps of the policy landscape" like the Cato & Fraser Institutes' Human Freedom Index, SPI's Social Progress Index, the Economist's Democracy Index, the UN World Happiness Report, and others, even as we acknowledge the way their limitations, particularly the way they try to quantify qualitative factors that are often vague or inherently subjective.
(6) As part of our effort to break away from the narrow range of ideas represented by the two major political parties, we often look at constellations of ideas that could be described as syncretic, contrarian or heterodox. This often involves looking to intellectuals who've resisted the major populist & identitarian currents on the left and right, such as the scholars associated with Jonathan Haidt's Heterodox Academy, Peter Singer's Journal of Controversial Ideas, Keith E. Whittington's Academic Freedom Alliance, and Yascha Mounck's Persuasion.
(a) For critical insight on trends within conservatism, we often refer to conservative pundits who've criticized the GOP's ideological capture by Trump, e.g. David French, Sarah Isgur, Jonah Goldberg, Charles Sykes, Kevin Williamson, Anne Applebaum, Bret Stephens, George Will, Mona Charen, and other writers at sites like 'The Dispatch' and 'The Bulwark'. Also of interest are the Obama-era "reformicons" (e.g. David Frum, Yuval Levin, Ross Douthat, Reihan Salam, Ramesh & April Ponnuru, David Brooks, James Pethokoukis) who tried to steer the party more towards the interests of the middle & working classes in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, only to end up politically homeless when Trump took over the GOP. (Note: I specifically didn't include some neocons like Bill Kristol, Max Boot, Stephen Hayes, etc., since they've never appeared to modify their hawkish foreign policy views in light of the disastrous Iraq War they championed.)
(b) For critical insight on trends within libertarianism, we often refer to "cosmopolitan libertarians" (a.k.a. Beltway libertarians) at the Cato Institute & its "liberaltarian" offshoot the Niskanen Center, the GMU economics department (e.g. Tyler Cowen, Alex Tabbarock, Robin Hanson, Bryan Caplan, Russ Roberts, Walter E. Williams, Arnold Kling), the members of the '200-Proof Liberals' blog - successor to the now-defunct 'Bleeding Heart Libertarians' blog (e.g. Jason Brennan, Chris Freiman, Kevin Vallier, Matt Zwolinski, Jacob Levy, Steve Horwitz, Sarah Skwire), as well as the 'Fifth Column' podcast (Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, Matt Welch) and writers at the magazine 'Reason' (e.g. Nick Gillespie, Cathy Young, Robby Soave, Elizabeth Nolan Brown, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, Ilya Somin, Eugene Volokh), and the anti-Trump libertarians at the new Substack 'The UnPopulist' (e.g. Shikha Dalmia, Aaron Ross Powell, Berny Belvedere, Radley Balko). The debates within Gene Epstein's Soho Forum and the Cato Institute's 'Cato Unbound' blog are good venues for seeing the clash of ideas between libertarians & non-libertarians. (Note that I've excluded the paleolibertarians at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, the objectivists at the Ayn Rand Institute, and the left-libertarians at the Molinari Institute & C4SS since they seem to be more siloed in their echo chambers - although I'm fairly open to revising this opinion.)
(c) For critical insight on trends within progressivism, we often refer to liberal & centrist journalists who've criticized the biases of legacy-media outlets from within (e.g. Jonathan Chait, Adam Gopnik, George Packer, Caitlin Flanagan, Megan McArdle, Josh Barro, Conor Friedersdorf, Jonathan Rauch, Shadi Hamid) and those who've moved to independent platforms like Substack (e.g. Andrew Sullivan, Matt Yglesias, Emily Yoffe, Freddie deBoer, Matt Taibbi, Jesse Singal, Katie Herzog, Zaid Jilani, Lee Fang). Left-leaning scholars who've broken with the progressive orthodoxy on key issues (e.g. Camille Paglia, Kathleen Stock, Jonathan Haidt, Mark Lilla, Scott Galloway) also fit into this loose intellectual cluster. Many of these people signed the open letter against cancel culture in Harper's magazine back in July 2020.
(d) For critiques of trends within both conservatism & progressivism, we often look to the scholars at the Heterodox Academy (e.g. Jonathan Haidt, John Tomasi, Musa al-Gharbi, Lee Jussim, Phil Tetlock, Scott Lilienfeld, Alice Dreger, Allison Stenger, Nicholas Christakis, Eric Smith, Sean Stevens, Yascha Mounck, Eric Kaufmann) and the moderate "enlightened centrist" faction of what used to be called the "Intellectual Dark Web", e.g. Sam Harris, Steven Pinker, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Sarah Haider, Douglas Murray, Claire Lehmann, Helen Pluckrose, Peter Boghossian, Glenn Loury, John McWhorter, Coleman Hughes, and the various writers at media outlets like 'Quillette' & Areo Magazine' (now defunct). Some other heterodox pundits like Bill Maher, Razib Khan, Richard Hanania, Meghan Daum, Debra Soh, Melissa Chen, Meghan Murphy, Lex Fridman, Konstantin Kisin, Michael Shellenberger, Freddie Sayers, Bari Weiss, Nellie Bowles - as well as other writers at 'Unherd' & 'The Free Press' - could be considered "IDW fellow travelers" even though they were never really part of the IDW in its heyday. (Note I've excluded some of the former IDW members like Dave Rubin, Jordan Peterson, Brett & Eric Weinstein, Maajid Nawaz, and James Lindsay since they appeared to go off the rails amid the COVID pandemic & 2020 election due to "audience capture" and knee-jerk contrarianism. I've also excluded Joe Rogan due to his interest in pseudoscience & conspiracy theories, and Ben Shapiro is excluded because he seems more like a garden-variety conservative pundit.)
(e) For critical insight on trends within the emerging bipartisan populist sphere, we may refer to some dead ex-Marxist intellectuals whose work has recently been revived like James Burnham & Christopher Lasch, as well as members of the new think tank 'American Compass' (e.g. Oren Cass, Chris Griswold, Abigail Ball), writers at Julius Krein's journal 'American Affairs' (e.g. Michael Lind, David P. Goldman, Joel Kotkin) and the strange bedfellows at Sohrab Amari's magazine 'Compact' (e.g. Edwin Aponte, Patrick Deneen, Matthew Schmitz, Geoff Shullenberger, Alex Gutentag, Adam Lehrer, Michael Tracey, Ben Burgis, Slavoj Zizkek), so-called "reactionary feminists" like Mary Harrington & Louise Perry, and several "post-left" writers formerly affiliated with the "Dirtbag Left" (e.g. Amber A'Lee Frost, Angela Nagle, Aimee Terese, Oliver Bateman, Malcolm Kyeyune). We could also refer to Glenn Greenwald's post-Intercept output (e.g. the 'System Update' podcast) and the 'Breaking Points' online news show headed by Krystal Ball & Saagar Enjeti, as well as some of the journalists at the socialist magazine 'Jacobin' who are partly sympathetic to bipartisan populism. This loosely defined intellectual space is still evolving from conversations between anti-woke "class-first socialists" and "post-liberal [i.e. post-libertarian] conservatives" and is less ideologically coherent right now, although it has similarities to earlier Third Way ideologues like producerism and communitarianism. In some cases, figures in this movement have taken positions at odds with the core tenets of classical liberalism, but the left-right dialogue seems to be moderating some of their stances. (The comedians-turned-pundits Jimmy Dore & Russell Brand might fit into this space, as would Tucker Carlson, but I've excluded them as they've all promoted conspiracy theories so - like some of the former IDW members I listed above - they don't help us toward a rational view of politics. There's a similar problem with Anna Khachiyan & Dasha Nekrasova's 'Red Scare' podcast - they're too uninformed on policy & prone to knee-jerk contrarianism for shock value. The "MAGA Communism" guys have a similar problem.)
-- The common feature among all of the new media projects & public intellectuals listed above is that they are openly critical of intellectual blindspots & bad ideas coming from both the left & right, although most of them are not always *equally* aware or critical of problems on both sides of the political spectrum.
(7) In order to do our part combatting political polarization, we borrow ideas from a range of organizations that are currently working on enabling mutual understanding & civil dialogue, such as David Blankenhorn's Braver Angels project (formerly Better Angels), Frank Burton's Circle of Reason, Alexandra Hudson's Civic Renaissance, Liz Joyner's Village Square, Joan Blades' Living Room Conversations, John Gable's AllSides team, David Nevins & Debilyn Molineaux's Bridge Alliance, Lisa Swallow & Kareem Abdelsadek's Crossing Party Lines, Tim Dixon & Gemma Mortensen's More In Common project, David Brooks's Social Fabric Project (a.k.a. Weave), Gary Kasparov's Renew Democracy Initiative, Charles Wheelan's Centrist Project (now called "Unite America"), Irshad Manji's Moral Courage Project, the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), and others.
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- HxA Event: "Science & Ideology" with Alan SokalClaudia Cohen Hall G14, Philadelphia, PA
Event Title:
"Science and Ideology" with Professor Alan SokalEvent Topic:
Join the Heterodox Academy campus community at the University of Pennsylvania for a lecture by Alan Sokal, Professor of Mathematics at the University College London, on "Science and Ideology". This event is co-sponsored by the Penn Mathematics Department, the Penn Philosophy Department, the Penn Politics and Government Association, and the Penn Alumni Free Speech Alliance. This event is open to the public!When: Monday, September 23 at 5:15 PM
Where: 402 Claudia Cohen Hall, University of Pennsylvania, PhiladelphiaAbout the Speaker:
Alan Sokal is an American professor of mathematics at University College London and professor emeritus of physics at New York University whose research focuses on statistical mechanics & combinatorics. However, he is perhaps best known as a critic of postmodernism who orchestrated the so-called "Sokal affair" in 1996 when his deliberately nonsensical paper - "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" - was published by Duke University Press's journal Social Text. He co-authored a book the following year, Fashionable Nonsense, that criticized what he saw as the abuse of science by postmodernist intellectuals. He later reflected on the legacy of the debate his hoax paper provoked in his 2008 book Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy, and Culture. In 2013, he co-authored a paper criticizing the "critical positivity ratio" concept in positive psychology.More recently, in 2024, Sokal co-authored an op-ed in The Boston Globe with evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins criticizing the use of the terminology "sex assigned at birth" instead of "sex" by the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Center for Disease Control. Sokal and Dawkins argued that sex is an "objective biological reality" that "is determined at conception and is then observed at birth," rather than assigned by a medical professional. Calling this "social constructionism gone amok," Sokal and Dawkins argued further that "distort[ing] the scientific facts in the service of a social cause" risks undermining trust in medical institutions. Sokal repeated these criticisms in an editorial for The Critic discussing the broader politicization of science, especially in biology and medicine.
About the Event Host:
The Heterodox Academy (HxA) is a nonpartisan collaborative of thousands of professors, administrators, and students committed to enhancing the quality of research and education by promoting open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement in institutions of higher learning. It was founded in 2015 by Jonathan Haidt, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, a Georgetown University law professor, and Chris Martin, an Emory University sociologist.
To learn more about their mission, go to https://heterodoxacademy.org/our-mission/ - Braver Angels Debate: "Expand Legal Immigration?"Link visible for attendees
Debate Topic:
"Resolved: Expand legal immigration"About this Event:
Among the great issues of our time few are so simultaneously public and personal, cultural and structural, national and local, rational and passionate as immigration. Touching so many other divides -- those around identity, public safety, diversity, equity and the economy to name just a few -- the topic causes us to reflect on many questions. Should America grant more immigrants legal status in our nation? Should we preserve the status quo or, on the other end of the spectrum, should we restrict the number of foreigners we welcome into our society? If we should admit more people to our country, who should be approved? What should their legal status be -- a path to citizenship, a permanent temporary status? What should the paramount considerations be in making these decisions? And what does that all mean for our great nation?Immigration is a complex and multidimensional issue. As Braver Angels enters a year of intensive discourse and deliberation on all of its aspects, we invite you to join us for this Panel Debate to hear from a handful of experts, activists, and thinkers in the field. They will help us focus in on one question: "Should the United States expand legal immigration?" With any luck, we will continue to bolster American hope along the way. Join Braver Angels Saturday September 28th @ 2 pm EDT for a panel debate on the resolution: “Resolved: Expand legal immigration."
Speakers (in alphabetical order):
* Jennie Murray is President and CEO of the National Immigration Forum. Formed by her experiences in an immigrant family, throughout her career she has focused on ensuring immigrants have the services and skills they need to succeed while the country has the immigration system needed to prosper. In 2014, Murray’s program, New American Workforce, was recognized by the Obama White House for Excellence in Immigrant Integration.
* Jim Robb is Vice President for Alliances at NumbersUSA. With the immigration reform organization since its founding in 1996, he has served in several roles. NumbersUSA believes that “better immigration is possible and needed.” Robb plays a significant role in the organization’s efforts to empower grassroots supporters to achieve sensible immigration policy. He is author of Political Migrants: Hispanic Voters on the Move.
Additional speakers will be announced soon!All guests will have the opportunity to submit questions via registration and during the event. The event will be conducted as a webinar format on Zoom.
Register here on the Eventbrite page and the Zoom link will be emailed to you a couple of days prior to the event. Keep an eye out!
Questions? Email [email protected].
Registering for the Online Debate:
This is a FREE event; however, you will need to register for it. Go to the following Eventbrite link & fill out the registration form:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/national-panel-debate-immigration-registration-998712394657?discount=BRAVERRegistration for this debate will be closed 12 hours prior to the scheduled starting time. Check your email for the confirmation message with the Zoom link - if you don't see it, check your "Junk" folder.
- Note: Braver Angels events may be recorded, and may be shared with media or used in Braver Angels publications, including web pages. Participants who object to this may disable their video.
What is "Braver Angels"?
Formerly known as "Better Angels", Braver Angels is an organization founded in 2016 to depolarize American politics through grassroots organizing. They do this primarily by hosting events for cross-partisan dialogue & civil debate. To learn more, go to https://braverangels.org/About Braver Angels debates:
You probably haven’t experienced anything like a Braver Angels Debate. This is a highly structured conversation in which a group of people think together, listen carefully to one another, and allow themselves to be touched and perhaps changed by each other’s ideas.To learn more about our debates, you can view this video of a sample debate (it lasts about 15 minutes). For more information, to find upcoming events or view recordings of some of our past debates please visit: https://braverangels.org/what-we-do/debates/.
- NCC Event - "For or Against Originalism? A Debate"Link visible for attendees
Event Title: "For or Against Constitutional Originalism?: A Debate"
Date & Time: Tues., Oct. 8, 2024, 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. EST
- PLEASE NOTE: This is a FREE event, but will be hosted online. Be sure to register in advance to receive the Zoom link: https://constitutioncenter.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_xcMl6SvdR-2RxVA6t0IBjQ#/registration
Cost: FREE
About the Event:
Stanford University professor Jonathan Gienapp, author of the new book, Against Constitutional Originalism: A Historical Critique (2024), is joined by Stephen Sachs of Harvard Law School to discuss Gienapp’s challenge to originalists’ unspoken assumptions about the Constitution, the history of originalism as a constitutional methodology, and its role in constitutional interpretation today.About the Speakers & Host:
- Jonathan Gienapp is an Associate Professor of History and Associate Professor of Law at Stanford University. He specializes in the constitutional, political, legal, and intellectual history of the early United States. His first book, The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era (2018), rethinks the conventional story of American constitutional creation by exploring how and why founding-era Americans’ understanding of their Constitution transformed in the earliest years of the document’s existence.
- Stephen E. Sachs is the Antonin Scalia Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he teaches civil procedure, conflict of laws, and seminars on constitutional law and jurisprudence. His research focuses on the law and theory of constitutional interpretation. He has authored numerous articles about originalism including "Originalism as a Theory of Legal Change" (2015), "Originalism's Bite" (2016), "Originalism Without Text" (2017), "Grounding Originalism" (2019), "Originalism: Standard and Procedure" (2022), and "Dobbs and the Originalists" (2024).
- Jeffrey Rosen, the host, is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, as well as a professor of law at George Washington University and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
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