What a delightful read. I enjoyed the weekend immensely and reading this reminded me of many of the things that felt special and rare about being in the group you brought together. I sincerely hope to see your coffee ritual one day!
Why do people gather together? Just off the top of my head, I can think of 3 distinct types of groups:
- A group with a purpose, e.g., Effective Altruism. Such groups will probably need to exclude many viewpoints in order to have a shared purpose and plan. That's okay, at least if it doesn't go so far as to exclude people who have valid critiques of the group's plans.
- A group with a common interest, e.g., science fiction fandom. Such groups don't need to exclude any viewpoints other than "science fiction is stupid", because your views outside of the fandom don't need to cause arguments, and your views inside of the fandom are the things you're gathering together to argue about. But they can develop exclusionary views because interests correlate with viewpoints. E.g., science fiction conventions are attended mainly by white people over age 40, while anime conventions are attended mainly by people under 30.
- A geographic or political community, e.g., your county. Democracy means the idea that everyone's viewpoint is important, so if you think democracy is morally superior to, say, a totalitarian theocracy, you have a moral obligation be maximally inclusive. But /this only has moral force if membership in the community is not quite voluntary/, e.g., it's very costly to move to another community, or there are no communities available for certain people.
I don't know which kind of group you're trying to create. I sense from your blog post that you feel a moral imperative to be as inclusive as a geographically-based community should be, but I don't think that's the kind of thing Fluidity should be. Don't beat yourself up for building a group of a particular kind rather than The One Perfect Group. I suspect Fluidity is in more danger of being too open-ended and under-specified than too exclusive.
What a delightful read. I enjoyed the weekend immensely and reading this reminded me of many of the things that felt special and rare about being in the group you brought together. I sincerely hope to see your coffee ritual one day!
-Evelyn
Why do people gather together? Just off the top of my head, I can think of 3 distinct types of groups:
- A group with a purpose, e.g., Effective Altruism. Such groups will probably need to exclude many viewpoints in order to have a shared purpose and plan. That's okay, at least if it doesn't go so far as to exclude people who have valid critiques of the group's plans.
- A group with a common interest, e.g., science fiction fandom. Such groups don't need to exclude any viewpoints other than "science fiction is stupid", because your views outside of the fandom don't need to cause arguments, and your views inside of the fandom are the things you're gathering together to argue about. But they can develop exclusionary views because interests correlate with viewpoints. E.g., science fiction conventions are attended mainly by white people over age 40, while anime conventions are attended mainly by people under 30.
- A geographic or political community, e.g., your county. Democracy means the idea that everyone's viewpoint is important, so if you think democracy is morally superior to, say, a totalitarian theocracy, you have a moral obligation be maximally inclusive. But /this only has moral force if membership in the community is not quite voluntary/, e.g., it's very costly to move to another community, or there are no communities available for certain people.
I don't know which kind of group you're trying to create. I sense from your blog post that you feel a moral imperative to be as inclusive as a geographically-based community should be, but I don't think that's the kind of thing Fluidity should be. Don't beat yourself up for building a group of a particular kind rather than The One Perfect Group. I suspect Fluidity is in more danger of being too open-ended and under-specified than too exclusive.