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I heard someone say once that we should not be allergic to ideas.
The more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me. There are a great many ideas that are considered wrong, harmful, and dangerous that don't get considered much. We're often operating at a level of conceptual safety--ideas that we may or may not agree with but nonetheless are comfortable arguing about.
But there's a whole class of ideas that are very uncomfortable to consider. So much so that they're never seriously discussed, except perhaps by the fringes.
Yesterday I was talking to Sydney about the idea that states should secede from the U.S.[1] and form their own independent countries. Needless to say this is not an idea many would be comfortable with, and nor was she. But through our discussion we uncovered the underlying motivations behind the original idea that suggested interesting new questions to consider.
If we don't engage with ideas that challenge our own underlying values and what we consider right and true, we don't ever know if what we consider right and true are Right and True.
Last updated Wed Jan 05 2022 in Charlotte, NC
1: https://observer.com/2016/06/the-case-for-american-secession/