Nicholas Gruen (https://nicholasgruen.substack.com) explores a way he's come to think about society with Peyton Bowman (https://www.protoclassic.com/paying-attention/) and represent it in a diagram, which is the first slide in these slides. (https://app.box.com/s/883mx255a2wk8t4ttyaozt2xt4de0zn9for) (Note only the first two slides were used in this talk). The diagram illustrates the principles which should characterize communication within any kind of community — in which Nicholas would include organizations like a firm or something larger like a national polity.

Isegoria — or equality of speech — is a 'horizontal' value — calling for everyone to be heard no matter their status in society. But the ‘vertical’ concept of parrhēsia is also absent. "Parrhēsia" is usually translated as "freedom of speech," but it’s a richer idea infused with mutual ethical obligation. It is the importance of speaking truth to power, but it also entails the powerful's duty to listen to what they're being told. In our society those lower down are mostly expected to flatter those above, and so they "gild the lily," and tell the kinds of stories the powerful want to be told. The result is lies all the way up the line. (see: https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/insights/public-sector-porkies-10-years-of-lying-up-the-hierarchy)

We explore these ideas in the classroom and then in organizations. Nicholas uses the example of Toyota, which shows how empowering those on the line is an astoundingly more productive way to make cars efficiently than having people directed by, and fearful of, those above.  There are two other orders within which these ideas are explored. Throughout the discussion, they refer back to political life, and towards the end they also talk about science, which also enables us to discuss an additional concept in the diagram, the notion of fidelity. That leaves a fourth principle ‘merit’ to be explained in a future discussion!

In this episode Peyton Bowman (https://www.protoclassic.com/paying-attention/) and Nicholas Gruen explore aspects of Nicholas' blog post "Will you join me in the alt-centre?" (https://clubtroppo.com.au/2022/03/06/will-you-join-me-in-the-alt-centre/). 

The term “alt-center” was initially a light-hearted kind of line, but, like many such things, having put it up there, it may very well be about something real.

An earlier iteration of Nicholas' centrism is here. (https://clubtroppo.com.au/2022/03/06/will-you-join-me-in-the-alt-centre/)

But that was then. Now, how about a fusion of Alasdair MacIntyre, James Burnham and George Orwell together with the idea that outputs from modern academia are mostly useless? 

And, in this discussion, as Nicholas does in his post, we explore James Burnham's argument that over nine-tenths of political discussion — from the heights of political theory right down to discussions in the street — is fatally infected with wish fulfillment, rather than a proper engagement with the problems of the world and what we can practically do about them.   

Nicholas illustrates this by referring to the much relied on the distinction between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome noting that neither actually exists in the world. They're abstractions. More to the point, if you give one generation equality of opportunity, its children will not have equality of opportunity because the children of people who've not done well will start disadvantaged. And yet the concept is bandied about in political discussion as if it were far more determinative than it is.

We go on to discuss a range of questions such as the role that our values — and our wishes — should play in political discussion and the way in which various practices associated with wokedom, often have more to do with organizations protecting themselves from risk than they do with helping address difficult issues. As such, when organizations regulate conduct to take these ideas into account, they often do so to make them disappear rather than to engage with them. These ideas are explored further in this blog post (https://clubtroppo.com.au/2013/12/14/red-tap-political-correctness-and-edicts-from-on-high/).

Why is Stoicism suddenly a thing?

A quick browse of the self-help section of your local bookstore will show you that Stoicism has become popular in the last decade or so with a strong surge during the pandemic. Peyton Bowman (https://www.protoclassic.com/what-does-stoicism-mean-in-the-21st-century/) and Nicholas Gruen discuss this phenomenon alongside of Nicholas' own interest in the ethics of the ancient world and his dissatisfaction with contemporary moral systems — something he discussed in this essay which we discuss: https://www.abc.net.au/religion/altruism-economics-and-the-need-for-the-virtues/12605938 

Peyton suggests that Stoicism is appealing because it speaks to our need to take what ends we're required to achieve in our jobs and our life and to make the most of our situation. Modern Stoicism seems to emphasize what’s sometimes called the dichotomy of control, an idea traced back to the 1st-2nd century philosopher, Epictetus. People, he believed, can’t be held responsible for things beyond their control — it’s essentially pointless, then, to worry about anything except that which one can control. In the modern context, Peyton contends that this makes the philosophy extremely compatible with people inside organizations or bureaucracies that emphasize means over ends. 

Of course, as a system of ethics, modern Stoicism is not blind to the worth or otherwise of our labor — and has its own ideas about how virtue works in the modern world — but this along with other aspects of ancient Stoicism seem to receive less emphasis. 

Towards the end of the discussion Nicholas talks about Effective Altruism, what a great thing it is, and also how much it bugs him and why :)

We began with a passage from William James on faith. Though the essay does discuss religious faith, it starts more mundanely, speaking of the way faith makes community life possible by knitting people together in bonds of mutual rights and obligations. 

One implication is that social life is necessarily a network phenomenon. Further, even without this, it is 'kaleidic'. That is, an apparently small change can make all the difference between the way the whole scene looks — and can for instance throw the switch from pessimism to optimism. This kind of thing often happens in the economy. People's pessimism is mutually reinforcing and depresses the economy generally, until one day when things change and their optimism becomes reinforcing. 
We then talk about the different metaphors for society and community. In ancient and early modern thinking, society is often conceived of as being like a human body with government being the brain. Peyton then discusses a speech by the Roman statesman Agrippa which references the stomach as the social body. I think this switch helps us spot some of our modern hubris. 

Nicholas argues that Zelenskyy is playing the role Winston Churchill played in 1940, but that in today's world, Zelenskyy's physical courage makes a greater contribution today than it did in Churchill's time. It cuts through the bullshit, it demonstrates that he's not just another bullshit artist. He means what he says. And Nicholas cavils at the cliché that he's is 'inspirational'. He is, but the word is so bandied about that we're dead to it. 

Nicholas focuses on something closer to home, more humdrum and, because of it more profound. Zelenskyy's actions move us because he did his job, like the captain of a ship that has foundered committing themself to save all it or go down with the ship. And we're in a different world to that. Where politicians never say quite what they mean (why — because if they did we wouldn't vote for them!), and where our own job may not make that much sense, and whether it does or not everyone's keeping their eye on their next career move. In any event, the contrast Zelenskyy's actions made with all this were enough to set a cascade of effects going, as we have seen in the last week. 

As much as we buy into the magnificence of these actions and the courage they showed, we end on the note of prudence. We are talking about heightened conflict between nations that can with the press of a button — including as a result of miscalculation, misunderstanding or more mundane cockup — annihilate all that we value.