Thanks for publishing this exchange. It was fun reading and helps me clarify some of my thinking. What more could teachers want?

I love philosophy but chose to forego the academy for community organizing in the mode of Sam Adams, Saul Alinsky, Paulo Freire, Walter Reuther, Jane Addams.

Anywhere I can foster people, however they categorize themselves, find each other, see each others interests and values and commonalities, organize themselves to be at the table where decisions are being made that affect them personally and collectively, I want to encourage. I trust them if they really listen to each other and act to assist one another to act in concert. I don’t care if they call themselves liberal or conservative, right or left, modern or postmodern, secular humanist or religious, woke or enlightened. I believe in them acting together. I choose democracy over autocracy.

Thinking (eg language, philosophy, science) assists us to understand one another. But it can easily lead to the idolatry of absolutism and righteousness and a politics of destroying enemies—winning-over vs winning-with.

That’s my biggest concern for our humanity and our world today.