The Tightrope

Ideology doesn’t necessarily have very much to do with actual governance. If it did, what’s the simplest meaningful humanist “mission statement” for society?

Here’s something I wrote in a groupchat about a week ago: > now, it’s no secret that i’m a leftist: if you say any society is “correct” other than “one which eternally walks across the tightrope with civil liberties on your left and harm reduction on the right,” i’m probably going to think your ideology sounds like various different magnitudes of "a suicide cult"

(If you think it’d be appropriate, see the CWs at the beginning of that video or take it from the beginning–I’ve timestamped just the supporting lecture.)

No society is going to be perfect at striking that balance, because there’ll be about as many opinions about the particulars as there are people. It’s critical to the “humanist” part of the motivating question that both those civil liberties and those harm reductions are as universally and consistently applied as possible.

Please hit me up on the fediverse if you have any thoughts or refinements on that idea.