Integrating Diverse Perspectives
I discovered this amazing project today, and I decided to share it with all of you as my August post. I’m in an integration point right now, between old ideas that have come back to the surface (I brought an old writing about the punishment reflex over to my Substack that feels very potent for me right now), and new things I’ve discovered, like this amazing project I’ll share below. I’m going to let all that keep simmering through the end of summer, and I expect to be back on here with some fresh writing in the fall.
So, here’s a description of this project that I want to share with you; it’s from the About Page on the project website:
Throughout history, thinkers from ancient Greece to China have practiced the art of contemplating different perspectives, in order to gain a more comprehensive view. Meanwhile, in America today, we can hardly engage with different perspectives, let alone integrate them. Our viewpoint diversity has become a weakness, rather than a strength.
In this spirit, Faces of X is a series of short videos that integrate different perspectives on divisive social issues — like capitalism, gender, and race.
The creator of Faces of X, Stephanie Lepp, explains the project in this 10 minute TedTalk. Please give it a watch.
Faces of X illustrates a key part of what I was attempting to express in my Nosidesism post last month: the idea of moving beyond two sides, holding them both, not identifying with either one.
And, watching her TedTalk, I also felt a challenge to the core premise in my post about neutrality in a way that I find thought provoking. She references the bothesidesing warning briefly, and I resonate with how she uses it, as the other extreme of onesidesing. I feel like there’s so much interesting nuance around neutrality and this integration of perspectives, and I look forward to continuing to contemplate it all.
If you check out Faces of X or have thoughts about neutrality that you want to share, I’d love to hear what you think! In the comments, replying to this Substack email, or however you have to get in touch with me.
Links to each of the Faces of X episodes that have been created so far, each about five minutes in length: