Friendly Political Discussion Group

Here is an email I sent out about a weekly discussion group some friends and I are starting that would discuss various political issues in a friendly manner. All are welcome to come.

If you would like to joing the group shoot me an email at galtshul@middlebury.edu .

Hello Friends,

The moment you have all been waiting for is just around the corner: the first meeting of the Saturday afternoon discussion group. For those of you who didn’t receive my first email: this is a discussion group that will get together weekly and discuss political issues in a friendly manner.

Will Bellaimey and I will be leading the first discussion this coming Saturday at 2 in Hepburn Lounge.

We will begin talking about what we want this group to be all about and that will hopefully lead into a conversation about political activism in general. I have two main ideas we could go off for a discussion of theoretical activism, a Chomsky quote about dispelling political illusions and forming opinions and an excerpt from an essay by Isaiah Berlin about the dangers of “utopianism” or being overly idealistic. Next Willy B will help us look at the political movements of the 60’s an example of social activism in action.

If you have other good ideas about how we could go about discussing activism shoot me an email.

I hope to see you all on Saturday, but once again if these emails are annoying you let me know and I’ll take you off the list.

Peace, Love and Happiness,
-George




PS: I was thinking of naming the group Saturday Afternoon Group (SAG) because as everyone knows, all ballers SAG.

PPS: Here are the quotes I was thinking of going off of:

From Understanding Power: The Indispensable Noam Chomsky
“Woman: Noam, in general, how would say ordinary people should go about tring to dispel their illusions about the world—what’s the best way to start?

Chomsky: Well you don’t sit in your room somewhere and dispel illusions....Usually you find out what you think by interacting with people, otherwise you don’t know what you think—you just hear something, and maybe you accept it,or you don’t pay attention to it, or something like that...And you learn by trying out ideas, and hearing reactions to them, and hearing what other people have to say about the topic, and formulating programs and trying to pursue them, and seeing where they break down, and getting some experience, and so forth.”

From The Proper Study of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays by Isaiah Berlin
“The old perennial belief in the possibility of realising ultimate harmony is a fallacy...-in shot, one cannot have everything, in principle as well as in practice – and if human creativity may depend upon a variety of mutually exclusive choices: then as Chernyshevsky and Lenin once asked, ‘What is to be done?’...There seems to me, no clear reply. But the collisions, even if they cannot be avoided, can be softened. Claims can be balanced, compromises can be reached...Priorities can be established.
The first public obligation is to avoid extremes in suffering. Revolutions, wars, assassinations, extreme measures may in desperate situations be required. But history teaches us that their consequences are seldom what is anticipated; that there is no guarantee, not even, at times, a high enough probability, that such acts will lead to improvement.”