Radically Moderate Round Up

Moderate Readings for September

I keep intending to do a monthly themed blog post on what I’m reading and then life and work and everything else inevitably gets in the way. But this month the stars aligned.

Without further ado, here’s a radically moderate round up of the cool books that have landed on my desk in the past couple months.

Read or In Progress:

Why Not Moderation? Letters to Young Radicals, Aurelian Craiutu - I already discussed this one when it came out and I’m still hoping to do a longer review because it’s so great. For now I’m re-reading it with an eye to thinking a bit more about the principled objections to moderation that come from activists and those who see real problems in the world and want to know how or if moderation offers a solution. Aurelian uses the term “radical moderation” here and elsewhere and he defends moderation as “a fighting creed,” a “source of strength and lucidity” and “a ‘radical’ virtue suitable only to courageous and non-conformist minds.” Craiutu is unapologetic Craiutu about defending moderation as a truly radical virtue and that’s the vibe I’m going for here too. Grab a copy. It’s a short and engaging read with a lot packed in.

High Conflict, Amanda Ripley - I’m in the middle of this one in preparation for an event where I’ll get to chat with Ripley about her work (more on that later) and so far it’s wonderful. Ripley uses a series of real world case studies to show how people move into and get stuck in what Ripley calls “high conflict” and how we can get out. Just as important, she shows us what “good conflict” looks like and emphasizes that good conflict can lead to growth, innovation, and progress. This distinction is really important for my own work because real moderation isn’t conflict avoidance. It’s knowing how to navigate pluralism (and human nature broadly) so we can reap the positive prosocial benefits and avoid the pits. High conflict is one powerful way that we get stuck in pits and we need to learn - individually and collectively - how to avoid falling in in the first place.

The Myth of Right and Left, Hyrum and Verlan Lewis - I really love this one since it dovetails nicely with arguments I’ve made here and in the book that a lot of the binaries we’ve been taught are real and enduring are, in fact, nothing more than mirages. I’ve seen a few critiques of the book from a range of perspectives, the most common one being that we need a sense of political left and right to orient our conversations around politics, particularly as a way to avoid the extremes of both. I need to think more about this, but so far this book is a great way to at least question the reality that left and right are useful for most of the political challenges that face us now. It got great reviews when it came out (I like Lee Trepanier’s review in particular) and the authors provide a quick overview on the HxA blog for those who need a quick overview before digging in to the full book.

Coming Up:

These three are on my desk and I’m hoping to get to them before the end of the month, but since they’re still in the pipeline I don’t have anything terrible insightful to say about any of them yet.

I Never Thought of it That Way, Monica Guzman - Guzman is a journalist and fellow at Braver Angels and an active leader of the “bridging” movement, which works to help polarized populations (like ours) see that what we have in common is more important than what separates us. Her TEDx talk on curiosity is fantastic and she has a new podcast A Braver Way that I’ve just added to my queue.

The Way Out, Peter Coleman - I should have read this years ago, but better late than never. Coleman has been doing research on depolarization for decades and he’s partnered with Starts with Us in the personal development anti-polarization space. He’s developed a really neat (and quick) “depolarization challenge” that sends readers a short exercise each day to help overcome toxic polarization and reframe thinking. I’m really digging it so far and highly recommend it.

Black and White Thinking, Kevin Dutton - This is another one I should have read a while back. I was initially attracted to Dutton’s work given my own background in evolutionary psychology (mostly as a grad student). Now his work resonates in another way, since I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about binaries, where binary thinking comes from, and how we can avoid the binary traps our brains love to set for us. I’ll hopefully have more detail on this one later this month, but for now it’s on the list.

That’s it for the moment! I hope to provide some in-depth discussions of at least a few of these in the next month or so, but for now let me know what you think! What radically moderate books are you reading? What themes are relevant to what you’re thinking about? Other suggestions for authors or books/articles I should be digging into?

Drop thoughts and suggestions in the comments and as always subscribe if you haven’t and share if you like what you see.