Where do you go to discuss politics?

lbo-talk is a forum for the discussion of economics, politics, and culture from a broad left perspective, sponsored by Left Business Observer.

What you gain by limiting the people you admit to your group you lose in terms of restricting opinions. Debate depends on disagreement, and there's a fine line between disagreement and bickering. And in a faceless environment like the Internet its very easy to misunderstand somebody else's use of rhetoric, cos you've got no tone of voice or body language to read. This tends to accentuate the bicker factor, especially when you factor in some people's apparent hypersensitivity to being disagreed with in any way.

I think we all need to master the skills of listening and filtering out bullshit at the same time.

I wish I could go to the pub and talk to liberal leftist Finns.

Thanks very much for the link, Sebastien.

It seems like the ideal thing would be to assemble a small mailing list of interested people. The question is, where do I find the people? I have maybe one or two existing friends who might be interested.

From my experiences at university, I would not recommend that, unless you luck into a group of intelligent students.

I'd also recommend not settling too much into talking just to liberal leftists. It is often more pleasant, and causes less anger, but it is vital to get opposing views - there is nothing more valuable in developing your ideas on a subject than a genuinely clever person who disagrees with you.

(None of this reflects any will on my part to be involved - I gave up paying any attention at all to news and international affairs and all that a few years ago, and I don't miss it at all.)

Hello. I'd sign up to this.

I'd also recommend not settling too much into talking just to liberal leftists. It is often more pleasant, and causes less anger, but it is vital to get opposing views - there is nothing more valuable in developing your ideas on a subject than a genuinely clever person who disagrees with you.

I'm certainly with you on that, Martin. My own views (perhaps I should say tendencies, as I have not yet made up my mind about very much), borrow from across the political spectrum, though admittedly far more on the left. But I'm quite into Green thinking which can transcend left/right.

I'll let you know as soon as I've recruited a few more people and thought a bit more about the best way to do this.

I disagree with this to some extent. An advantage of communicating about this kind of stuff is that you have at least the option to structure your thoughts better than in conversation.

But anyway, I wuv the politics, I would be interested in whatever kind of endeavour you would go for. I also think that limiting it to liberal leftists would be a bad idea, as you will just get the effect of people broadly agreeing with each other all the time, which is a bit pointless.

If you call it ILP too much you will put off those of us who are thereby reminded of their most loathed band ever.

Who are ILP?

This venture, how many people doing it would be former or current politics students,

It has also been my experience that university has not given me any opportunity to develop my ideas or benefit from the ideas of others. I write the odd essay, it comes back with a mark and a few scribbled comments, and that's it. Tutorials are a bit of a joke, unfortunately. This year, as I said, I'm not at university. And I'm learning a lot more than I did there, so far.

http://www.caffepronto.com/upload/photos/24coffeehouse.gif

http://www.eurotrib.com/

i think political talk on ile has faded some just because so many people (americans, anyway) are so tired of the bush administration. i just feel worn down by them. my capacity for outrage is close to exhausted. illegal spying? weird "signing statements" on bills? sam alito? oh god whatever. here, take the constitution, do whatever you want with it, just give it back to us on your way out the door.

Dammit, I'd be willing to discuss philosophy here! I've been scouting around today for another place to do so, and the available possibilities seem rather limited-- I'm seeing a lot of sub-undergrad stoneresque rambling and obscenely open-ended questions (like "What is truth?"-- one half of my favorite Bible quote, true, but not that useful a thread starter) on the boards linked off of Wikipedia's "philosophy" entry. I don't expect to be able to keep up with the professionals, but a small community with like-minded grad student types I could probably hack. Anyone have any suggestions?

Whoops! That was from you guys?!? Cathy, could you invite me again?

I'd just like to register that I think this is a dismaying attitude, as is the idea that politics can't be discussed right here on ILE, or that political discussions serve only as ways to vet potential one-to-one chat partners. Jesus wept!

It is taking shape, perhaps not exactly as what I envisioned but I hope as something worthwhile.

newsgroups groups etc. like cathy's = classic, ie a more localised and multifaceted response to news/politics, one not beholden to business/capital/sponsors/shareholders etc

Ah, yeah-- this is something I've had ferocious internet debates with people about before, because I do the same thing in not paying attention to trivia and dumbed-down propaganda. As far as I'm concerned, not knowing about the latest disaster people are rubbernecking over or what Cindy Sheehan is doing right this second doesn't make me uninformed. I don't really consider involvement with political posturing as "practical politics"-- I'd rather see people trying to make things better on a local, day-to-day level than spend their time writing screeds about people they're never going to get removed from office to convince people who will never be convinced and are in fact more deeply entrenched in their opposition every time the attempt is made. I find the fact that I live in a world of liars deplorable, but I'm not sure what can actually be done about it at this point.

Anyway, politics can still be discussed on ILE-- I don't think that we're making a covenant to never discuss them here by doing this.

We're called The Helicopter View. I'm not sure why, exactly.

Momus - I for one would welcome you on the mailing list, I feel that you are one of the more astute political commentators here, but that might be because I tend to agree with you. However, I think the idea of the mailing list is that it would allow a more reflective and analytical style of political discussion, as opposed to the rhetorical and competitive style that flourishes here.

The mailing list is going to rock. When my lectures start again I will bore you all with summaries of what I have learned each week

excellent!

Asking again-- my e-mail program just ate the invite before I downloaded it.