THE BIG QUESTIONS: Other Cities, Other Lives ⟡ Philosophical Dinner
Details
Welcome to The Big Questions, a casual dinner series that explores the philosophical dilemmas that ground our ordinary lives. There's light reading assigned, but this event is very loosely structured compared to our other workshops - no guided facilitation, exercises, or assigned questions. Just read the article and come prepared to chat about it over dinner!
Our Theme for June & July: The City
Every 1-3 months, our group chooses a special theme to explore in our events. This writing workshop is part of our June-July session on "The City." How do we make the decision that it's worthwhile to live in one particular place, instead of another? What does our city owe us and what do we owe it back? What does it mean to "Keep Austin Weird"? How do art and literature expand or limit our sense of civic possibilities? What new kinds of cities and city life can we imagine? And how will we know when this city has become ours?
These are some of the questions we hope to investigate this month, while offering Austinites a creative home in our own arts & humanities community.
Other Cities, Other Lives ⟡ Assigned Reading
This week over dinner, we'll be exploring how time and space affect our attachments to loved ones, and how those in turn affect our feelings of rootedness in or disenchantment with city life.
Please read the following brief article and two poems ahead of our discussion:
https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BOPX5l8RZZeYy3c3e-myD8E5o_5REWXfPZ9LFTryl7s/edit?usp=sharing
Location
We'll be meeting at Arpeggio Grill, a mediterranean restaurant located at 6619 Airport Blvd. https://arpeggiogrill.com/
About Us
This group is a project by Difficult Friends, a community-run arts & humanities club: Website ⟡ Instagram
We empower Austinites to tackle Difficult ideas and projects.
Our core values are:
- creative growth,
- intellectual challenge,
- human connection, and
- civic imagination.
Our events are designed as fun intellectual workouts and creative experiments. We host workshops and discussions that push Austin residents to think harder thoughts, make cooler stuff, and connect more deeply across their human differences.
This is not an organization for the faint of heart. As our name suggests, we take pride in being Difficult Friends and in confronting Difficult challenges.
Meaning is Difficult! Embrace the Difficult!
About Your Host
Trung Nguyen is a humanist, urbanist, and a member of Difficult Friends.
Statement of Welcome & Inclusivity
Here at Difficult Friends, we believe everybody can be Difficult. ;-)
Difficult Friends is an inclusive community space, and we particularly seek to protect and welcome our LGBTQIA+, queer, transgender, and nonbinary members. Event attendees may be asked to share their preferred pronouns and will be asked to respect the preferred pronouns shared by other participants. Women, immigrants, people of color, religious minorities, people with disabilities, and neurodivergent folks seeking a diverse community are also especially encouraged to attend!
That said, to quote the progressive labor activist Maurice Mitchell, we do not accept “using one’s identity or personal experience as a justification for a political position. You may hear someone argue, ‘As a working-class, first-generation American, Southern woman…I say we have to vote no.’ What’s implied is that one’s identity is a comprehensive validator of one’s political strategy—that identity is evidence of some intrinsic ideological or strategic legitimacy. Marginalized identity is deployed as a conveyor of a strategic truth that must simply be accepted. Likewise, historically privileged identities are essentialized, flattened, and frequently—for better or worse—dismissed.
To be clear, personal identity and individual experience are important. And while it is true that the ‘personal is political,’ the personal cannot trump strategy nor should it overwhelm the collective interest. Identity is too broad a container to predict one’s politics or the validity of a particular position... One’s racial or gender identity, sex, or membership in any marginalized community is, in and of itself, insufficient information to position someone in leadership or mandate that their perspective be adopted.
People with marginal identities, as human beings, suffer all the frailties, inconsistencies, and failings of any other human. Genuflecting to individuals solely based on their socialized identities or personal stories deprives them of the conditions that sharpen arguments, develop skills, and win debates. We infantilize members of historically marginalized or oppressed groups by seeking to placate or pander instead of being in a right relationship, which requires struggle, debate, disagreement, and hard work. This type of false solidarity is a form of charity that weakens the individual and the collective. Finding authentic alignment and solidarity among diverse voices is serious labor. After all, ‘steel sharpens steel.’”
For a concise summary of my views re: identitarian politics as this meetup’s lead organizer, feel free to refer to his excellent article Building Resilient Organizations.
Photography Policy
The event organizers of this meetup may take photos or videos of our events. By attending this event, you consent to being filmed and photographed. (If it’s Rachel, don’t worry - she will airbrush any blemishes & imperfections xoxo)!