MY FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH POLITICAL ACTIVISM was completely alienating.

I was a freshman in college, and I joined the Redwood Action Team at Stanford (acronym: RATS) for a city council meeting in Mendocino — a coastal town north of San Francisco. We were at a meeting to protest the logging of the Northern California redwoods.

At the time, an environmental activist named Julia Butterfly Hill was living in one of those redwoods. We called her on a cellphone, and she gave us a pep talk, on speaker, from her redwood tree.  It was all very exciting…but I noticed something strange.

I noticed that the people we were protesting against looked like very humble people. They were loggers with their families, and they looked like migrant workers. And I thought to myself: I don’t want to be on the opposite side from those people. I want to be on the same side as the trees AND the people. The way these lines are drawn doesn’t make sense to me.

That was the end of my involvement with RATS, and for a while, with politics.  That was also the beginning of my fascination with integrating different perspectives — which recently led me to create Faces of X.

Faces of X is a series of short videos that integrates different perspectives on divisive social issues.

Each video first "steel mans" different perspectives on the issue. (Steel-manning articulates the strongest version of a perspective, as opposed to straw-manning which articulates the weakest.)  These seemingly opposing perspectives are embodied as versions of the same individuals -- contemporary thinkers, presenters & cultural influencers.

After embodying these perspectives, each video attempts to integrate the steel-man perspectives into a synthesis.

Synthesis goes beyond both-sides-ism, because it considers different perspectives without assuming they’re equally significant. Eventually, a synthesis becomes a new thesis in our evolving understanding of reality.

I'll give you some of the ideas and then show you some examples.


THE LIMITS OF BOTH-SIDES-ISM

Throughout history, thinkers from ancient Greece to China have practiced the art of contemplating different perspectives, to find a more comprehensive view. But in America today, we can hardly interact with different perspectives, let alone integrate them. Our viewpoint diversity has become a weakness, rather than a strength.

The internet often gives us binary choices: pro-vax or anti-vax. Pro-choice or pro-life. Woke or anti-woke. Choosing one or the other leaves insights off the table.

Vaccines shouldn’t be taken always, nor should they be taken never, so the question isn’t “pro-vax or anti-vax?” but “under what circumstances should vaccines be taken?” With respect to abortion, most Americans don’t identify with purely “pro-choice” or “pro-life,” and instead favor abortion rights with limits. And with respect to wokeness, the oppressor-oppressed frame is critical and overdue, but not always the most relevant.

In response to binary thinking, there can be a reflexive both-sides-ism — which presents different perspectives as equally relevant or valuable, regardless of the evidence or ethical considerations. American media should be more balanced, but not in a way that creates false equivalence or obscures truth. The best solutions are not always halfway between extremes. 

Meanwhile, in the so-called heterodox space, much “nuanced AF” thinking — in the words of incisive commentator, Meghan Daum — quickly devolves into knee-jerk contrarianism.

Knee-jerk contrarianism has become a new orthodoxy, just as pernicious as the old orthodoxies. Someone I recently met at Pamela Paresky’s gathering of Thought Criminals actually called it “heterodox orthodoxy.”

At what point of cultural adoption does heterodoxy cease to deserve that label? We’ve learned how to do equal-opportunity criticism — critiquing both progressive and conservative viewpoints — but what about equal-opportunity praise? What about taking insights, no matter where they come from, and integrating them into a bigger picture — in a way that doesn’t devolve into superficial both-sides-ism?

That would be truly nuanced AF.


A LITTLE MORE THEORY

Taking a step back, what are we actually doing when we integrate different perspectives?  One nice metaphor is parallax vision. The view from our right eye is slightly different than the view from our left eye. Each eye gives us a view that’s true and partial, but it’s only by looking through both eyes together (along with other visual cues) that the world goes from flat to 3D. 

Put simply: perspective integration can give us a more holistic view of reality.  Like the proverbial blind men, we want to be able to distinguish between tusk and tail while acknowledging the elephant. We can apprehend the parts while maintaining our capacity to comprehend the whole.

We live in a media environment that divides us into warring tribes, and fragments reality into seemingly disconnected parts.  Our media environment was itself developed by a fragmented consciousness that prioritizes short-term profit at the expense of other values.”

In its own small way, Faces of X seeks to cultivate our capacity to perceive the wholeness of reality.


SOME EXAMPLES

So how might we articulate a synthesis perspective on capitalism?  Let’s take a look. 

Liv Boeree — game theory expert and host of the Win-Win podcast — stars in FACES OF CAPITALISM.  Follow the link to check out the video of her attempt to intelligently embody alternative perspectives and then combine them in a higher integration. 

Here's a snippet of her synthesis:

“Capitalism is the most extraordinary engine of economic growth we’ve ever seen. And, its benefits have not come for free. It’s not that capitalism is evil, just partially blind. It’s great at maximizing profit, but that comes (in part) by externalizing costs. And those costs have always been high, but now they’re globally existential. Which means: it’s time to change the game.  And now, we increasingly CAN change the game because of capabilities that capitalism enabled us to build — like for example: closed-loop production systems, and platforms for decentralized coordination.  In other words, capitalism has brought us to a terrifying and miraculous point at which humanity must change, and is newly able to change."

The point is not just that capitalism has upsides and downsides.  That would be more both-sides-ism. The point here is that capitalism’s downsides are bringing us to the brink of self-destruction, but its upsides are precisely what enables humanity to move on.

Similarly, how might we articulate a synthesis perspective on gender?  Abortion?  Racial issues?

FACES OF GENDER w/ Buck Angel
FACES OF RACE w/ Magatte Wade
FACES OF ABORTION w/ Stephanie Lepp


THE FACES OF X PROJECT

Faces of X stars cultural influencers who can hold seemingly opposing views — a feat in a media environment that drives binary thinking. The stars aren't neutral. No one is. They're also not paid actors, so their willingness to work on this project demonstrates their commitment to synthesis.

The first release of Faces of X includes capitalism, abortion, gender, and race. But the potential pipeline is infinite. I’d love to produce Faces of Guns, Faces of Feminism, Faces of Artificial Intelligence, and more.  Which videos would you love to see -- or maybe even be a part of?

Since my experience in the Mendocino redwoods, I’ve returned to politics. I’ve returned because I now have a way to put trees and people on the same side — by steel-manning their perspectives and integrating them into a more comprehensive view.

Ultimately, it’s unlikely that one side is entirely right. It’s also unlikely that all sides are equally right. It’s more likely that most of us are partially right, but some of us are more right than others. That doesn’t make for a great tagline, but it avoids the pitfalls of tribalism and both-sides-ism in pursuit of a more comprehensive view. Our view will always be partial, and we can always strive to see more faces of reality.

It is said that the root cause of our interrelated crises is: our inability to see reality as a whole. It’s our inability to see that our department stores are stocked amazingly…due to sweatshop labor and polluted air, and that the values of choice and life…give each other meaning.

Paraphrasing Albert Einstein, 'It’s an optical delusion of consciousness to believe there are separate things. There’s one whole that we call ‘Universe,’ and our task is to develop our capacity to perceive it.'

The next time you’re arguing with someone about some hot political issue, consider:

> Under what circumstances is what the other person is saying true?

> What if your views are not completely clashing, but somehow complementary?

> How might you integrate your views to create a bigger picture?

Watch the Faces of X series and share it with someone who you would love to find synthesis with:

www.facesofx.org