Intro

Dr. Sarah Stein Lubrano (https://www.sarahsteinlubrano.com/) got her PhD from Oxford and Masters degree from the University of Cambridge. She works with the Sense and Solidarity Initiative and the Future Narratives Lab. She's also served as the head of content at The School of Life.Her new book, Don't Talk About Politics, has me reeling. (https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/dont-talk-about-politics-9781399413916/) The implications of her no-nonsense approach to what works in political communication are pretty radical. Lubrano, I think, is trying to outline a path to more flexible, accessible ways of communicating and organizing than the ones we have. She says that the act of building social relationships--not doing more prestigious things like making documentaries and writing books--is the single most important site of politics.So, how do we make political appeals to people while reckoning with the widespread social isolation they're feeling? Sarah says that “discourse, which is so highly valued in theory in our society, appears" to be quite "ineffective in practice.” With many of the political conversations we have, it feels like there's a wedge in place before we can even begin to engage. Lubrano says it's because we're forced to choose between the model of discourse as a battle or the idea that it's a "marketplace of ideas." These two polar opposite metaphors are the only ones we seem have for how conversation nourishes a democracy. At its core, her book is concerned with what it means for democracy to be reduced to either marketing or killing. The questions that Sarah is currently taking up in her work have obviously become more pressing with the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the far-right social media influencer who was shot at a public event in Utah this September. This was a globally witnessed murder that sent shockwaves through state politics, the alt-right media sphere and into the far reaches of the internet. Lubrano recently wrote in The Guardian that there are "lots of reasons why debate (and indeed, information-giving and argumentation in general) tends to be ineffective at changing people’s political beliefs. Cognitive dissonance... is one. This is the often unconscious psychological discomfort we feel when faced with contradictions in our own beliefs or actions, and it has been well documented."I connected with Sarah again, after we recorded our initial conversation about her book, because Kirk's murder represents a crossroads for a lot of people, and a moment to reflect on the poisoning of public discourse. How did Kirk change people's minds? Was it through debate? Or did his organization Turning Point mainly use the spectacle of a debate as recruitment strategy? How and when do we change our minds? #debate #rightpopulism #farrightinfluencers #democracymaynotexistbutwellmissitwhenitsgone #charliekirk #leftpolitics #politicaltheory #solidarity