Your letter reminds us that the written word has an unusual value. One letter at a time, one right after the other, we build words and ideas. Letters, both the alphabetic and the mail-in kinds, are a foundation of civilization.

I view civilization as a core subject of your letter, and civilization is founded, in part, on the two topics you mentioned: politics and religion. What you hope for, and what we can hope for, is that the discussion of these topics -- along with race, gender, ethnicity, class, economics, and on and on -- become the basis of an inclusive civilization based on listening, discussion, and, of course, reading. The Enlightenment you extoll is worth extolling. The Romanticists who came after rejected reason, but they have a point: emotions are human, too. Emotions matter precisely because they are part of civilization's foundations.

Letters can rile emotions. Tweets and other short-form social media express ideas -- rather poorly, but they do -- that rile emotions. I believe that Collate can become a place where well expressed ideas and emotions meet, sometimes happily and sometimes not, but always with good and honest intentions. There will always be disagreements. Disagreements in democracy are a feature, not a bug. It is how we disagree that matters. As Oliver Kraftman's letter states, the "good" form for disagreements can be letters -- nicely written, honest letters. Oliver's Collate idea is a noble one. And an inclusive one (well, for precocious children and all adults). We can all write letters. We can all write a 100 words. We all have ideas. We just need someone to read them.

So, I've joined Collate, too. May it help bring a brighter today and a better tomorrow.

Thank you for your letter.

Joshua Dubrow

Joshua Dubrow

I loved a lot of what you write here. Of course the stuff on Collate’s necessity and why it can be useful, but also that social media isn’t all bad. It’s been great for me growing up, being able to communicate with friends a lot, share photos with family and see internet culture develop in entertaining ways - memes are funny.

But I’d love to go off on a bit of a tangent. It’s interesting what you say about the Masons banning talk of politics and religion to ensure the conversation is friendly and fun. You also imply that religion is ‘superstition’ - something I, until very recently strongly agreed with. I think politics and religion should be thought of differently in the context of today’s discourse. Everything (partly because of social media) gets politicised these days in contrast to religion becoming something with less and less influence on society. It actually seems to me that we talk about religion too little, and the great politicisiation (i.e. our talking about politics too much) is a replacement for the loss of spirituality in every day life that religion previously provided. Political opinions are becoming how one person judges another’s character, previously something one would leave up to god or the interpretation of religious texts to determine.

I’m not suggesting that people become more religious in the traditional sense, or in the direction of a particular religion. But I do think we in the modern world lack a spirituality which bonds people to something bigger than ourselves, which explains why the politics acting as a replacement has led to polarisation and tribalism.

People could say that being part of a political movement does bond people to something larger than themselves. But political movements are often set up to act in opposition to another group of people holding a certain point of view, where as a belief in god implies an equality of humans under god so that even the humans who act ‘wrongly’ are opposed as undermining a responsibility all share in service of something higher, rather than a group saying they are better than another in service to other people. Nationalism works in a similar way to religion in this way, in that it bonds citizens together under an entity (country) that is bigger than any citizen, and therefore to shirk responsibility under the state is not to be an enemy of a certain group of people, but is to shirk the same responsibility that all citizens share. But patriotism too has been waning, certainly in the UK where we live.

I’m not saying that nationalism or anti-scientific, ancient religions can’t be dangerous. And I don’t think we should return to the past by rejigging old ideas. But their are beneficial characteristics to these belief systems that need to be replaced with something non-political and spiritual. By spiritual, I mean a conceptualisation of our societies, civilization, world, universe that unites all people to a fundamental ethic that is bigger than any individual.

So maybe less political talk could help us communicate online more humanely, but I actually think there needs to be a revival of the spirit that drove people to become religious in the first place. Maybe a start could be to discussing more, right here on Collate, what exactly that would look like. What do you think?

Oliver Kraftman

Oliver Kraftman