Pluralism refers to people of diverse and conflicting beliefs coexisting peaceably, linked by their adherence to a shared social contract which commits members of different groups to treating others fairly and accommodating them equally in the public square.
The only way to save democracy from the Christian Right is by fighting for pluralism – The Conversationalist
First, pluralism is not diversity aloneAloneness is a characteristic that many creatives embrace and yearn for. Being alone is anything but lonely. Reading, writing, and creating art all demand a personal space where one can… More, but the energetic engagement with diversity.
Second, pluralism is not just tolerance, but the active seeking of understanding across lines of difference.
Third, pluralism is not relativism, but the encounter of commitments.
Fourth, pluralism is based on dialogue.
About | The Pluralism Project
The Evangelical Pluralism Problem and its Media Enablers | Religion Dispatches
Embracing pluralism is good citizenship.
Embracing pluralism is good citizenship.
A Personal Update and Some Thoughts on Pluralism – Not Your Mission Field

Embracing pluralism is…
A Personal Update and Some Thoughts on Pluralism – Not Your Mission Field
- Genuinely listening with no agenda when others share about their beliefs
- Treating shared valuesRemind yourself that shared values, rather than shared beliefs, are what matter when it comes to interacting with others, and that there is no replacement for doing the hard work… More as more important than shared beliefs
- Refraining from proselytizing, incl. for atheism
- Posting messages of inclusion in my place of business
- Baking cakes for everyone who comes to my cake shop
- Leaving healthcare decisions between patients and doctors
- Recognizing the rights of all to refuse participation in any religious activity
- Tempering my free speech by considering whether my speech will do more harm or good
- Participating in interfaith activities and aiding religious minorities who are in harm’s way
- Tolerating those with whom I have substantive differencesOur friends and allies at Randimals have a saying, What makes us different, makes all the difference in the world.Randimals We agree. Randimals are made up of two different animals… More Seeking the common good first in public life
Embracing pluralism is not…
A Personal Update and Some Thoughts on Pluralism – Not Your Mission Field
- Asking strangers what church they go to
- Aggressively alienating those who do not share my religion or my atheism
- Viewing others as potential converts
- Flying the Christian flag or posting religious content in my place of business
- Agitating for the legal ‘right” not to bake cakes for people I don’t like
- Abusing conscience clauses or the religious ownership of a hospital to deny needed care
The activities that constitute care are crucial for human life. We defined care in this way: Care is “a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue,… More
- Coercing participation in prayer or demanding sectarian practice in my workplace
- Saying offensive things toward those who do not share my beliefs ‘because I can*
- Offering aid to those who do not share my beliefs on my terms, without concern for their needs
- Tolerating intolerance
- Seeking domination for those who share my beliefs in public life
Anti-Proselytizing Principles
Prophylactic Protection against Evangelical Aggression
By Chrissy StroopEmpowerment against Evangelization: Countering Conversion Attempts by Asserting Moral Autonomy – Not Your Mission Field
- I am not your mission field.
- I don’t owe you a debate.
- There are no shortcuts to being a good person, least of all “right belief”.
- Leavers are not a “crisis in the Church.” Treat us as humans with moral autonomy
Self-determination Theory (SDT) is… — a model, a macro theory, of human motivation. It’s one of several models of human motivation, but it’s one that has been confirmed over and… More.
- Proselytizing is always objectification. Let people follow their own consciences.
- Our stories are ours. Leavers are not believers’ object lessons.
Chrissy Stroop

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Religious Pluralism
One cannot achieve a healthy religious pluralism by pretending that robust mutual respect for religious diversity exists where it does not exist. Fostering healthy pluralism, which democracy demands, means confronting intolerance.
Stop Gaslighting The Left About Evangelicals. They Believe Awful Things About Jews – The Forward
It is self-evidently necessary for progressive atheists and agnostics to build coalitions with progressive believers and to work together toward the common good.
The only way to save democracy from the Christian Right is by fighting for pluralism – The Conversationalist
Thus, the practice of pluralism re-constructs the perception of the ‘other,’ which builds character and, ultimately, communities
What I have always been hoping to accomplish is the creation of community.Community is magic. Community is power. Community is resistance.Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century https://www.amazon.com/Disability-Visibility-First-Person-Stories-Twenty-First-ebook/dp/B082ZQBL98/ https://www.amazon.com/Disability-Visibility-Adapted-Young-Adults-ebook/dp/B08VFT4R9T/… More.
The possibilities of pluralism are infinite. The very fabric of diversity has the ability to make a community thrive.
The role of pluralism is one of rising significance. The ability to cooperate well with other groups will not only define us as people, but define our ability to pass laws, build infrastructure, and problem-solve as a nation. Thus, the role of pluralism is crucial to the success of today’s and tomorrow’s world.
Empowering minority groups to adequately gain equal access to programs and resources is a critical part of pluralism. Healthy and resilient communities need to provide all community members with access to resources and programs that build communal and individual knowledge of the best and most effective ways to create desired change.
Unlike the limited form of pluralism reflected in the ecumenical vision of pluralism, the conception of pluralism Eck advocates can accommodate those with exclusivist truthJustice, equality, fairness, mercy, longsuffering, Work, Passion, knowledge, and above all else, Truth. Those are my primary emotions.Very Grand Emotions: How Autistics and Neurotypicals Experience Emotions Differently » NeuroClastic https://youtu.be/uPRa6G2a48E… More claims. This latter form of pluralism asks individuals with such truth claims to display mutual respect for conflicting worldviews not by abandoning the exclusivity of their truth claims, but rather by acknowledging that the reasoning they find sufficient for their beliefs may not be sufficient for others. Including this conception of pluralism as civic normNormal was created, not discovered, by flawed, eccentric, self-interested, racist, ableist, homophobic, sexist humans. Normal is a statistical fiction, nothing less. Knowing this is the first step toward reclaiming your… More for negotiating conflicting worldviews and religious beliefs adds additional dimension to the framework of free expression and civil discourseRespectability politics didn’t save me then, and they won’t save our community or movement now or in the future either. Our movement, however, needs nothing of respectability politics. Accepting —… More.
Nonetheless, by discouraging certain perspectives on the issue, the norm of pluralism raises the paradox of toleration: a tolerant society can survive only if it is intolerant of some beliefs (Stolzenberg, 1993; Macedo, 2000; Spinner-Halev, 2000). The norm of pluralism, however, maximizes tolerance consistent with the mutual respect required in such a society (Thiemann, 1996; Connolly, 2005).
The logic of pluralism was not one of incorporation, but of genuine encounter, an encounter that recognizes difference, that does not elide differences into a “we” that is already known.
The Journal of Inter-Religious Studies, Issue 17, Summer 2015
For Rev. Dr. Cari Jackson, RCRC’s Director of Spiritual Care and Activism, pluralism is associated above all with compassion. “To be compassionate requires decentering or stepping outside one’s own experiences in order to give priority to the experiences of others,” Jackson said. This task is more challenging, she added, for those who “are part of any privilegedTo not have conversations because they make you uncomfortable is the definition of privilege. Your comfort is not at the center of this discussion.Brené Brown Power can be understood as… More hegemony” because of “a limitation of experience and exposure.”
The only way to save democracy from the Christian Right is by fighting for pluralism – The Conversationalist
Pluralism Is Our Reality
Pluralism is our reality. In our hierarchyThe belief in the existence and relevance of social hierarchies must be suspended.The Beauty of Collaboration at Human Scale: Timeless patterns of human limitations The extent to which a community… More of loyalties, let’s think above personal and tribal differences and enshrine our central tie, the allegiance and affinity that matters most: the bond of belonging to the human family.
The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: Defining the Path to Inclusion and Innovation
Our differences pervade our beliefs, preferences, and allegiances. They affect not only what we think, but also how we think, and how we see the world. The philosopher John Rawls called it the “fact of pluralism”—the recognition that we live in a society of “a plurality of conflicting, and indeed incommensurable, conceptions of the meaning, value and purpose of human life.”
Confident Pluralism: Surviving and Thriving through Deep Difference
Isaiah Berlin on Pluralism
Pluralism: the belief not merely in the multiplicity, but in the incommensurability, of the values of different cultures and societies, and, in addition, in the incompatibility of equally valid ideals, together with the implied revolutionary corollary that the classical notions of an ideal man and of an ideal society are intrinsically incoherent and meaningless.
The proper study of mankind : an anthology of essays : Berlin, Isaiah, 1909-1997 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
So Isaiah Berlin, living in the middle of the 20th century, looks around him and sees totalitarianism in mass claiming to have a universal understanding of human nature or how to structure a society. He sees people viewing themselves as total individuals, completely alienated from people around them, starving for a sense of community. He sees the reality of modern work and how only the most privileged can ever go outside and try to connect with the natural world around them. Most of all though, he sees within the politics of his time the ever-presence of this moral monism that was so popular in our thinking for 2,500 years — the idea that, when it comes to my moral or political views, there is one single answer to be arrived at, that I’ve discovered that right answer, and that my political views deeply inform a single cohesive worldview that I have that is correct.
We were in such a state of delirium thinking about how great science and reason were that we ignored one of the biggest breakthroughs in the history of human thought, the call by these thinkers of the Counter-Enlightenment for us to move away from monism and towards what Isaiah Berlin called “pluralism.”
There’s a famous essay by Isaiah Berlin titled “The Hedgehog and the Fox.” Now, in this essay he provides a sort of spirit animal for these two very different kinds of thinking. The classic line from the essay is that the hedgehog sees one big thing while the fox sees many things: the hedgehog obviously representing the thinking of a typical monist, the fox representing the approach of a pluralist. To Isaiah Berlin, the hedgehog, or the monist, is operating from a very limited vantage point where they can really only see in one single direction, and they’re assuming that’s all there is. They think about understanding the world always in relation to how it fits into some sort of overarching structure, seemingly just for the sake of having a cohesive worldview which they assume is possible.
But the fox, on the other hand, doesn’t look at the world in the same way as the hedgehog. Berlin says the fox understands that the range and complexity of everyone’s human experience is so massive — the way different languages orient people with the world, the way our different personalities orient us, the different preferences, feelings, experiences — what it is to be a human being is far too complex to ever have a single spokesperson.
But, to the initial charge that the pluralist is actually just a relativist, Isaiah Berlin might reply with the famous quote from his work, “I prefer coffee; you prefer champaign. We have different tastes. There’s nothing more to be said. That is relativism. But Herder’s view and Vico’s,” two thinkers of the Counter-Enlightenment, “is not that. It is what I should describe as pluralism, that is the conception that there are many different ends that men may seek and still be fully rational.”
Two different people using the exact same process of rationality could arrive at very different conclusions about moral or political values simply because of the complexity of human experience. And, here’s the kicker that will make this have such an impact on political thought, both of those conclusions are intelligible and rational. There’s no ultimate organizing principle. There’s no logical conclusion we’re going to arrive at. There’s no mathematical or scientific answer to questions about values. There’s only human rationality and the vast array of experiences and tools that we have to pull from that will determine these “blurry answers” we’re capable of coming up with. Well, that and, to Berlin, everything that’s common among all human beings regardless of culture.
Episode 140 – Isaiah Berlin pt. 1 – Pluralism — Philosophize This!
Episode #140 – Transcript — Philosophize This!
Something he calls “pluralism” or the idea that, when it comes to values, there are multiple different ends that people can arrive at using the exact same process of rationality and that both conclusions can, nonetheless, be intelligible and rational simultaneously. The complexity of human experience makes questions of political and moral values destined to have blurry answers. The values of a person or culture are extremely complicated. They overlap. They contradict each other. They’re situational, inconsistent. The values of people are often what he calls “incommensurable.”
Well, what criteria do we use to determine how much mercy we should use and how much justice we should use? His whole point here is that you can never answer this question clearly with some single criterion or single maxim. The fact is, the true complexity of human experience makes this impossible. Monism cannot ever actually mediate the relationship between complex human values like mercy and justice. The mistake of the thinkers of the past has been to try to come up with some single standard that addresses all the complexities of billions of people living together. “The goal of the justice system should be to maximize freedom,” or “balance the scales.” These overly ambitious golden rules are utterly useless when it comes to truly sifting through the blurry, complex relationship between human values like mercy and justice.
Episode 141 – Isaiah Berlin pt. 2 – Pluralism and Culture — Philosophize This!
Episode #141 – Transcript — Philosophize This!
To Isaiah Berlin, the fact is, people and cultures often have to hold two, what he calls, “incommensurable values” like mercy and justice simultaneously. These values are sometimes totally incompatible. They sometimes overlap in weird
Episode 141 – Isaiah Berlin pt. 2 – Pluralism and Culture — Philosophize This!“Weird Pride Flag” by Ferrous and Autistamatic Be proud of what you are.We’re weird, and we’re glad we are.Weird Pride Promo 2021 Autistic Pride is inconceivable without weird pride, and… More ways. When you abandon the strategy of trying to find a way that billions of human beings can be fit into a neat, little package governed by a single maxim, then you encounter what Isaiah Berlin sees as the true pluralism that lies at the foundation of human values.
Episode #141 – Transcript — Philosophize This!
See, the change from monism to pluralism is subtle. It changes the way you view people who disagree with you because, when you recognize the pluralistic nature of human values, you realize that there’s no single correct answer. And, even if there was, rationality is not the tool that’s going to get us there. The idea that if only we have more rational discussions about things eventually everyone rational will agree on the same values is a misunderstanding of what rationality is producing for us. Rationality is just utterly incapable of solving all the problems that can exist between cultures that value different things.
Episode 141 – Isaiah Berlin pt. 2 – Pluralism and Culture — Philosophize This!
Episode #141 – Transcript — Philosophize This!
This is the true role of rationality for Isaiah Berlin. When it comes to moral and political values, we’re never going to agree on everything. Rationality cannot give us that. But what it can do is mediate the differences between different moral systems and allow us to be more tolerant of each other. You don’t go to war with another culture just because they value something you don’t. You can disagree, try to understand the best you can, but you don’t think they’re stupid or evil just because they don’t do everything the way you do. The same way rationality can regulate the relationships between cultures, it can regulate the relationships between people of the same culture.
Episode 141 – Isaiah Berlin pt. 2 – Pluralism and Culture — Philosophize This!
Episode #141 – Transcript — Philosophize This!
pluralism, the recognition of an indefinite variety of cultures and systems of values, all equally ultimate, and incommensurable with one another, so that the belief in a universally valid path to human fulfilment is rendered incoherent.
Pluralism entails that Utopia is not so much unrealisable in practical terms as inconceivable, given the nature of human values. All enterprises based on the search for a perfect society are given the lie by this devastating claim.
The proper study of mankind : an anthology of essays : Berlin, Isaiah, 1909-1997 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
I prefer coffee, you prefer champagne. We have different tastes. There is no more to be said.’ That is relativism. But Herder’s view, and Vico’s, is not that: it is what I should describe as pluralism that is, the conception that there are many different ends that men may seek and still be fully rational, fully men, capable of understanding each other and sympathising and deriving light from each other, as we derive it from reading
The proper study of mankind : an anthology of essays : Berlin, Isaiah, 1909-1997 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet ArchiveThere are three types of reading: eye reading, ear reading, and finger reading.The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan: A Blueprint for Renewing Your Child’s Confidence and Love of Learning Most schools and… More Plato or the novels of medieval Japan – worlds, outlooks, very remote from our own.
The proper study of mankind : an anthology of essays : Berlin, Isaiah, 1909-1997 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
John Rawls on Pluralism
Rawls’s account of the reasonable citizen highlights his view of human nature. Humans are not irredeemably self-centered, dogmatic, or driven by what Hobbes called, “a perpetual and restless desire of power after power” (1651, 58). Humans have at least the capacity for genuine toleration and mutual respect.
This human capacity raises the hope that the diversity of worldviews in a democratic society may represent not merely pluralism, but reasonable pluralism. Rawls hopes, that is, that the religious, moral, and philosophical doctrines that citizens accept will themselves endorse toleration and accept the essentials of a democratic regime. In the religious sphere, for example, a reasonable pluralism might contain a reasonable Catholicism, a reasonable interpretation of Islam, a reasonable atheism, and so on. Being reasonable, none of these doctrines will advocate the use of coercive political power to impose religious conformity on citizens with different beliefs.
John Rawls (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Synthesis. Insofar as there is a retreat from ideology, it begins there.
Both Will and I have come to spend less time thinking about what might be the correct or optimal political philosophy and more time thinking about the workaday challenges of pluralism and democracy: how people of different cultures, ethnicities, genders, beliefs, and personalities, whose disagreements and conflicts are unlikely ever to be entirely resolved, can live together in relative peace.
Volts podcast: Will Wilkinson on libertarianism, pluralism, and America’s political crisis – Volts
Synthesis. Insofar as there is a retreat from ideology, it begins there.
And the most under-nuanced approach to thinking in the history of the world is monism. So this is why any attempt to distill the true plurality of human values down into a single maxim always fails miserably in the long run.
Episode 141 – Isaiah Berlin pt. 2 – Pluralism and Culture — Philosophize This!
Episode #141 – Transcript — Philosophize This!
“It is in doing the work that we discover what we have in common,” he said, noting that the work itself leads to an appreciation of our differences.
The only way to save democracy from the Christian Right is by fighting for pluralism – The Conversationalist
Practicing Pluralism
Practicing pluralism is harm reduction and triage. Practicing pluralism is recognizing and reducing minority stressThe primary aim of the minority stress model is to explain disparities in health between majority and stigmatized minority groups (Meyer 2003). Social stress theory hinges on the idea that… More and designing for the edges.
Fostering healthy pluralism, which democracy demands, means confronting intolerance.
Stop Gaslighting The Left About Evangelicals. They Believe Awful Things About Jews – The Forward
A rainbow doesn't choose to be a rainbow It just shines in the sky To all of you in darkness We're here turning on the light Now I stand with you for the world to see My love, my dreams, and me My love, my dreams, and me -- Rainbow Connections
Hostility is not the road The proper basic human code Chauvinist intolerance is what we loathe Let's embrace diversity By first rejecting bigotry There’s no more room left in society for animosity We refuse to look away And ignore issues at bay We will conquer the hurdles in our way (We are warriors) (We are warriors) We won't take shit anymore A pebble cuts right to the core All these excuses, what are they for? (We are warriors) We are warriors We are warriors We are warriors We are warriors We are warriors We are warriors --Warriors by Bad Cop/Bad Cop
Let’s organize our lives around love and care.

Mission
We exist for the direct support and mutual aidPut simply, mutual aid is a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions by building relationships, networks of reciprocity,… More of neurodivergent
Neurodivergent, sometimes abbreviated as ND, means having a mind that functions in ways which diverge significantly from the dominant societal standards of “normal.”NEURODIVERSITY: SOME BASIC TERMS & DEFINITIONS Neurodivergent is quite… More and disabledThe label “disabled” means so much to me. It means I have community. It means I have rights. It means I can be proud. It means I can affirm myself… More people.
We serve our loved people so we can keep on living through the onslaught.

Creed
I center the marginalizedFor me this space of radical openness is a margin a profound edge. Locating oneself there is difficult yet necessary. It is not a “safe” place. One is always at… More and the different. I center edge cases, because edge cases are stress casesCompassion Isn’t CoddlingPeople often mistake compassion for “being nice,” but it’s not.The point of compassion isn’t to soften bad news or stressful situations with niceties. It’s to come from a… More and design is tested at the edges. I center neurodivergent and disabled experience in service to all bodymindsBodymind: A term used to challenge the idea the body and mind are experienced separately (Descartes). Written in various ways, Bodymind or Body-mind, this usage foregrounds the understanding that experiences… More.

Covenant
We pledge to act and interact in ways that contribute to an open, welcoming, diverse, inclusive, and healthy community.

Philosophy
We steer by these acquired phrases. They are compasses and stars that align us on our mission.

Interdependence
It is time to celebrate our interdependenceInterdependence acknowledges that our survival is bound up together, that we are interconnected and what you do impacts others. If this pandemic has done nothing else, it has illuminated how… More. Interdependence acknowledges that our survival is bound up together, that we are interconnected and what you do impacts others. Interdependence is the only way out of most of the most pressing issues we face today.

Edges
Our designs, our societies, and the boundaries of our compassion are tested at the edges, where the truths told are of bias, inequality, injustice, and thoughtlessness.
Let's organize our lives around love and care Let's write each other letters and call it prayer Let's congregate in the place that isn't anywhere At the temple of broken dreams
