Of Ostriches and Armadillos: A Welcome to Parallel Republic
Where the center holds and we remember who we are.
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold”
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“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity”
- “The Second Coming” by W.B. Yeats
In 1977 a resistance organization was formed in communist Czechoslovakia called Charter 77. The group and its spokesman Václav Benda faced the challenge of building the resistance in a regime where all quarters of public life were subject to its control through force and lies; from universities, to arts, culture, and entertainment to how one addressed people. His solution, he wrote in his 1978 essay “Parallel polis” was to develop parallel conversations, commentary, organization and community that rejected the use of force and lies. As direct confrontation with institutionalized elites was impossible, Benda suggested that the only way to overthrow the regime was to build a new society from within that remembered who they were.
As a political scientist (and a concerned citizen), I am alarmed by the polarization and intensifying radicalism on both sides of our current political spectrum. Tolerance for political violence on both left and right is increasing; reports of self-censorship are accumulating amongst partisans of every stripe; conspiracy theories once relegated to the margins of society are entering the mainstream. Few, if any, of our institutions, from the universities (once aspiring bastions of free and uncensored exchanges of ideas) to our media outlets, to our social media channels have been exempt from radicalization and colonization by strange political cultures. These cultures come bearing yet stranger terms and aggressive postures where conversation is not fun or nourishing and authentic sentiment can be dangerous. It’s not an oppressive state (yet), but an increasingly oppressive state of affairs.
At times like these, any of us could be forgiven for practicing the way of the ostrich. Keeping busy. Heads in the sand. But now, more than ever I think, it's time to practice the way of the armadillo: tough, resilient, aggressively running free right down the middle of the road. Afterall, you won’t get hit if the cars are on the edges of the road! Particularly if you roam in numbers!
My ambition for this publication and newsletter is, at a minimum, for it to serve as a platform where I can share ideas fit for self-governance. In my greatest ambition a great many of us will do it together here, where we genuinely explore the importance of our arts and institutions and how they are vital to our political culture and share tips and stories of us building parts of the parallel republic in our own lives, workplaces, and communities. Where we create a moderate self-aware community building a parallel republican culture where self-governance and free thought can flourish.
Yet, polarization creates more opportunity for creativity in between the poles. It is the center that makes things work! Parallel Republic embodies the space opened up in an increasingly polarized discussion for a spirit of ‘aggressive centrism’ at levels intellectually high and beautifully common. This newsletter hopes to facilitate building a parallel republic among those practicing ‘the way of the armadillo’ where we run free in an ever more wide open center in the middle of the road, where yellow lines anchor the domain in which the only productive sustainable future can feasibly be written in a democratic republic, if we can keep it.
My friends, welcome to my “parallel republic”. With your subscription and creative contributions, I hope you will make it our parallel republic.