Lev Deych and I have known each other since the day some 12 years ago when we both showed up at new faculty orientation at our university. Lev is a physicist and I am a historian, but we found common ground in part in our love of things Russian. Lev, of course, grew up and started his career in the former Soviet Union, and I am a specialist in Russian history immersed in Russian culture on more or less a daily basis.
At some point, not long after we met, Lev hit upon the felicitous idea of playing racquetball. We looked up the rules on the internet and from that point on, once or twice a week we would spend a few hours in the gym dashing around the court, swatting balls and struggling to get the upper hand. When we were done we would retire to the sauna to continue our struggle, only instead of batting around a rubber ball it was ideas and opinions. It was clear right away that we had very different views. I'm a lifelong democrat and unabashed liberal dedicated to the notion that state can and should act to promote the common good. Lyova, on the other hand, is a staunch conservative with distinct libertarian tendencies who sees the government intervention is social and economic life as a threat to liberty. As far apart as we were ideologically, I found our discussions very engaging and stimulating. After all, it's not hard to talk politics with people who share your views, but to formulate and defend arguments against an intelligent, well informed and passionate opponent requires a much higher level of mental dexterity. And it was all the more satisfying on those occasions when we would actually find common ground.
After a few years, Lev moved on to another university and our racquetball sessions came to an end, but we continued to get together along with our families and our debates continued. Over the past few months, we found that our debates were starting to migrate on-line, showing up on facebook comments and occasional e-mails. In that case, I thought, why not move our discussion to a platform that is more conducive to that sort of thing--hence the idea for a blog. I don't know about Lev, but I also felt like this sort of dialogue across ideological lines is all too rare in our ever more polarized society and that perhaps by putting our dialogue in a form that would be accessible to others that we might be making a contribution of sorts. So here goes.
A few ground rules that I would propose. The working languages of this blog are English and Russian. Lately we've mainly been writing in English and this will probably continue, but don't be surprised if we occasionally lapse into Russian, and readers, of course, are welcome to contribute comments in either language. Grammatical errors and typos in either language are granting blanket forgiveness beforehand. It is understood that we may vigorously disagree on just about everything we discuss, but the underlying tone will always be respectful and positive. Ad-hominem attacks, abusive language, invective, etc. have no place here. Have I left anything out? OK--let's go.
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ReplyDeleteNathan described the history of how we found ourselves writing this blog more or less accurately. I only would like to make a few minor corrections. In our racquetball years I had not yet had any definitive political views. These were my formative years as an American (the year I met Nathan was my only third or fourth year in US) and I was yet to participate in my first presidential elections. There was one thing, though, I was certain about: socialism in all its manifestations is not effective economically and oppressive politically, so that I was suspicious of any even limited socialist institutions, such as welfare, for instance. Thanks to Nathan, I had become, (and still am) a more conscious student of American politics and economics. Eventually I came to define my-self indeed as someone of libertarian persuasions, but since this word (as almost any other label) has multiple (which means none) meanings I try not to use labels to define myself or anybody else. For the same reasons I would not call myself a conservative. I was seriously influenced by F. Hayek and his book "Road to Serfdom", and views are close to his. However, since the book was written more than 60 years ago its assumptions and conclusionms should be re-evaluated in light of new historical and political development, and this is why I find it interesting to participate in this blog.
ReplyDeleteBy education and profession I am a physicist, and while my knowledge of political and economic history and philosophy is rather limited, I do hope to bring into this discussion something new: methods of argumentation and general world view borrowed from natural sciences combined with my experience of living in the socalist state. Who knows may be it will help to clarify a thing or two if not for the world but at least for myself and my friend Nathan?