Are we collectively good or evil?
Are we collectively good or evil?
A Three-Session Discussion Experiment
Invitation posted by Igor
There is a longstanding philosophical debate about whether humans are good and altruistic by nature but are ‘corrupted’ by society, or whether people are selfish at heart and need structures (states, institutions, norms, laws) to keep them from acting selfishly and destructively.
In our next discussion, I would like to explore a slightly different question: Instead of asking about individuals, I would like us to discuss whether it is even possible for us to create structures that are „good“:
Can we form states that do not exploit others, do not wage wars, and are not sooner or later undermined by populists? Can we build companies and economies that do not destroy the environment and don’t deepen the gap between rich and poor?
This will be our first multi-part discussion: Across three sessions (two on Saturdays one one on a Sunday), we will gradually work through our question with the help of the discussion-experiment-method. At the beginning of each session, we will recap our previous discussion and build upon it.
This way we’ll come together as a playful philosophical-sociological research group and see which interesting thoughts and insights we encounter.
Each session will be 2 hours long and you can join any of the sessions. If you can take part in two or all three sessions, that’s even better!
As usual you only need curiosity to take part. No background in sociology, psychology or philosophy is needed, neither a strong opinion – just join us and let’s think together.
Join us!
This event is part of the event series “The Discussion Experiment”. It serves to test and develop new, more fruitful and fun methods for group discussions.
Participation is free and you don’t need to prepare anything.
When & where:
Session 1 – Sat 01 March – 17:00
Session 2 – Sun 09 March – 17:00
Session 3 – Sat 15 March – 17:00
Berlin, Schöneberg
Please reserve your seat via Eventbrite
(You receive the address after registration)
Here are answers to some questions you might have:
The discussion experiment is a method designed to discuss complex and controversial topics in groups in a way that creates more clarity, reduces misunderstandings and makes conversations more interesting, inspiring and fruitful.
This is achieved with a new moderation technique that slows down and relaxes the discussion and supports all speakers in formulating their statements in a more clear and focused manner.
The aim of each discussion is to further improve the method based on the experiences we make – at the same time, of course, we want to have an interesting evening and an engaging discussion.
No, this format is not about competing against each other or about convincing people through rhetorical skill. Rather, it’s about finding common ground despite different opinions and exploring various aspects of a topic together.
It’s perfectly fine to just listen. You can decide for yourself at any time how active you want to be and will not be asked to speak. The only exception is at the beginning of the conversation, where we do a quick round where all participants say their names.
There are 3 events in total ( Sat 1 March, Sun 9 March, Sat 15 March). Each lasts 2 hours (from 5 pm). You can take part in all 3 events or any of them. Feel free to stay a bit longer after the event to finish the snacks, connect and mingle.
The venue is on the ground floor and accessible with wheelchairs. However, there are unfortunately no wheelchair-accessible bathrooms!
Picture: I am using AI generated images because I am organising this series of events on a no budget basis. As soon as I have a sufficient budget, I intend to commission illustrators instead. The image was created with AI (DALL-E) and altered with Photoshop.