Bringing people together without identity politics to converse and share perspectives.
Here at FAIR, we value exploring, learning, and having live conversations about ideas, events, and cultural forces shaping our lives. We are interested in what people are reading, hearing, seeing, and thinking.
So we created a place where those perspectives can be shared openly — FAIR in Conversation.
What?
FAIR in Conversation is an online community for people who value open inquiry, thoughtful exchange, and genuine dialogue across differences.
We talk about books, podcasts, current events, history, philosophy, science, the arts, education, religion, media, and the questions people are wrestling with in their own lives. Sometimes a book, podcast or article helps frame the discussion. But for us, the conversation is the point.
The goal of FAIR in Conversation is to bring people together without identity politics or ideological pressure. We want to converse, share perspectives, and better understand the world and one another.
How?
We host monthly online In-Conversation events where participants can join a respectful, engaged community that listens deeply and speaks with integrity.
There are several ways to participate:
- Join our monthly online FAIR in Conversation event.
- Invite others to attend and help grow a local or online conversation community.
- Use ideas and themes from past conversations to continue discussions with friends, family, or colleagues.
You do not need to arrive with the “right” view, or even with a fully formed view. FAIR in Conversation is a place to think out loud, test ideas, ask questions, and engage honestly with others.
Why?
We are lifelong learners. Engaging in live conversations about culture, politics, science, philosophy, the arts, and public life is one of the best ways to deepen our understanding of the world and our connections with others.
In much of modern life, conversations are narrowed by oversimplification, self-censorship, and the assumption that only certain perspectives are welcome. FAIR in Conversation offers an alternative: a space where different viewpoints are allowed to flourish, and where people can speak freely and listen seriously.
Our goal is to spark meaningful conversation through which the act of coming together becomes an antidote to division, isolation, and intellectual conformity.
Next Meeting
"Pride Month"? The Importance of Dissent and Viewpoint Diversity Regarding Sex, "Gender" & Sexuality: A conversation on identity-focused narratives, pronouns and other compelled speech.
July 29th at 7PM ET
What to Expect
Co-moderated by FAIR leaders Arnold Huntley and Karen Howes, FIC typically meets on the last Wednesday of the month at 7PM ET. Our discussions are wide-ranging and often move across books, podcasts, current events, mainstream and independent news, history, philosophy, the arts, and the larger questions that shape our common life. We often provide links for background on a topic, but conversations can pivot organically.
There is no expectation of consensus. The purpose is not instruction or performance but conversation.
Next up In-Conversation on Wednesday, July 29th at 7PM EST until whenever the conversation finishes.
Participant
This Month's Meeting
Against the Machine
by Paul Kingsnorth
Amid today’s highly technical, material, and fast-paced world, it is easy to lose sight of the thing that matters most – our common humanity and where it is headed. In pursuing FAIR’s work of promoting a pro-human culture based on common and shared values, the October FAIR in Conversation highlights the increasingly popular book, Against the Machine.
In Against the Machine, “furiously gifted” (The Washington Post) novelist, poet, and essayist Paul Kingsnorth presents a wholly original—and terrifying—account of the technological-cultural matrix enveloping all of us. With masterful insight into the spiritual and economic roots of techno-capitalism, Kingsnorth reveals how the Machine, in the name of progress, has choked Western civilization, is destroying the Earth itself, and is reshaping us in its image. From the First Industrial Revolution to the rise of artificial intelligence, he shows how the hollowing out of humanity has been a long game—and how your very soul is at stake.
Join FAIR in Conversation as we take momentary detours from our mechanized lifestyles and reflect on the ideas and values that have truly enabled us to flourish as humans.
Frederica Mathewes-Green, author of Facing East says about Against the Machine:
“Something in our common life has long seemed bewildering, even ominous, and Paul Kingsnorth makes it finally clear what we’re up against. The gears clanking around us are not working at random but with increasing inhuman intent. Now I see what I must do. Now I understand.”
