About Nuance Forum

We don’t need to change the conversation. We just need to have one.

Nuance Forum is founded on the belief that there is a deep appetite in the broad culture for long-form, meaningful conversations about the most consequential aspects of modern life.

In a political and cultural environment where conversations are too “hot” to discuss without risking friendships, status or even employment, individual’s private thoughts have been driven underground, leading to widespread self-censorship and increasing tribalization, isolation, misunderstanding and resentment. And often these private thoughts are not even safe to discuss with our most intimate relationships: spouses, partners, family members, neighbors, coworkers, certainly not social media acquaintances. Yet the thirst for meaningful engagement continues, perhaps even intensifies.

Where perhaps in the past we might have looked to church, institutions or other civic organizations as a forum for this kind of search for meaning and purpose, more and more those institutions are not meeting this need.

We believe that progress is made by the collective project of formulating ideas first into organized thought, then into articulated speech and dialogue, and ultimately into action through deepening personal and civic engagement toward improving relationships and strengthening communities.

OUR VISION

A world where deep, meaningful engagement thrives, and mutual trust is cultivated at all levels of society.

What is it?

Our mission is to develop various modules for facilitating deep engagement. Beyond the discussion of important topics, the ultimate goal is for conversations and ideas to lead to beneficial action that can be carried out in the communal realm.

This goal calls for a variety of approaches. We have listed examples of the some of those approaches here, but this is a sweeping project with large goals, so we will begin at the beginning, seek input and support, and continue to iterate and adjust as the project evolves.

Speaker Series

We envision a speaker series that intentionally seeks out thinkers who are pushing the boundaries of the “Overton Window,” in other words the boundaries of “acceptable discourse.” The goal will be to shed light, not heat, so sincere efforts will be made to avoid mere provocation, with a preference for respectful open engagement.

Debate

Another feature will be a debate series, but with a twist. Perhaps we’ll give it a working title of the “Stuart Mill Method” where each participant must sincerely attempt to make their opponent’s case, to the satisfaction of their opponent, while simultaneously holding to their original position. The audience then choses, not a “winner,” but the speaker who most persuasively made their opponent’s case.

Conversation

Local discussion groups, or “Conversation Clubs” will be organized in local settings of the offline world, including homes, coffee shops and small venues. The importance of getting “belly to belly,” building relationships and trust, is essential. These real-life groups will form the backbone of the Nuance project. Some of these conversations may be documented and shared with a larger audience.

Online

The leadership of the Nuance Forum will thoughtfully engage the online community as well. A carefully curated approach to online engagement will be infused with the ethic of the Nuance Forum overall, to shed light, not heat, to engage meaningfully on to most elemental aspects of modern life, and to cultivate a community of individuals who will prize and protect this approach. This will likely include a forum component in subsequent versions of the website.

Podcasts

We intend to develop a podcast series to share ideas, ask questions and reach a wide audience of deep thinkers.