After setting a 20 minute timer to keep this comment an rough 60-grit draft:
A question, which you touched on: What is the telos of workplace relationships? To get shit done, as you say, is one end. To do so cooperatively is another end. To do so joyfully is yet another end.
A premise: relationships cannot be joyful without mutual-reciprocal knowledge of the other.
Another premise: knowledge of the other includes seeing the world through their eyes (the proverbial glasses) and experiencing the world from their place (the proverbial moccasins).
A third premise: thick moccasinial others-knowledge necessarily includes political ideas. If you throw a dragnet into a person's soul, you'll pull out hobbies and faiths and pains and goals and regrets and contradictions all covered in the sticky muck of politics. When we ask a person "What are your politics" we shouldn't mean "What are your preferred policies?" but rather "What have your family's and friends' and neighborhood's experiences led you to believe would be the happiest course of action for this polis?"
A conclusion: If the people of a workplace commit themselves to the third telos, then they will talk about politics. Not impersonally; but as the sticky stuff that binds together goals, failures, hopes, pains, hobbies. Political ideas are what happen when someone asks, "Based on all that, how do you think the world should be?"
I don't think there's anything wrong with a workplace where everyone agrees to stick with telos #2. Cooperation can get a lot of shit done, and with a lot of smiles. Cooperative co-workers can like each other and go home happy at 5:00. If you have a workplace where people are willing to use the word "virtue," however, chances are they're secretly wishing they could have #3 and wonder how it could happen. Maybe the theologians are right who say virtue is formed by habit, and we gotta start some clunky habits together before the joy gets rolling. Probably, meek politics talk doesn't happen when a collection of meek people come to the water cooler. Probably, meek politics talk happens when viceful but consciously-committed-to-becoming-virtuous people talk and listen without fear in hope of becoming patient and joyful together.
Craig, thank you for this insightful article! The practical wisdom here is so refreshing—your language brings both clarity and depth to principles like mindfulness, which can be difficult to grasp in real-world contexts. Too often, advice on these topics feels vague, but your grounded approach makes these ideas both accessible and genuinely helpful. Grateful for your guidance on navigating workplace conversations with grace and purpose.
After setting a 20 minute timer to keep this comment an rough 60-grit draft:
A question, which you touched on: What is the telos of workplace relationships? To get shit done, as you say, is one end. To do so cooperatively is another end. To do so joyfully is yet another end.
A premise: relationships cannot be joyful without mutual-reciprocal knowledge of the other.
Another premise: knowledge of the other includes seeing the world through their eyes (the proverbial glasses) and experiencing the world from their place (the proverbial moccasins).
A third premise: thick moccasinial others-knowledge necessarily includes political ideas. If you throw a dragnet into a person's soul, you'll pull out hobbies and faiths and pains and goals and regrets and contradictions all covered in the sticky muck of politics. When we ask a person "What are your politics" we shouldn't mean "What are your preferred policies?" but rather "What have your family's and friends' and neighborhood's experiences led you to believe would be the happiest course of action for this polis?"
A conclusion: If the people of a workplace commit themselves to the third telos, then they will talk about politics. Not impersonally; but as the sticky stuff that binds together goals, failures, hopes, pains, hobbies. Political ideas are what happen when someone asks, "Based on all that, how do you think the world should be?"
I don't think there's anything wrong with a workplace where everyone agrees to stick with telos #2. Cooperation can get a lot of shit done, and with a lot of smiles. Cooperative co-workers can like each other and go home happy at 5:00. If you have a workplace where people are willing to use the word "virtue," however, chances are they're secretly wishing they could have #3 and wonder how it could happen. Maybe the theologians are right who say virtue is formed by habit, and we gotta start some clunky habits together before the joy gets rolling. Probably, meek politics talk doesn't happen when a collection of meek people come to the water cooler. Probably, meek politics talk happens when viceful but consciously-committed-to-becoming-virtuous people talk and listen without fear in hope of becoming patient and joyful together.
Craig, thank you for this insightful article! The practical wisdom here is so refreshing—your language brings both clarity and depth to principles like mindfulness, which can be difficult to grasp in real-world contexts. Too often, advice on these topics feels vague, but your grounded approach makes these ideas both accessible and genuinely helpful. Grateful for your guidance on navigating workplace conversations with grace and purpose.