Plurality Forum

“Only in the freedom of our speaking with one another does the world, as that about which we speak, emerge in its objectivity and visibility from all sides.”— Hannah Arendt

Plurality Forum

Our plurality forums intentionally brings together students from diverse political backgrounds to engage a particular issue and deliberate across differences. The forums feature 4-6 experts on the particular issue, who then attempt to model disagreement and deliberation during the event. The forums last multiple days, and include meals and overnight stays, in order for participants to form deeper relationships with their peers and the expert panelists. Small group sessions are paired with reading and writing exercises to encourage participants to escavate their own and others' underlying assumptions. The goal is both to help identify areas of common ground while also illuminating areas of true difference, all while modeling healthy and respectful disagreement.

Why Plurality, and What does it mean?

A premise of Arendtian thinking is an embrace of plurality. People live in their own way, worship different gods, pursue different ideals, and associate with different people. Amidst such pluralism, political life is where we come together in common, embracing what unites us amidst our differences. Plurality is thus a condition of politics, since politics is a discussion amongst individuals with different opinions, not a search for a single truth.

For Arendt, it is through our speech and action - our politics - that we appear to others as ourselves in the world. To do away with plurality would be to do away with the public realm of politics altogether.

The Plurality Forum begins with Arendt’s uncompromising defense of plurality and free speech as a foundation for democratic politics. Politics is never about truth. It is about opinion. Free speech matters because it exposes all of us to opinions different from our own. In doing so, free speech expands our understanding and experience of the world. In encountering unexpected, disagreeable, and uncomfortable opinions, our imagination of the world must change, and so too our thinking. We must either alter our own opinion, embrace a new opinion, or reaffirm our old opinion. In each of these cases, we embrace an opinion that is more fully consonant with the plurality of the world as a whole.
Forum on Socialized vs. Private Healthcare

Should healthcare and health insurance be nationalized, privatized, or a mix of both? In February of 2023, the OSUN Hannah Arendt Humanities Network and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University brought 22 undergraduate and graduate students with diverse viewpoints (10 of them being OSUN students) for our Plurality Forum on Healthcare.

Do private firms, civil society organizations, or government agencies better provide and regulate health insurance, care, and research? What mix would be optimal in the context of the United States, and how did we reach the current status quo? In today’s politically polarized society, it is more important than ever to aim to understand those with whom we disagree.

This Forum followed our first partnership with the Mercatus Center's Pluralist Lab, the "Plurality Forum on Liberal Democracy, Socialism, and Market-Oriented Systems" in 2022.