Where I’ve Been, Where I’m Going; New Year Update on Gun Curious

New Year Greetings, faithful readers. Prior to this post, my last entry here was on 16 November 2022. This 10-week break was the longest in the nearly 4 years I have blogged here at Gun Curious (as well as 10+ years blogging at Gun Culture 2.0).

I took a break both because I was overwhelmed by personal and family obligations and also because I have been rethinking my online and social media presence.

I was forced to do this reevaluation by my experiences over the years as well as reading Sherry Turkle’s book, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, and two essays by Jonathan Haidt in The Atlantic last year, “Why the Past 10 Years of Amerian Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid” and “Yes, Social Media Really is Undermining Democracy.”

Light Over Heat #23: The Benefits of Intellectual Diversity and the Challenge of Achieving It

In my last video (Light Over Heat #22), I reflected on the value of diversity (political, cultural, social, intellectual) in exposing us to people different from us and ideas different from our own. From these differences can come greater understanding. I applied this idea to some of the ways I have come to see the issues raised by the Buffalo mass murder differently.

This week, I reflect on how intellectual diversity has challenged me to think better in my scholarly work on guns. Drawing on Jonathan Haidt’s work in THE RIGHTEOUS MIND (about which I have written before), I highlight the importance of people with different views working together in a spirit of trust to make scholarship about guns, but also (potentially) the world, better.

New “Light Over Heat” videos are released on YouTube every Wednesday, so please surf over to my YouTube channel and SUBSCRIBE to follow, RING THE BELL to receive notifications, and SHARE so others can learn about this work.

Gun Studies, Peer Review, and Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind

I reviewed articles for two scholarly journals yesterday, one of which was quite good and one of which had a very good empirical analysis embedded in a badly biased introduction and conclusion.

It becomes more and more challenging to maintain my equanimity as I review articles which have such clear implicit — and, frequently, explicit — biases. In fact, not long ago my frustration boiled over onto Twitter and I nearly got in trouble for violating the confidentiality of the peer review process.