Frequently Unasked Question (FUQ) #7

What would you ask, if you could ask anyone?

Aug 15, 2024

FUQ #7 marks the end of a chapter in my career on Substack. It also marks the beginning of a short break during which I simply intend to unwind a bit before I start the new chapter. So, this is a pre-vacation post.

My self-granted sabbatical may last a week, a month, or more, but it won’t last a day too long. During this break, I don't intend to publish any posts, but if the urge to publish overcomes me, I will probably turn to Substack Notes, which you can also follow from the Notes tab on the M2D and DaaS homepages.

This post also marks the beginning of a self-directed reorientation from blogging to podcasting. To create a foundation for this shift, I begin with the four questions around which I organize my work on Substack, including my four podcasts. I shared a sketch of my four questions in a YouTube video yesterday.

My Four Questions

Most of my work on Substack thus far has been organized around four questions. I wrote them in response to this FUQ:

Imagine that you can reach anyone you want on the condition that you start the conversation with a question selected from a list of questions. What questions would you include in this list?

I’ll start with the questions I’ve been exploring through my four public Substacks. I can easily write a long list of such questions, but my goal isn’t just to toss around questions, but to create environments conducive to fruitful exploration. Specifically:

I think of M2D as an environment for the cultivation of fruitful responses to the central question — “What’s your story?” — and related questions such as “What’s the story of your life?” and “Where do you see gaps between your story and lived reality?”
I think of DaaS as an environment for the cultivation of fruitful responses to the central question — “What’s your problem?” — and related questions such as “What problems do you see in prevailing approaches to problem-solving?” and “Where do you see a better path to naming problems, remedies and prices?”
I think of MISM as an environment for the cultivation of fruitful responses to the central question — “What are you hearing?” — and related questions such as “What are you hearing from the future and the past?” and “Whom have you told?” and “Are you connecting the dots?”
I think of BS”D as an environment for the cultivation of fruitful responses to the central question — “What’s a Jew?” — and related questions such as “What is Zionism?” and “Who are Jews among Jews?” and “What does Jewishness mean after Spinoza?”

Why do these questions matter? To whom do they matter and in what way?

First Question: What’s your story?

The first question matters because, in my view, every human life contains a story that must be told. That’s why, it surprises me that not everyone has a Substack. By “Substack”, I don’t mean Substack. I mean a medium hospitable to the story. My goal on Substack is to create media hospitable to stories that must be told. The world is full of these stories, and they are starved for hospitable media.

Second Question: What’s your problem?

The second question matters because the world is drowning in problems it can’t name. The world seems awash in a pandemic of pseudo-solutions to misdiagnosed problems. The second question also matters because it points to what the world needs. In my view, the world needs to discover better problems more than it needs to develop better solutions. The world also needs to get better at recognizing solutions as problems and problems as solutions.

Third Question: What are you hearing?

The third question matters because it serves as an angle of entry into the study of media and what Marshall McLuhan called the acoustic age in which we hear everything all at once. The third question is also a way of comparing notes and starting a conversation in which we describe the patterns we observe in the data streams we inhabit.

Fourth Question: What is a Jew?

The fourth question matters because, in my experience, most people think they know the answer. I’m not convinced that a canonical answer to the question is possible or even desirable. But I think the question matters precisely because so many factions of Jews and non-Jews alike claim to have the canonical answer.

What does this have to do with Spinoza? Part of the answer is found in the writ of excommunication against him written and enacted by the Lords of the Ma’Amad. To me, it seems self-evident that the statement reveals more about the Lords than about Spinoza. What the statement reveals is as urgently relevant today as it was in 1656. The “powers and principalities” that attacked Spinoza through the Lords of the Ma'Amad are still with us under ever-changing names. These are the same powers and principalities responsible for the burning of Giordano Bruno and for countless other repressive responses to reason.

My Four Podcasts

When I return from my sabbatical, I intend to focus on connecting with folks who might become podcast guests on one or more of my Substacks organized around the four questions above. If you’re interested in being a guest, please complete this form.

Depending on your answer to the first question — What’s your story? — the most hospitable medium may be a Google Doc, a YouTube video, a Substack post, or a podcast. Or it could be one of my podcasts. My strong preference is to begin with the first question before delving into problems, messages from the future and the past, or the meaning of Jewishness.

I am shifting focus to podcasting and developing my podcasting skills at the same time. I'm also working within the constraints of my media. That means that, for the foreseeable future, I will only be able to do interviews via Zoom and only a half hour in length.

Also, due to the constraints of my media, it's easiest for me to conduct interviews with guests who have their own Substacks. Even if you have no interest in my podcasts, I still suggest starting a Substack.

M2D