Arun – putting it out there

This morning , I’ve been thinking about Emma Douglas‘ unique genius which is to create consensus by focussing on things that can unite us (and avoiding more fundamental questions that divide us).

At the polar extreme is Arun Muralidhar, who focusses on the hardest issues and is in a constant state of argument.

To be clear, I like both Emma and Arun though I think each would drive each other nuts! That doesn’t give me piles, there are some fences that I’ll sit on.

So while Emma is chatting with Nico and Darren, Arun is entering into a discussion with Senator Bernie Saunders, one time potential presidential candidate and the American’s answer to Frank Field.

If Arun has a philosophy, it’s born out of Roosevelt’s New Deal and its pragmatism. An idea is validated , not by how it stacks up to some absolute truth, but by how it works out in action. Most of what Arun argues for is born out of his own experience of what works.

His idea is that social security needs to be reformed and put on a “middle of the road” partially funded basis. The solution that has worked for the less well-off in Brazil can work for the less well-off in the US (and by extension in other countries such as the UK).

Of course Arun is not a one trick pony, the SeLFIE is his principal innovation but his posts range across just about every sensitive topic in welfare, from immigration to performance measurement, from education to the delivery of retirement options through digital platforms (Guiide). Again, it is pragmatism that he delivers with such energy that it’s hard to recognise that it’s one person at work.

And Arun’s combative approach , brings people together. I found myself involved in some conversation between opposing factions in the American social security debate – because Arun insistently brings me into his threads

In the great glut of information and opinion available on the web, we are dependent on certain mavens who command our attention because they have personality.

Against these are the vast majority of commentators who are controlled by other people’s views and post dependently.

Emma Douglas has found a way to make consensus fun, Arun find ways to make conflict fun. Both have created much good because they are good. May we have more like them.