About this Event
website (with more graphics than permitted here)
Restaurant: Akura Sushi, 39 East 31st St (between Park & Madison)
Manhattan, NY 10016 (Note -- this is the delivery menu. Prices may differ from eat-in.)
3 Topics Over Dinner is a dinner discussion group that meets on weekends. Links to articles or videos on the internet about 3 Topics, usually unrelated to one another, are posted on the event listing. Attendees read the articles (and other sources if they so wish) or watch the videos to be discussed over dinner. The idea is to be similar to a book club, only with far less reading. The idea is that this required reading / video viewing will be less than 3 hours.
We go to a different nationality restaurant every month, and always restaurants that will do separate checks for a large group, so everyone can pay with their own credit card and we don't have to figure out how to split the check. The restaurants are chosen to be quiet and nice, but not extremely exorbitant. A link to the menu of the restaurant, with prices listed, will always be provided on the announcement.
The restaurants chosen will always be in Manhattan, 77th St or further south.
RSVP's will be limited to have about 8 people at dinner, small enough that everyone can hear one another and we can conduct a single conversation.
The group has been going roughly once a month since 2008. It was formed on meetup.com and has shifted to Eventbrite.
A $5.00 deposit is required to RSVP. This deposit is refunded in cash ten minutes after the event starts. No-shows and latecomers forfeit their deposit.
We desperately need to get away from our screens and talk with each other in person.
"When people actually meet and get to know each other ... what Lincoln called those ‘better angels’ come out. People start recognizing themselves in each other and they start trusting each other, and that’s not just the basis for democracy, but that’s the basis for our long-term salvation." -- Barack Obama
Topic 1: Daryl Davis, the "Klan Whisperer"
Daryl Davis is a black man who has undergone a lifelong project of befriending Ku Klux Klansmen and persuading them to quit the Klan. They give him their robes when they quit, and he has 200 sets of these robes.
One thing about Davis is that he has become very close to a lot of really hateful, dangerous extremists and had very frank conversations with them without getting killed, which is remarkable. While he strongly condemns the assassination of Charlie Kirk, he said that the assassination was provoked by the nature of Kirk's rhetoric, some of which he describes as "hateful". So perhaps Davis has better social skills than Kirk did in some way. Kirk did say some unflattering things about blacks. I wonder what Davis would have to say about the black author Nichole Hannah Jones, who said a lot of unflattering lies about whites. It would be interesting to get an estimate from Davis about how long Hannah Jones would survive if she tried having conversations with Klansmen.
I worry about Davis being so out of shape -- I want him to live as long as possible to keep doing what he's doing.
Topic 2: Charlie Chaplain's Speech from The Great Dictator
In the movie The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplain plays two people, Adolf Hitler and a Jew in Berlin who looks just like him. Through a set of hilarious complications the two of them get switched around and confused for one another, and then the innocent Jew finds himself expected to give a speech to thousands of soldiers, broadcast on the radio to all of Germany. Most of the movie is a comedy making fun of the Nazis, but this speech at the end is dead serious, even preachy.
He gives a speech that says that the Nazis are completely on the wrong track. He leans toward socialism a bit in the speech, denouncing "greed" and telling everyone to "unite". In my mind, "unity" is a very dangerous concept -- it usually comes with a compulsion to conformity, and the crushing of the most independent minds, and "greed" is a far less destructive sin than "envy". In the healthy society, "unity" should take a back seat to inalienable rights and due process.
Topic 3: John Galt's Speech from Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand was born in Russia, experienced the communist revolution there, was disgusted by the whole thing, and fled to the US.
She felt that communists had morality fundamentality and disastrously misguided, worshiping altruism and condemning selfishness. One of her books was titled The Virtue of Selfishness.
The novel Atlas Shrugged, written in the late 1950's, was her masterpiece, about 800 pages long. It tells the story of a world where the most productive people are condemned as selfish villains by most of society.
At one point in the book, a factory decides that it will be run by the rule "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.". One engineer who works there, John Galt, is disgusted by the whole concept, quits on the spot, and leaves. After he is gone, the new framework, predictably, results in everybody concealing their talents and inventing needs.
John Galt organizes a strike where he persuades most of the great entrepreners and industrialists to leave mainstream society and live together in Galt's Gulch, a hidden valley in Colorado. This brings about an economic collapse, which most of the public does not understand because they have been led to believe that the people who have been disappearing were all worthless parasites who had been "exploiting" them. Near the end of the book, Galt takes over the airwaves during a presidential address and explains to the nation what has been going on. This speech is 40 pages long in the book, it is condensed a bit in this video.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Akura Sushi, 39 East 31st Street, New York, United States
USD 5.00
