Needed to be said. I’m someone who gravitates to a lot of EA ideas, but I’ve avoided identifying as “an EA” for just this reason. Recently went to an EAG, which quelled some of my discomfort with EA’s cultishness, but I think there’s major room for improvement.
My lightly held hypothesis is that the biggest reason for this is EA’s insularity. I think that using broader means of communication (publishing in journals and magazines, rather that just the EA forum) would go a really long way to enabling people to be merely inspired by EA, rather than “EAs” themselves. I like EA as a set of ideas and a question, not so much as a lifestyle and an all-consuming community. People should be able to publicly engage with (and cite!) EA rhetoric without having to hang out on a particular forum or have read the EA canon.
Needed to be said. I’m someone who gravitates to a lot of EA ideas, but I’ve avoided identifying as “an EA” for just this reason. Recently went to an EAG, which quelled some of my discomfort with EA’s cultishness, but I think there’s major room for improvement.
My lightly held hypothesis is that the biggest reason for this is EA’s insularity. I think that using broader means of communication (publishing in journals and magazines, rather that just the EA forum) would go a really long way to enabling people to be merely inspired by EA, rather than “EAs” themselves. I like EA as a set of ideas and a question, not so much as a lifestyle and an all-consuming community. People should be able to publicly engage with (and cite!) EA rhetoric without having to hang out on a particular forum or have read the EA canon.