Dear Reader: Close Your Letters

The “Open Letter” phenomenon isn’t working

So many open letters! I can read open letters to friends who voted for Trump, to daughters of people I’ve never met, to politicians of various stripes.

But people don’t care about your open letter.

Your open letter is a blog post, an article, a Facebook screed, a long tweet. There’s a place for that kind of thing. Arc is one of those places. You know what we really need in a post-Trump world?

Closed letters.

Coffee meetings.

Living room conversations.

Places where you can argue, laugh, cry, challenge, and see the faces of the people you disagree with. And if you can’t or don’t feel comfortable sitting down with the people you disagree with, or don’t understand, try writing a letter.

Like a real letter. A closed letter. Even a digital letter if it’s long, and thoughtful, and painful to write.

This won’t solve everything; we’ll still disagree on a whole lot when all is said and done. We might not see eye-to-eye. But communication builds trust, at least when that communication is in good faith, and it’s not about winners and losers.

Open letters still feel like they might be about winning or making a point. There’s much less danger in a closed letter.

Disagree? Drop me a line: ryan@arcdigital.media