The Piraeus

Gateway to the Grassroots Western Civ Revival |

[Meriwether Academy @meriwetheracdmy]

"Through a lifetime of watching Nashville transform, Tom had subconsciously developed such an intricate understanding—almost an entire theory—about courtesy and its relationship with culture."

great write-up by @nickmgallo in @thepiraeus on one of our frequent guest, Tom, and his eye for the lost art of courtesy.

https://t.co/xMMdTAZlNn

[The Piraeus @thepiraeus]

More info on the project coming soon

[Nick Gallo @nickmgallo]

This week, Nick's Newsletter will become The Piraeus (@thepiraeus). What do you think of the new look? (https://t.co/K9uNCm60f2)

I started writing three years ago to promote people who were doing great work teaching outside of academia. People who left due to ideological hostility within it and felt that something much better was possible.

I discovered a whole grassroots cultural-educational movement. A collection of small groups launching experimental projects: ideologically diverse online schools, civic organizations, conference circuits, rural resorts to connect groups in person, and more.

Could they help solve our educational crisis? Unite scholars and civic activists? Fix the culture in America and the West? What will all of this ultimately evolve into? Are the groups building models for larger scale change?

These are the questions that animated me. I too was looking for a way to contribute. Many groups started hosting events a few years ago. I went out to meet them and see what they were building. My journey has taken me to dozens of events across the American heartland, including many near me in Nashville, and to two in Europe.

I never set out to write about the events. I felt compelled to do so. There are great people here. They are building great things. They are just getting started. The world needs to know about them. Their projects need to grow and inspire others. They need to attract funding and outside allies. We can build this into something much bigger and really make a change. This is what I thought.

Nick's Newsletter was supposed to be a Substack for my random personal writings. But I never felt inspired to write about anything else. "Don't you know there is a war going on?" I wrote on an index card after I left university. I have it on my coffee table still. It is what I thought every single day. The enemy never sleeps. And neither can we. We must build from the outside.

10 articles and 78,000 words later, it is time to take this project to the next level. The movement needs a coherent brand and vision, a story to tell others. I too need a new story. Over this time I've found myself spending more and more time writing, training myself in the craft. Over the past year, I've spent almost all of my time doing so.

What do you do? "Software but my real passion is writing" I used to say, then "software and writing", now I feel confident to say "I'm a writer."

I am still trying to balance finances and other things but I hope to be able to do this full time—and to help grow the movement in other ways like through fundraising (which I hope my writing will ultimately help with).

I've written about some of the great groups emerging in this movement. I have plans to cover many more. I'm still converting the hundreds of pages in my notebooks from the past few years into articles, and I will be attending a few more events this year.

I will also be changing the style of my writing a bit. I still want to cover the events in detail but will be trying to cut the articles down to a more manageable size and publish more frequently. (Otherwise I'll never get through everything!) I'm also trying to weave my experience at the event in with its intellectual content so it reads more like a narrative, which I'm told is easier for most people. (Before, I had deliberately isolated the two to present the content as crisply as possible.)

Ultimately, I hope to write a book bringing together my writing, discussing the future of our movement, and show that a serious alternative to the mainstream is growing (perhaps a multi-generational project).

——————————
Anyway, that's the plan for now. I have converted the look of my Substack as a "soft launch." Any opinions or help with the following would be appreciated:

➤ Brand & domain name/Twitter handle:
Piraeus is the port of ancient Athens. "I went down to the Piraeus," Socrates famously narrates to open Plato's Republic. I envision the publication like a port, the many groups like individual ships coming and going, each from its own land bringing something unique (unique offerings, way of thought, vision of the future).

(There is a deeper meaning I will discuss later. In the beginning of Republic, Polemarchus confronts Socrates in the Piraeus. The Piraeus was the place where philosophy and action met, the place where the themes of ascent and descent, the tension between the philosopher and political community, began. The Piraeus was where Western political philosophy began—taking the Republic as its starting point.)

I plan to get a custom domain name. I may at some point create an overarching organization like "The Piraeus Institute" or "The Piraeus Project." Any thoughts on: https://t.co/RG38Ge128Y, https://t.co/jIIjHx17gq, https://t.co/p7CqKzOH3G or others? (simpler ones like https://t.co/EKyA1rO7Qu, https://t.co/2G9wjldsks all taken)

Thoughts on @thepiraeus handle?

➤ Publishing platform:
If you have a publication, what platform do you use? Substack, Ghost, other? My main concerns are growing the publication (main), customize look (future), and keeping fees down. Anything else I should look out for?

➤ Logo & Slogan:
Know a good logo designer? I generated a basic one for now. What about slogan? I've considered this one, with or without parenthetical phrase: "(Gateway to the) Grassroots Western Civ Revival"

I will be making a formal announcement with more details on the project later this week.

[Nick Gallo @nickmgallo]

This week, Nick's Newsletter will become The Piraeus (@thepiraeus). What do you think of the new look? (https://t.co/K9uNCm60f2)

I started writing three years ago to promote people who were doing great work teaching outside of academia. People who left due to ideological hostility within it and felt that something much better was possible.

I discovered a whole grassroots cultural-educational movement. A collection of small groups launching experimental projects: ideologically diverse online schools, civic organizations, conference circuits, rural resorts to connect groups in person, and more.

Could they help solve our educational crisis? Unite scholars and civic activists? Fix the culture in America and the West? What will all of this ultimately evolve into? Are the groups building models for larger scale change?

These are the questions that animated me. I too was looking for a way to contribute. Many groups started hosting events a few years ago. I went out to meet them and see what they were building. My journey has taken me to dozens of events across the American heartland, including many near me in Nashville, and to two in Europe.

I never set out to write about the events. I felt compelled to do so. There are great people here. They are building great things. They are just getting started. The world needs to know about them. Their projects need to grow and inspire others. They need to attract funding and outside allies. We can build this into something much bigger and really make a change. This is what I thought.

Nick's Newsletter was supposed to be a Substack for my random personal writings. But I never felt inspired to write about anything else. "Don't you know there is a war going on?" I wrote on an index card after I left university. I have it on my coffee table still. It is what I thought every single day. The enemy never sleeps. And neither can we. We must build from the outside.

10 articles and 78,000 words later, it is time to take this project to the next level. The movement needs a coherent brand and vision, a story to tell others. I too need a new story. Over this time I've found myself spending more and more time writing, training myself in the craft. Over the past year, I've spent almost all of my time doing so.

What do you do? "Software but my real passion is writing" I used to say, then "software and writing", now I feel confident to say "I'm a writer."

I am still trying to balance finances and other things but I hope to be able to do this full time—and to help grow the movement in other ways like through fundraising (which I hope my writing will ultimately help with).

I've written about some of the great groups emerging in this movement. I have plans to cover many more. I'm still converting the hundreds of pages in my notebooks from the past few years into articles, and I will be attending a few more events this year.

I will also be changing the style of my writing a bit. I still want to cover the events in detail but will be trying to cut the articles down to a more manageable size and publish more frequently. (Otherwise I'll never get through everything!) I'm also trying to weave my experience at the event in with its intellectual content so it reads more like a narrative, which I'm told is easier for most people. (Before, I had deliberately isolated the two to present the content as crisply as possible.)

Ultimately, I hope to write a book bringing together my writing, discussing the future of our movement, and show that a serious alternative to the mainstream is growing (perhaps a multi-generational project).

——————————
Anyway, that's the plan for now. I have converted the look of my Substack as a "soft launch." Any opinions or help with the following would be appreciated:

➤ Brand & domain name/Twitter handle:
Piraeus is the port of ancient Athens. "I went down to the Piraeus," Socrates famously narrates to open Plato's Republic. I envision the publication like a port, the many groups like individual ships coming and going, each from its own land bringing something unique (unique offerings, way of thought, vision of the future).

(There is a deeper meaning I will discuss later. In the beginning of Republic, Polemarchus confronts Socrates in the Piraeus. The Piraeus was the place where philosophy and action met, the place where the themes of ascent and descent, the tension between the philosopher and political community, began. The Piraeus was where Western political philosophy began—taking the Republic as its starting point.)

I plan to get a custom domain name. I may at some point create an overarching organization like "The Piraeus Institute" or "The Piraeus Project." Any thoughts on: https://t.co/RG38Ge128Y, https://t.co/jIIjHx17gq, https://t.co/p7CqKzOH3G or others? (simpler ones like https://t.co/EKyA1rO7Qu, https://t.co/2G9wjldsks all taken)

Thoughts on @thepiraeus handle?

➤ Publishing platform:
If you have a publication, what platform do you use? Substack, Ghost, other? My main concerns are growing the publication (main), customize look (future), and keeping fees down. Anything else I should look out for?

➤ Logo & Slogan:
Know a good logo designer? I generated a basic one for now. What about slogan? I've considered this one, with or without parenthetical phrase: "(Gateway to the) Grassroots Western Civ Revival"

I will be making a formal announcement with more details on the project later this week.