Pitching the “Script”
Anthony Magnabosco reflects on the evolution of his Street Epistemology approach, discussing the benefits and pitfalls of following a "script" and encouraging practitioners to find their own authentic style.
28 December 2016
By Anthony Magnabosco
Hey, this is Anthony and I'm standing out here in front of the Alamo. Looks like somebody over there is reading the Bible, and I'm going to try to start using my Boghossian Street Epistemology techniques. [I'm a] self-admitted novice here—never really done this before—but I'm going to try my best to start employing the techniques that I've learned from reading Peter's book, and hopefully get better from there.
Background
I had just finished reading Boghossian’s book, ‘A Manual for Creating Atheists’ and was heading out to engage the faithful for the first time when I recorded those words. Aside from a handful of short scenarios in Boghossian’s book and a fledgling group of early adopters sharing their experiences in the Private Street Epistemology Facebook Group, there were no audio or video examples of people using Street Epistemology (SE) to learn from at the time. Nothing!
Not to be deterred, I started engaging with believers using my best understanding of SE. Many of these encounters were filmed and uploaded to my YouTube channel, which is nearing 2 million video views as I write this post. I didn’t realize it until just recently, but the constant feedback I received over the years—from casual viewers to people well-versed in SE, to Dr. Peter Boghossian himself—were slowly shaping my approach into what you see today.
Sidenote: Although this was a journey that took me three years to reach, I still feel like there is room for drastic improvement going forward. I’m nowhere close to being done working at this!
Because I had saturated YouTube with my personal examples, and because there weren’t a whole lot of other alternatives, many people (critics and supporters) walked away with the impression that SE could/should be performed one way: Magnabosco-style.
I never formed a conscious goal to build (what some people have dubbed) a “script” to be blindly copied by the masses. My goals were pretty simple, perhaps even selfish: How could I get faster and more effective at SE in order to reduce video durations and help popularize this method for viewers who likely won’t sit through an hour-long video?
If you talk to enough people with the goal of becoming proficient at Street Epistemology, more than likely you, too, will notice that your talks (regardless of your interlocutors’ religious affiliations) may appear to observers to follow some sort of unflinching flowchart.
Today, I have mixed feelings about the perception that there is a Street Epistemology “script.” Let me explain.
Pitching (Promoting) the “Script”
On one hand, I can see how beneficial having examples must be to someone new to SE; I craved samples to study before creating some myself. Being better prepared for conversations with a believer, regardless of their claim, can be extremely advantageous and potentially calming for someone new to Street Epistemology.
I also suspect that many people may have never felt comfortable or prepared enough to have a conversation with someone in the first place unless they had familiarized themselves with a few video examples beforehand. Having a rough idea of where a conversation might head in advance could provide people with that extra bit of reassurance needed to inspire them to continue on with the discussion. A discussion that could very well end up benefiting everyone involved.
People regularly contact me to say that when they used SE for their very first time, they helped someone else honestly examine the epistemology of their belief, often with incredible outcomes. A self-reported lowering of confidence in a belief. Abandoning behaviors that were not concordant with reality. A willingness to examine other beliefs they held to the same scrutiny.
These people usually go on to say that watching SE videos helped prepare them for the discussion. Reports of this alone cause me to think twice about discounting the “script.”
Pitching (Discarding) the “Script”
The biggest concern I have when people appear to be following the “script” during a conversation is the perception—usually from outside observers and not the actual participants—that the person conducting SE is detached and disingenuous. This can be particularly difficult to dispute when a person mimics entire phrases or exclamations of surprise they may have copied from watching elsewhere (e.g., “You’re 100% confident? Wow!”).
“How can you claim to be open and objective if you are not being sincere and authentic yourself?” is a valid criticism. While it appears helpful to rely on conversations for guidance and confidence, it is imperative that you develop your own style. As Peter Boghossian said recently:
These are your conversations. Your friends. And helping people in your life to be more reflective, honest, and less dogmatic about their beliefs demands that you use your voice in those conversations. Not mine. Not someone else’s. Yours.
That’s solid advice. Try your best to bring your own ideas, personality, and experiences to your conversations. Be yourself. Tell a personal story that helps show why these talks matter to you.
There’s also nothing wrong with admitting that you are using Street Epistemology during your conversations. There’s nothing to hide because the method is friendly, sincere, respectful, thought-provoking, and potentially change-inducing. Something simple like, “Hey, can we shift gears a bit here? I’d like to ask you some questions that I’ve heard from people who are using this thing called ‘Street Epistemology.’ What do you think?”
Going Forward
The conversations one might watch on my YouTube channel today are the result of hundreds that preceded them and have been shaped by thousands of (solicited and unsolicited!) suggestions from people over the years. It would be short-sighted if we did not try to learn how to get better at SE by studying these examples, and the examples of others closely.
But it is also very important that we don’t just stop there.
Incorporate something unique about yourself into each of your talks. Make a note of what was effective and what set your talks back. Practice. And finally, please share your successes and failures with me and the thousands of other people who are learning Street Epistemology so we can all continuously work to improve this important approach that appears to be helping people re-examine their deeply-held beliefs across the world.
