this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
16 points (100.0% liked)

Asklemmy

47456 readers
580 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] hallettj@leminal.space 10 points 1 week ago

Thinking out loud, I think the reason those salons became famous is because the participants published, and their publications got a lot of attention. An example that springs to my mind is the Vienna Circle. But maybe a better example is Madame Geoffrin's salon which hosted French nobles and Enlightenment thinkers. In that case too the attendees either published, or were powerful figures in society.

The format is a smallish group of people discussing ideas, probably with some connecting theme. It seems like historically those themes were broad, like "philosophy", with a focus on debate. If some of the people involved turn out to be important to society you've got yourself a historically-significant organization. If not then hopefully everyone had a good time.