Category Archives: Network Stimulus

Network Stimulus Issues 4: Honour and Shame Culture

Network Stimulus, Social Media, Sociology, ,

The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be on Zoom at 7pm UK time on Sun 11th Apr 2021. In this, the fourth and last of our meetings on the Middle Way in moral and political issues, Nina Davies, who is a member of the Middle Way Society, will give a talk on applying the Middle Way to ethical issues involving sex and gender.

Nina introduces her talk as follows: “Muravchik and Shields published their ethnography ‘Trump’s Democrats’ in August 2020. After years of pondering the attraction of Trump, I was convinced by their simple finding that he was a recognisable leader in communities with a traditional ‘honour and shame’ understanding of morality. This started me on a journey of looking at how the gender performance of machismo and misogynistic attitudes bubble up in societies we assume dominated by the ‘Western Liberal’ values. I have considered how honour and shame have become moral framework of social media, where truth and evidence are less important than reputation and status. In my talk I will demonstrate how identifying ‘honour and shame’ morality at work allows a great opportunity for Middle Way Philosophy.”

In this Network meeting there will be a short talk on this topic, followed by questions, then discussion in regionalised breakout groups, and a plenary session at the end. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up. All the videos of previous Network stimulus talks are now indexed on this page. 

Here is the video of the talk:

Suggested questions

These are three questions that may help you think about how you may have experienced an honour and shame morality system:

To what extent are marriage rituals a performance of traditional honour and shame values? Think about the difference in gender and kinship roles and how this may or may not illustrate aspects of honour and shame.

Have you ever felt obliged to return a favour or to show loyalty to a friend or relative? In what way is honour and shame morality at work in this situation?

Are their any circumstances under which would you consider your reputation or the reputation of your company or your team more important than the truth? Would that involve the hiding or disregarding of certain information?

Here are some resources recommended by Nina:

“Stephanie Muravchik – Ricochet” https://ricochet.com/guests/stephanie-muravchik/

“‎The Last Days of August on Apple Podcasts” https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-last-days-of-august/id1258779354

Contrapoints on JK Rowling’s Twitter experience following her ‘gender critical’ posts and article. 

Contemporary examples of traditional honour and shame morality:

“BBC iPlayer – Murdered for Love? Samia Shahid” https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09qjltw/murdered-for-love-samia-shahid

Gypsy Blood documentary, 2012:

Network Stimulus Issues 3: Animals

Ethics, Network Stimulus

The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be on Zoom at 7pm UK time on Sun 14th Mar 2021. In this, the third of our meetings on the Middle Way in moral and political issues, Jim Champion, who is a member of the Middle Way Society, will give a talk on applying the Middle Way to ethical issues involving animals.

Our relationship with animals is complex, messy and overwhelmingly one-sided. For many of us, much of the time, the basic assumptions about this relationship go unrecognised; and when they are recognised, they often go unexamined. Usually, when the status quo is challenged, people’s positions remain polarised and it is difficult to make progress in resolving the conflict. What might a Middle Way approach to this sticky area of ethical practice look like?

As a principle of judgement, the Middle Way involves identifying absolutes in order to better avoid them: Jim will talk about the dogmas that dominate the discourse around animals, including moral assumptions that lie behind the status quo and those that arise in reaction to it. In practice, if we are trying to steer our beliefs away from dogma they need to be incremental, as objective as possible and we need to hold them provisionally; Jim will talk about adopting moral principles in a way that is compatible with the Middle Way, and how this moral practice may work differently to more conventional dogmatic approaches such as veganism and animal rights activism.

A Middle Way approach to maintaining an ethical practice regarding animals is going to require balance: we ought to do what stretches us most towards a more integrated position, in a way that is compatible with our capacity for moral change. As such, the Middle Way for different individuals and for different groups in society is going to look different, with those people and groups moving forward from where they currently are. With this in mind, Jim will talk about his own experience of attempting to steer clear of the dogmas of conventionalism and purity by maintaining awareness of the fallibility of his beliefs.

In this Network meeting there will be a short talk on this topic, followed by questions, then discussion in regionalised breakout groups, and a plenary session at the end. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up. All the videos of previous Network stimulus talks are now indexed on this page. If you would like to catch up more with basic aspects of the Middle Way approach, we are also holding a reading group (next on 21st March) which will do this – please contact Jim (at) middlewaysociety.org if you want to join this.

Here is the video from the meeting:

Some suggested reflection questions:
  1. Identify a principle that you use with regards to animals. It could be to do with eating meat or other animal products, recreation (e.g. sport, entertainment), companionship (e.g. pets, wildlife), scientific research, education (e.g. zoos, television documentaries), etc. When, and from where did you adopt this principle? How successful have you been in applying this principle? To what extent has it acted as a long-term reminder of your intent, helping to bring more integration to your everyday ethical practice with regards to animals?
  2. To what extent are there conflicts between your beliefs about animals? It may help to focus on specific pairs of examples, such as your beliefs regarding cows and horses, or pigs and dogs. How do you respond to feelings of hypocrisy, with regards to yourself or others? What do you consider to be an adequate balance here?
  3. Identify a pair of opposed absolute beliefs about animals. It may be easiest to identify an absolute belief that you hold, or tend towards, and then to construct its opposite. How can the belief be incrementalised and made provisional, in the spirit of taking the Middle Way?
Suggested further reading:

Network Stimulus Issues 2: Public Health and Covid 19

Ethics, Health, Network Stimulus

The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be on Zoom at 7pm UK time on Sun 28th Feb 2021. In this, the second of our meetings on the Middle Way in moral and political issues, Hannah Bailey-Thomas, who is a doctor working in the British National Health Service and a member of the Middle Way Society, will give a talk on applying the Middle Way to public health in the context of the current Covid 19 pandemic.

Hannah will talk about general perception of personal and social risk and how poor we tend to be at it, and the spectrum of ‘evidence based’—’common sense’ — ‘herd mentality/feelings as facts’. She’ll also then apply this to the issues of mask wearing, lockdown adherence, vaccine uptake, the effects of social media and rule fatigue in the pandemic, with the absolutizations she thinks can be avoided in these areas.

Picture by Mehmagar Dolutmand (Unsplash)

There’ll be a short talk on this topic, followed by questions, then discussion in regionalised breakout groups, and a plenary session at the end. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up. All the videos of previous Network stimulus talks are now indexed on this page. If you would like catch up more with basic aspects of the Middle Way approach, we are also holding a reading group (next on 7th March) which will do this – please contact Jim (at) middlewaysociety.org if you want to join this.

Suggested reflection questions

  1. Where do you tend to sit in the evidence based/common sense/herd mentality/feelings and facts spectrum and what factors tend to shift that for you?
  2. What is your response when challenged with the idea that no human being individually is good at assessing risk? If this is the case how can we address this?
  3. What specific absolutisations have you found yourself indulging in during the pandemic? What has driven that for you?

Suggested further listening

Podcast interview with Sir Harry Burns, former Chief Medical Officer for Scotland (this is pre-Covid, but is about wider public health issues)

Network Stimulus Politics 2: Political Action

Activism, Middle Way Philosophy, Network Stimulus, Politics

The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be on Zoom at 7pm UK time on Sun 31st Jan 2021. This will be the second of two sessions on a Middle Way approach to politics. The first session focused on our political values and ideologies, whilst the second one will focus more on the practical dilemmas of political involvement of any kind.

Politics is often seen as an unavoidably polarised, and even corrupting, activity, so how can we manage to continue apply the Middle Way whilst being involved in it? However, at the same time many very important conditions and issues impacting our lives seem to demand political involvement. Much depends on where we start as individuals, and whether we can manage to maintain a sense of balanced perspective when we become politically involved. There is also a spectrum of political activity we can engage in, from merely voting, via online discussion and ‘clicktivism’, to active campaigning, party membership, and even standing for office.

In this session, we’ll be talking about the overall framing issues of finding the Middle Way in political action in the talk and initial Q&A, and the breakout groups should then provide the opportunity to apply this more to your personal situation and share your experience.

There’ll be a short talk on this topic, followed by questions, then discussion in breakout groups, and a plenary session at the end. At the main meeting, for this session only, we will be mixing up the normal regionalised breakout groups to help people get to know each other across the Network. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up.  If you would like catch up more with basic aspects of the Middle Way approach, we are also holding a reading group (next on 7th Feb) which will do this – please contact Jim (at) middlewaysociety.org if you want to join this.

Here is the video from this session:

Suggested reflection questions

  1. In what ways have you been politically involved? How easy have you found it to maintain a sense of Middle Way perspective in these political activities?
  2. How do you think you could help set up the conditions for a more Middle Way approach to political activities?

Suggested further reading/ listening

Depolarising politics talk 2: Activists or Quietists?

Migglism, Part 4: ‘Politics’

Truth on the Edge, ch.9

Network Stimulus Politics 1: Political Values

Network Stimulus, Politics

The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be on Zoom at 7pm UK time on Sun 17th Jan 2021. Then we will have the first of two sessions on a Middle Way approach to politics. This first session will be focusing on our political values and ideologies, whilst the second one will focus more on the practical dilemmas of political involvement of any kind.

It’s important to emphasise in tackling this topic that the Middle Way is a practice that involves working with the political values we start with, then examining and perhaps modifying them. The Middle Way itself does not imply a specific political ideology, so it is possible for two people to each be sincerely trying to practise the Middle Way and yet still greatly disagree about politics. How we handle that disagreement and learn from those we disagree with, however, is a very important part of practice.

The talk and discussion this time will be asking how we can apply the Middle Way to avoid absolutizing political beliefs either positively or negatively, and thus give ourselves the best chance of developing political attitudes that help to address conditions, learning from experience without interference from ideological dogma. In thinking about this, the psychological research into political values made by Jonathan Haidt can be very useful in helping us identify our root values. If we can work with these root values but avoid absolutizing them as the whole story, recognizing other kinds of values as also based in human needs and experience, we can help set up the conditions for making our political values more provisional.

There’ll be a short talk on this topic, followed by questions, then discussion in regionalised breakout groups. This time we will also experiment with having a plenary session at the end. Some other regionalised groups will meet at other times. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up. To catch up on the previous session, on provisional rules, please see this post. If you would like catch up more with basic aspects of the Middle Way approach, we are also holding a reading group (next on 24th Jan) which will do this – please contact Jim (at) middlewaysociety.org if you want to join this.

Here is the video from this session:

Suggested reflection questions

  1. What are your most basic political values? How do you think these have shaped your political attitudes?
  2. What’s your experience of absolutized political ideologies, either in yourself or in others?
  3. What political values do you find it hardest to relate to in yourself or others, and how could you engage with these more?

Suggested further reading/ listening

Depolarising Politics Talk 1: Political Values, their Polarisation and Integration

Podcast Interview with Robert on Politics and the Middle Way

Middle Way Philosophy 4: The Integration of Belief 4.h (see pdf of Omnibus edition on Researchgate)

The Buddha’s Middle Way 2.e ‘The Buddha’s Politics’

Jonathan Haidt The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (Penguin), parts 1 and 2. (Review by Robert here)