Category Archives: Politics

How to Solve a Problem Like John Lennon

john-lennon-1099722_960_720
‘Part of me suspects that I’m a loser, and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty’.

 

John Lennon was, with Paul McCartney, one half of the greatest song writing duo in history, and one quarter of the greatest bands in history: the Beatles (as very rare examples of absolute facts these, perhaps, represent the only time when Middle Way notions of provisionality, incrementality and agnosticism do not apply). Nevertheless, some would also have you believe that Lennon was a peace-loving, feminist icon who fought for the rights of the disenfranchised and the oppressed.  A man who declared that ‘all you need is love’ and dared to Imagine a world without war, nationalism or religion.  Others present him in an altogether different hue: as a violent, jealous and chauvinistic bully who abused his first wife, Cynthia and emotionally neglected his first son, Julian.  On one hand we have Lennon the hero and on the other we have Lennon the villain and in many cases he is presented as either/or, with commentators unable, or unwilling to negotiate this juxtaposition.  Sometimes, biographical accounts will even skim over, or ignore these conflicting characteristics entirely and instead focus solely on his musical career.  I remember watching a biographical documentary which, apart from briefly referencing his peace activism (and judging it to be an immature and naive embarrassment) did exactly that.

‘When you talk about destruction, don’t you know that you can count me out… in’.

There’s a tendency to dehumanise those whom we cast as heroes or villains, creating one dimensional figures to be loved or reviled.  This tendency is apparent with the treatment of exceptional individuals throughout history, such as Saints, military heroes and political activists.  The recent rise of the celebrity (a term which often invites scorn, but is actually an umbrella term covering people with a wide range of skills and achievements, like Elvis Presley, Princess Diana or anyone who appears in any reality TV program) has provided john-lennon-487033_960_720another category.  There clearly seems to be a need for us to create simplified archetypes and doing so does appear to be useful, but to do this with historical people that have lived (or are still alive) can deny us a richer understanding of their, and consequently our own, humanity (and can also create real dangers, as chillingly demonstrated by the recent case of Jimmy Savile).

‘Well, you know that I’m a wicked guy
And I was born with a jealous mind’.

Lennon’s lyrics often seem like raw, unguarded confessions that reek of insecurity and contradiction.  He seemed to be keenly aware of the conflicting aspects of his personality and didn’t shy away from exploring them in the material he released.  He acknowledged both the good and the bad; the hero and the villain.  While he declared that ‘all you need is love’, he also put to song the disturbing words ‘baby I’m determined and I’d rather see you dead’.  Filling the space between these two extremes was a Scared, Jealous Guy who felt in serious need of Help!  A perfect example of this uneasy juxtaposition can be found on the Imagine album.  As well as featuring the well-known title track, which has become something of a secular hymn, it also contains the track How Do You Sleep?, a venomous attack on his former writing partner and friend, Paul McCartney, which couldn’t be any further from the sentiments expressed in Imagine.

‘Hatred and jealousy, gonna be the death of me
I guess I knew it right from the start
Sing out about love and peace
Don’t want to see the red raw meat
The green eyed goddamn straight from your heart’.

He admitted that he had been physically abusive to women – not just Cynthia – and that he had not been a very good father to Julian.  He admitted that he was a bully.  He also described his own experiences of childhood abandonment and later feelings of fear and insecurity, which he concealed behind a mask of buffoonery and violence.  Not that this excuses the behaviour of a grown man, but it does provide us with some sense of a complex human being.  Add to that his later promotion of pacifism, feminism and social justice and the asymmetrical mosaic grows greater still.  In the later years of his life he became a devoted parent to his second son, Sean – with whom he seemed able to attain some sense of atonement.  Unfortunately, his relationship with Julian remained strained and distant.  Maybe the old wounds would have healed, had he not been shot and killed at the age of 40, but perhaps his earlier behaviour had been too damaging.

‘I really had a chip on my shoulder … and it still comes out every now and then’.

There are those that might cry ‘hypocrite’ at such apparent contradictions, but that would be over-simplistic and unfair.  It’s quite possible for Lennon to have been all of these things over time (or even simultaneously), with some characteristics perhaps being the consequence of another.  For instance, it’s likely that his feminism grew, in part, out of a need for redemption.  That’s not to say, then, that the villain of the piece was defeated; forever to be vanquished by the upstart hero and his eye shatteringly shiny armour.  No, far more likely was that the two existed side by side in an on-going (and probably uncomfortable) process of conflict and negotiation.  Acknowledging someone’s flaws does not necessitate that one question the sincerity of their strengths.

‘Although I laugh and I act like a clown
Beneath this mask I am wearing a frown
My tears are falling like rain from the sky
Is it for her or myself that I cry’?

JohnLennon1963A minor deviation here, but I would like to comment on the supposed naivety and immaturity of Lennon’s political views.  First of all, I feel that this is a misrepresentation of what he actually said.  If we look at the two main points that critics tend to pick up on: the invitation to imagine everybody living in peace and the request to give peace a chance.  Both of these notions seem far from naïve to me, in fact they seem like reasonable suggestions for incremental change.  There is clearly no unrealistic demand for overnight change; just a suggestion that we consider an alternative way of conducting ourselves, with the hope that things might start to get better.  In the UK similar accusations are levelled at Jeremy Corbyn, and they grate with me for the same reasons.  I’m not suggesting that anyone has to agree with either Lennon or Corbyn, but the condescending disregard of their, perfectly valid, views strikes me as being unnecessary and spiteful.  Secondly, the generalised criticisms of Lennon’s political views assume a fixed ideology that just doesn’t seem to have been present.  He changed, altered and evolved his ideas all through his life, and was often critical of things that he had previously said or done.

‘My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all’.

imagine-1913561_960_720While I probably wouldn’t go so far as to put Lennon forward as a Middle Way Thinker, I do think he provides a good example of how a Middle Way approach can be useful in the consideration of those whom we admire… and those we do not.  Gandhi (who has featured in Robert M Eillis’ Middle Way Thinker series) could, with some justification, be accused of misogyny and racism, but that doesn’t take away from his achievements or the legacy he left behind.  The medieval Saints of Europe become figures of greater interest and inspiration when their multi-dimensional and flawed humanity can be glimpsed beneath their holy veneers (a principle that, I have recently discovered, can be applied to Jesus too).  Of course, such figures need not be well known.  We also create heroes and villains in our day to day lives too; looking up to, or down upon family members or colleagues, for instance.  If we can recognise the messy middle from which others are composed and accept that people can be both good and bad, in different measures, at different times, then this might just enable us to become more open to those around us and more accepting of ourselves.  This sounds easy on paper, but can be difficult to achieve in practice.  I, for one, have a long way to go but the closer I look, the more complicated the picture becomes and the easier it gets.

‘We all have Hitler in us, but we also have love and peace. So why not give peace a chance for once’?

Songs Quoted (In Order of Appearance)

All You Need Is Love (Lennon-McCartney, 1967)
Revolution (Lennon-McCartney, 1968).
Run For Your Life (Lennon-McCartney, 1965).
Scared (Lennon, 1974).
Loser (Lennon-McCartney, 1964).

Pictures (In Order of Appearance)

Lennon Memorial Plaque, courtesy of Pixabay.com.
John Lennon Beatles Peace Imagine, courtesy of Pixabay.com.
The Beatles & Lill-Babs 1963, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Imagine John Lennon New York City, courtesy of Pixabay.com.

Answering like a robot

Berlin, Roboter mit seinem ErfinderThe last few weeks have seen substantial election coverage in the UK. What that most often means is journalists asking questions to politicians… and politicians not answering them. I was particularly struck by this example today, from a journalist of the Plymouth Herald interviewing Theresa May:

The Herald: Two visits in six weeks to one of the country’s most marginal constituencies –  is she getting worried?

May: I’m very clear that this is a crucial election for this country.

TH: Plymouth is feeling the effects of military cuts. Will she guarantee to protect the city from further pain?

M: I’m very clear that Plymouth has a proud record of connection with the armed forces.

TH: How will your Brexit plan make Plymouth better off?

M: I think there is a better future ahead for Plymouth and for the whole of the UK.

TH: Will you promise to sort out our transport links?

M: I’m very clear that connectivity is hugely important for Plymouth and the south-west generally. 

May clearly has this down to a fine art. In each case, she says something that is supposed to be positive and reassuring, and that has some thematic connection to the question asked, but does not involve claims that might possibly offend any voters, and does not imply policy commitments that might be quoted back at her in five years’ time when she’s failed to fulfil them.

There have been two questions I’ve been asking myself about this. One is “Why does it seem so offensive?” May has been widely accused of behaving like a robot. The other question is, “Is there anything to be said for it?” After all, there are some respects in which these responses seem to be agnostic. If the politician isn’t in a position to make concrete promises, and a strong stance might be misleading, surely they are right to resist the media’s pressure to take stances and make promises? Could May even be said to be taking a kind of Middle Way on whether, for example, Brexit will make Plymouth better off?

Let’s start with the first question. I suspect the main reason why I and others tend to react so negatively to it is that it interferes so much with the expected course of human discussion. If we ask a question, we expect our interlocutor to answer it. Not doing so is rude and disrespectful, because it doesn’t recognise the equal humanity and point of view of the person asking the question. When a politician fails to answer the journalist’s question, we, the listeners or readers, tend to feel offended too. The ‘robot’ jibe is presumably due to a highly predictable left-hemisphere response from May, as when people react to us in that kind of ‘stuck’ way (disengaged bureaucrats or bosses obsessed with targets offer further examples), we tend to feel that they are not meeting us as a person.

However, let’s face it, journalists’ questions are often based on absolute either/ors: ones that they may share with the readers or listeners, but that are quite reasonably not shared by the politicians. There are some examples in the interview above. If May had admitted to being worried about the Conservative performance in Plymouth, she would probably have been criticized for weakness, and if she had said the wasn’t worried at all, she would probably have been accused of complacency. If she guaranteed to protect Plymouth from the pain of further cuts she might end up not being able to meet other important policy objectives that required her to cut the military, but if she said that unfortunately there were further cuts on the way that might turn out to be untrue as well as alienating. If she promised a new transport link for Plymouth it might then prove to be unaffordable, whilst if she denied one it would make her unpopular with the people whose votes she wanted. Politicians have to make decisions in an uncertain, probabilistic world, but one in which the people unfairly demand certainty, and blame them for ‘lying’ if they don’t fulfil their commitments.

Theresa May’s situation here is thus in some ways similar to that of someone who’s asked one of those badly-formulated, misleadingly dichotomous questions in other areas of life. Does God exist or not? Is evolution proven or was the world designed by God? Is your mind just a brain or do you have a soul? Is beauty in the eye of the beholder or are things intrinsically beautiful? If I refuse to answer such questions in the simplistic terms in which they are asked, am I rude? Should I give Theresa May answers? “I’m very clear that lots of people feel strongly about God’s existence”. “I’m very clear that the beauty we experience should be appreciated”.

But the difference is surely about what we do with those situations. When people approach you with unhelpful and simplistic models, do you try to help them see that they are slightly more complicated, or do you just try to see them off? There may be many situations when people just will not listen to any kind of complexity, and insist on an instant answer, like those journalists who think they are doing the public a favour by badgering the politician for a ‘yes or no’ answer’. In those sorts of circumstances journalism is really starting to have a negative effect and to just entrench people in delusions, rather than accepting any sort of responsibility to inform. The politicians and journalists just end up in a mutual closed feedback loop of non-communication. But there are also lots of circumstances where either the politician or the journalist can push things a bit more to get beyond these dichotomies. It’s then that the politicians become a bit more worth supporting and the journalists a bit more worth listening to or reading.

In this election campaign, I’ve found Jeremy Corbyn generally far more impressive from this point of view. When interviewed on TV by an abysmally rude Jeremy Paxman, who was stuck on the idea that there was something wrong if everything Corbyn personally believed wasn’t in the Labour manifesto, Corbyn just kept gently questioning this assumption, and pointing out that the manifesto wasn’t just the result of his personal decisions. When given the opportunity, he will try to point out why he can’t answer the question in the terms set. He doesn’t underestimate the intelligence of the electorate, but rather dares to hope that they will respond to a manageable injection of complexity. It’s not that May never does this, but pre-formulated ‘robotic’ responses too often seem to be a substitute.

The politicians who help society seem to be the ones that can cope with all this, by not responding to the media’s imposition of absolutes with frustration or stonewalling but with gentle and equitable pushing. Whether or not it wins elections, this is surely the strategy that will help to create more positive and creative responses in the electorate, and help them to start recognizing the complexity of what politicians have to cope with.

Picture: Bundesarchiv: 1930 robot and its inventor

 

Order, disorder, reorder – part 2 of 3

It’s almost a simplistic metaphor, but … picture three boxes: order, disorder, reorder. … [I]f you read the great myths of the world and the great religions, that’s the normal path of transformation.

–Richard Rohr

493px-RichardRohrOFMThis blog post is part two of a three-part series inspired by the above quote by Richard Rohr (shown in the photograph on the right). If you’ve not read part one I recommend doing so now so that you appreciate the context of Rohr’s words and how they might apply to the great myths of the world. Here, in this post, I consider what Rohr’s three-box model might have to say about political polarisation in society, and what its limitations might be. In the third and final post I will frame my own ‘spiritual’ development in terms of Rohr’s model and make some concluding remarks.

A political perspective

What conservative people want to do is just keep rebuilding the first box, “order, order, order,” at all costs, even if it doesn’t fit the facts or fit reality. … So many progressive, academic, liberal, educated folks, they just keep sloshing around in the second box and almost resist any sense of order.

So, the context in which Richard Rohr is speaking here is that of the political situation in the USA: dominated by two parties, Republican and Democratic, conservative and liberal, traditional and progressive. We may have a different national political dynamic here in the UK, perhaps slightly less polarised, but it is broadly similar and people tend to position themselves one way or the other on the conventional political spectrum.

From Rohr’s choice of words here, he sees the difficulty with the individual maturing politically if that individual strongly identifies with one political orientation or the other. If you identify with the conservative ideology then you feel as if you’re being constructive in rebuilding the “order” box over and over, but in adhering so rigidly to the absolute belief that order must be maintained at all costs you’re blocking the path towards a more provisional, nuanced situation where you can better address conditions.

Conservative over-confidence?
I’ll tentatively suggest that the recent ‘Brexit’ result of the UK referendum (on continuing membership of the European Union) represents an example of this. I have to admit a specific difficulty here, though, as part of the large minority that voted to remain in the EU. The echo chamber and filter bubble of social media mean that I’m rather out of touch with views that might help me to understand why a majority voted to leave the EU in the referendum.

brexit-2185266_1280From the limited discussions I’ve had with ‘Brexiteers’ I get the impression that there’s a desire to put the country into a new order box that very closely resembles the one that existed before the UK entered the EU in the early 1970s (before my time!). Not that we were experiencing a period of disorder during the years of EU membership – and there was a long stretch of ordering along neoliberal lines during the Thatcher years – but there is a belief that once we’ve got through the process of leaving the EU the country will be able to construct a better order without ‘interference’ from Europe.

Of course I’d argue that Brexit does not represent an improvement, that it is not a synthesis after the years of pre-1973 order and the perceived disorder of the EU years; I personally view it as a step backwards to an outdated form of political order (that probably wasn’t so great anyway back then) and seems unlikely to adequately deal with conditions now. But then my political inclinations dispose me towards that kind of view. I imagine the stereotypical conservative Brexiteer to be clinging to a fragile absolute view (“it is right that the UK determines its own path” or “our greatest problems are caused by immigrants”), and that view cannot be properly examined because the lack of incrementality means that it wouldn’t survive the examination process… fear of disorder (where simplistic, absolute beliefs are recognised as being inadequate, or even harmful) holds them from making political progress.

Progressive pitfalls?
AntifragileOn the other hand, if you strongly identify as a progressive, as a liberal, then there’s the danger of only being able to see tradition and the existing order as an absolutised evil, and rejecting it wholesale, whether or not it actually addresses conditions. I’ve found the Taleb’s perspective to be of use here in helping me to challenge my own liberal, progressive views – for example, in his book Antifragile he points out that the longevity of a product, tool, book, idea or ideology is positively correlated with its age, since the products, tools, books, ideas and ideologies that don’t address the conditions of the real world don’t survive! Time, using his language, is the best creator of antifragility, as in the course of time unexpected events eventually occur and demolish the things that were fragile to that occurrence. This is also known as the ‘Lindy effect‘.

It is tempting for me to think that the Middle Way would involve a liberal, progressive politics – but since it seems to me like such an obvious, certain fact the Middle Way itself suggests that it is a belief worth critically examining in significant detail. The work of Jonathan Haidt on what he calls ‘moral foundations theory’ looks for common ground between the conventional camps of the political divide, which might be useful in finding a middle way that better addresses the current political conditions that we find ourselves in. The idea of synthesis also suggests that a better way lies beyond the dualism of conservative and progressive, and the Middle Way is a promising tool to guide us in examining and integrating our desires, beliefs and meanings.

fresco-379932_1280There’s also the problem of progressives taking the order-disorder-reorder model and appropriating it into an absolutised form. Consider, for example, the Russian revolution. The old order of the Russian tsars collapsed in the disorder of the first 1917 revolution, and eventually the one-party state of the Soviet Union emerged from the disorder. The party constructed the history as an inevitable progression from order, through disorder, to re-order – and then stifled any political attempts to challenge the re-ordered state by stating that history had run its course and the inevitable end-state had been achieved. In political revolutions the dis-ordered period is lasts a relatively short time – a likely sign that it’s not going to lead to a more synthetic, re-ordered situation but instead to more of the same order in a different guise. (Aside: see this excellent article by Nicky Case for more on the perils of and alternatives to political revolution.)

It seems likely, on an individual level, that adherence to a dogmatic left/right ideology is an impediment to our own maturation politically, as well as spiritually (whatever that means – more on this in the final part of this series). There’s a clear link here with the very Middle Way-ish idea of looking for a synthetic approach to dealing with apparent dilemmas: the thesis and the antithesis initially clash, but through some difficult process the two seemingly opposed ideas are somehow brought together into a more complex new whole. The  practice of critical thinking, and the processes by which we can encourage integration are prominent in the Middle Way: see this post by Robert about integration, for example.


Featured image of ballot boxes created using an image from pixabay.com (License: CC0 Public Domain)
Photograph of Richard Rohr from wikimedia commons (License: CC0 Public Domain)
EU/UK flag graphic and photograph of revolutionary fresco courtesy of pixabay.com (License: CC0 Public Domain)

Proverbs 4: Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness

This is one of the few proverbs that I have few, if any, reservations about, because it seems to apply to pretty much all conditions. There’s lots of darkness about  – ignorance, dogmatism, hatred, prejudice – and it’s very tempting to merely curse it. If, like me, you’re of a critical disposition and can easily see problems and false assumptions in almost any position, it’s especially easy just to sit there in the dark criticising on all sides and working up anger and hatred in the process. Yet lighting a candle takes a moment of awareness and creativity. It demands that we consider the sphere in which we can act rather than remaining fixated only on the wider sphere of concern. If we have criticisms, it requires that we also think about the positive alternatives we have to offer.Candle_in_the_dark

Starting the Middle Way Society (which has been going since 2013) is one attempt to light a candle. Before that, I was developing Middle Way Philosophy, seeing problems in one absolute position and then another on all sides, convinced that the Middle Way was the best practical option, but unable to offer much as an alternative to the positions I criticised. Being able to offer something positive, in which philosophy is clearly and inextricably linked to practice and supported by a developing community, feels more and more valuable. Even if it turns out that the candle is blown out by a gale, I’ll be glad that I lit it.

The current political situation might also provide a important application of this proverb. Personally, I have found the election of Donald Trump in the US and the Brexit vote in the UK (and now the calling of an opportunistic election in the UK) a time of considerable political darkness. Nor am I sure, at present, of any realistic political action I can take that will make any difference. The best way I can light a candle, it seems, is to carry on doing what I’m doing, developing and offering the Middle Way, in the hope that this will have a small but positive effect on political life.

Are there any occasions when it is better to curse the darkness instead? One might imagine circumstances where lighting any kind of candle was impossible, because of living in a highly repressive society for example. I can understand people being afraid to light candles in places like North Korea or Saudi Arabia. Even in a politically more open country, you might feel yourself to be trapped in circumstances that snuff out all candles – in a highly frustrating and exploitative job for example. But even in these kinds of circumstances, merely cursing achieves nothing except creating conflict. However much you may hate your rulers and however dark it may be, it seems better to sit with awareness in the darkness and to think about creative ways forward, than it is to merely curse.

Link to index of other posts in the ‘proverbs’ series

Photo by Paolo Costa Baldi, GFDL/CCBYSA 3.0

Power-speak

Power is the ability to make people do things they would not otherwise have done. The gangster who points a gun at your head is, of course, exerting power, as is the politician who uses the apparatus of the state to enforce new measures – which we may ultimately obey in order to escape punishment from the state. The manager who gives you the sack is also, of course, exerting power. But then there are more subtle kinds of power, not so much formalised in political or economic structures, but rather implicit in the language of certain social relationships. When reviewing a draft of my latest book with a friend recently, I was struck when he drew my attention to the power of the writer. When I wrote “relativism, postmodernism, atheism” (to distance myself from all three of these isms) he said he felt “thumped” by the complex words that I was defining and using for my purposes. Such words, he implied, are weapons or tools of power.

Since I had never thought about what I was doing when writing philosophy in quite that way before, this episode made me think about a whole associated set of issues to do with the power of words. I guess my normal model of what is happening when I write something and someone else reads it is of a kind of voluntary mutual relationship: after all, nobody is obliged to read it, so I am being offered the opportunity to communicate with someone else. Could this be an act of power?Power Todd Huffman CCA 2-0

Well, this seems to me to have a lot to do with the Middle Way. Absolute claims seem to involve an act of power, because they lock people into a particular way of thinking in which there are only two alternatives – one controlled by the group and the other highly undesirable and rejected by the group. For absolutist theists, for example, ‘atheism’ is highly undesirable, beyond the group, but the only alternative to it is the theism sanctioned by the group. Talking or writing in a way that effectively excludes any alternative views is a way of keeping people in the group’s control. “If you don’t believe me, you’re condemned to be one of them – and we don’t want that, do we?” The Middle Way challenges that dualistic construction in order to avoid a power relationship.

So, much depends on whether what one is writing is absolute or not. But this depends not only on the words one uses, but on the states of mind of the audience and thus how they interpret one’s words. Eventually it occurred to me that my friend’s problem when reading my words was that he was interpreting them absolutely. One of the problems with words is that we also tend to think of them as having a meaning and power in themselves, rather than gaining their meaning and power from us and our interpretation of them, as we use them for a particular purpose. If, for reasons that have emerged from your own background and states of mind, you interpret the writer’s intention as that of making you think in a certain way, rather than as offering you an alternative that you might consider, you might well feel as though the words are being used as weapons against you. Of course, that might be particularly the case if there is any kind of social pressure to read or accept what is written. But the writer may have merely intended to offer you an alternative. Or, of course, it could work the other way round too: she might in fact be trying to shove a dogma down your throat, but you interpret her as just offering you an option. It could go either way.

Of course, it’s the writer’s responsibility to try to write in a provisional way, but I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to solely blame the writer if you ever feel thumped by what you read. It’s also your responsibility to interpret it charitably, if there is any ambiguity about whether it involves an absolute claim or not (though very often, the context makes it fairly plain – for example, papal bulls do not shrink from absolute language). I’ve written in previous posts about provisionality markers (which means language that tries to signal provisionality) and about the principle of charity (which involves our responsibility in interpretation). Paying attention to provisionality markers is just as important as using them (though there are also some circumstances where provisionality markers are only employed to sweeten dogma – again you have to judge from the context).

So, it seems that words are much more ambiguous weapons than guns, because they depend on the interpreter to a much greater extent. Nevertheless, their power can hardly be underestimated, and the ability to manipulate people by using language that absolutely distinguishes the beliefs or interests of the in-group from the out-group is something we have seen demonstrated recently in politics: whether it is the anti-EU sentiment that drove the Brexit vote, or Trump’s Mexican Wall and rants against the ‘liberal media’.

In the final section of my book Middle Way Philosophy 2: The Integration of Desire I have written about the justification of the use of power. We can hardly avoid having to use power in certain circumstances, for example as a parent with small children or an agent of the state dealing with criminals, but the question is how we use it and with what justification. It seems to me that the integration of the judgement that justifies using power is the crucial criterion for whether it can be justified. If one is addressing conditions better by using power than one would be by not using it, and the judgement to do so is more integrated than the judgement of the person whom power is being used against, it can be justified. Merely appealing to greater ends, or traditions, or motives, is not enough if we do not have a good enough judgement in assessing the relevance and application of these kinds of judgements. So, for example, you might forcible restrain your toddler from running into the road, and you are justified in doing so, not just because you think it’s in the toddler’s interests and is an expression of love, but also because you are in a much better position to judge the whole situation than the toddler is.

As with uses of power for violence or bodily restraint, so also, it seems to me, for language. We might use absolute language with the toddler to stop them running into the road for very similar reasons to the reasons we would forcibly restrain them. Sometimes practical necessity makes the use of power-speak justifiable, but in most cases, when talking about political or other issues with other adults, there is no call for the use of power, whether that is in words or any other way, and it is essential for the issues to be resolved without power. Most people in Western democracies recognise this, but often they do not recognise to what extent the use of absolute language is a use of power. For my part, though, it seems that the difficulties of judging how to communicate with urgency and commitment but without power will probably never cease, given that absolutisation depends on mental states as well as words. Whatever one says, one may get it wrong, because one does not know the mind of the audience. One can only try to find the Middle Way in each new situation, and fall down and try again.

 

Picture by Todd Huffman (Wikimedia: CCA 2.0)