The Middle Way Society was founded to promote the study and practice of The Middle Way. The Middle Way is the idea that we make better judgements by avoiding fixed beliefs and being open to practical experience. We challenge unhelpful distinctions between facts and values, reason and emotion, religion and secularism or arts and sciences. Though our name is inspired by some of the insights of the Buddha, we are independent of Buddhism or any other religion. We seek to promote and support integrative practice, overcoming conflict of all kinds.
Here’s a lovely talk given by Susan Averbach for an online celebration of the Jewish festival of Shavuot with the International Institute of Secular Humanistic Judaism. It begins with Tyler Perry’s speech about the Middle Way at the Oscars, includes a brief introduction to the Middle Way in general, some extracts about ‘Living Room Conversations’ that offer a way to put the Middle Way into action, and some reflections for Jewish practices that may support the Middle Way.
This book provides lots of insights about the causes of political polarization and absolutization in the US in recent years, and recommends some approaches to resolving it highly compatible with the Middle Way. Please see this page for a full review.
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?
From 25th April 2021 we will be relaunching our Middle Way Network with autonomous groups, separate talks, and a new website for communication.
New arrangements will be finalized in the meeting on 25th April, which will be the final one for the main meeting of the Network in its current form. If you’re involved in the Network, please get in touch with other people in your region to help agree the best arrangements for meetings before then. If you would like to join, this is a good point to do so – please fill in the form on this page. If you no longer want to be involved, please let us know.
The new sister website for network communication will be found at middlewaysociety.net. Please contact Vijaya (vijaya at middlewaysociety.org) for an early login to help test out and develop the new site.
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:
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?
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?
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:
Robert M Ellis (2014) Migglism Section 2 (3 in the e-book) ‘Ethical practice’.
Robert M Ellis (2007) A New Buddhist Ethics Chapter 6 ‘Animals’. Note: Despite the title and some references to Buddhism, the basis of judgement in this book is the Middle Way rather than Buddhist tradition.
