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.
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.
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
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?
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?
What specific absolutisations have you found yourself indulging in during the pandemic? What has driven that for you?
The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be on Zoom at 7pm UK time on Sun 14th Feb 2021. In the last few sessions of our ethics and politics series we will be applying the Middle Way to some specific issues, and climate change is the first of those issues. This will also enable us to have some talks from different speakers. To apply the Middle Way to a particular issue is not to come up with a definite prescription or solution for that issue. In accordance with error focus as an approach, we can be more confident about identifying absolutised assumptions to avoid when approaching the issue than we can about the answers. However, hopefully the discussion will help you examine your own views of the issue.
The massive threat posed by climate change makes it an obvious source of fear, but because it is also a very complex issue, panicked or extreme reactions are the last thing we need. It is possible to recognise the urgency of the issue without panicking, and whilst maintaining a determination to stay in the Middle Way. Robert M. Ellis will suggest various absolutizations that it might be helpful to avoid in approaching climate change – including denialism, extreme pessimism, and sole reliance on one kind of response or solution as the only acceptable one.
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. On that page you can also find links to all the previous network talks on basic approaches to the Middle Way and to ethics and politics. If you would like catch up more with basic aspects of the Middle Way approach, we are also holding a reading group (next on 21st 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
What has been your general emotional response to climate change? Does it tend towards either of the extremes of panic or denial, or have you managed to find some sort of balance?
What kind of response do you tend to favour, and how much weight do you put on that type of response?
Suggested further reading/ listening
There is no shortage of books and articles about climate change out there (do feel free to recommend these in comments). Here are some resources related to the society and the Middle Way. Some of these may now be getting a bit out of date in some respects, given the ever-developing information about climate changes.
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
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?
How do you think you could help set up the conditions for a more Middle Way approach to political activities?
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
What are your most basic political values? How do you think these have shaped your political attitudes?
What’s your experience of absolutized political ideologies, either in yourself or in others?
What political values do you find it hardest to relate to in yourself or others, and how could you engage with these more?
