Monthly Archive for October, 2009

Getting to Transformation

Published on October 29, 2009 by Cheryl Woelk. Closed Tags: , , .

Getting to YesI recently looked at  Get­ting to Yes: Nego­ti­at­ing with­out Giv­ing In by  Roger Fisher, William Ury, Bruce Pat­ton, and was reminded of the basics of posi­tions and inter­ests in con­flict resolution.

In a con­flict, the posi­tions of the peo­ple involved usu­ally come up most clearly. Stake­hold­ers often state their posi­tions in no uncer­tain terms and stick to them. For instance, “shut the win­dow” and “keep the win­dow open” might be two posi­tions in a con­flict. Like the exam­ple, posi­tions often directly oppose each other. By look­ing only at posi­tions, the con­flict appears impos­si­ble to resolve.

Look­ing at inter­ests, how­ever, gets to the rea­sons behind the posi­tions. In this exam­ple, “shut the win­dow” might actu­ally mean “It’s noisy out there and I can’t hear a thing,” while “keep the win­dow open” might mean “It’s really stuffy in here, and I like the breeze.”

At this point, there might be more room for dia­logue. Per­haps the room has a fan to turn on, maybe the vol­ume of the con­ver­sa­tion could increase. In some con­flicts, this might solve the problem.

Yet most con­flicts are more com­pli­cated than that and require one step fur­ther than the pop­u­lar nego­ti­a­tion text goes. In order to under­stand and find last­ing solu­tions to con­flict, peo­ple must iden­tify the basic needs at the root of each view, and rec­og­nize that it is com­bined with world­views and expe­ri­ences — the lenses through which humans see. Look­ing to the his­tory and con­text of peo­ple and groups requires more time and atten­tion than a quick tem­plate fix, but it allows space for trans­for­ma­tion of sit­u­a­tions, minds, and even iden­ti­ties to take place.

Even so, the sim­ple reminder of posi­tions and inter­ests com­pels me to think again when it comes to con­flicts I encounter, and prac­tice get­ting closer to transformation.

By deed, by seed and by creed

Published on October 29, 2009 by Will Loewen. Closed

That was going to be the title of my book.  After hear­ing a num­ber of peo­ple in my home com­mu­nity strug­gle with the con­cept of being Men­non­ite in var­i­ous cul­tural con­texts, I thought a book like that would help to give clar­ity to the argu­ment.  Essen­tially I was going to say that some­times peo­ple are Men­non­ites by seed (ie. being born into a Men­non­ite fam­ily), by creed (ie. adher­ing to an Anabap­tist Chris­t­ian per­spec­tive), or by deed (ie. act­ing in a way that is sim­i­lar to other Men­non­ites), and that all of these are valid and unde­ni­able expres­sions of Men­non­ite iden­tity whether they are doing so inten­tion­ally, will­ingly or oth­er­wise.  Is it a bad thing that I could sum­ma­rize the whole book in one sen­tence?  Maybe the clever title would sell me a few copies alone.

My book was going to be infor­ma­tive, uplift­ing, inclu­sive and hope­fully a lit­tle humourous as well.  A few things hap­pened along the way to get in the way of putting together a man­u­script: first, I real­ized I was nowhere near qual­i­fied to assem­ble such a vol­ume, sec­ond, I started to actu­ally meet Men­non­ites in other cul­tural con­texts and finally, I got sick of the argu­ment and didn’t want to pub­licly align myself with any of the annoy­ing groups who spoke loudly on this subject.

For me, and all the peo­ple in my church and fam­ily net­works grow­ing up, being Men­non­ite meant a few things.  As Mex­i­can Men­non­ites, we were all first or sec­ond gen­er­a­tion immi­grants in south­ern Ontario, so we car­ried many of the reg­u­lar stig­mas attached to that label.  It meant we were sup­posed to adhere to either a fairly con­ser­v­a­tive or very con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­tian­ity with low to mod­er­ate evan­ge­lism.  Those who were cham­pi­ons of the cul­ture then also cel­e­brated the value of com­mu­nity and humil­ity.  Those who rejected the faith and/or cul­ture did so because they opposed the rigid­ity with which the tra­di­tions were imposed, they despised the enforced self-deprecation and low self esteem, and/or they wanted a larger guilt-free con­nec­tion with main­stream soci­ety.  When youths (or oth­ers) there would accuse the lead­ers of being hyp­ocrites in that con­text, it gen­er­ally meant that they opposed the Phar­isees in Jesus’ time, but lived out an empty rit­u­al­is­tic form of reli­gion all the same.

When I got to Uni­ver­sity I met more dis­en­chanted Men­non­ites.  What sur­prised me was that these were rich kids, of rich par­ents, who knew about and engaged with the world around them, and attended (if only irreg­u­larly) churches that both nur­tured the indi­vid­ual expres­sions of faith as well as the com­mu­nity expe­ri­ence.  To me, they were Men­non­ites with­out all of the embar­rass­ing bag­gage I asso­ci­ated with the term.  As I lis­tened to their sto­ries, I began to hear about more ways that Men­non­ites could be hyp­ocrites.  There’s no need here to go into details, but themes of hoard­ing wealth while boast­ing about their char­ity and cul­tural nar­row mind­ed­ness were common.

So, it was with some inter­est that I have been read­ing the ongo­ing dis­cus­sion that has been printed in the Cana­dian Men­non­ite about faith and cul­ture.  After expe­ri­enc­ing the cross-cultural highs of the most recent Men­non­ite World Con­fer­ence gath­er­ing, it is nat­ural to ask how this con­nec­tion can be strength­ened and main­tained, and nat­u­rally our ten­dency to cul­tural preser­va­tion is brought up as a road block.  Terry Smith’s let­ter to the edi­tor cau­tioned us not to hold on too tightly to our cul­tural iden­tity.  Mr. Smith is him­self an edi­tor, and wrote a while ago in The Mes­sen­ger, the jour­nal pub­lished by the Evan­gel­i­cal Men­non­ite Con­fer­ence where I was once a mem­ber, that we should dis­con­nect our under­stand­ings of faith and cul­ture.  His sug­ges­tion was that we should only refer to our faith/denomination as Men­non­ite, and use other terms for our cul­ture, such as ‘Low Ger­man’.  At that time, I still thought my deed, seed and creed book idea might work so at the very least this would dis­rupt my pub­lish­ing career.  I wrote my own let­ter to the edi­tor, essen­tially say­ing that a name change wouldn’t work and that a mind change was more pos­si­ble and nec­es­sary.  Also, it seems to me there were always school­yard con­se­quences to giv­ing your­self a nickname.

Instead, I think we should feel free to use the term Men­non­ite to apply to a greater num­ber of cul­tural groups.  There are fourth and fifth gen­er­a­tion Men­non­ites in DR Congo, cer­tainly they qual­ify as cul­tural Men­non­ites.  There are sub-cultures all over the world where the only thing that dif­fer­en­ti­ates them from their neigh­bours is that they adhere to Men­non­ite teach­ings.  That sounds like a Men­non­ite cul­ture to me too.

Much of the cur­rent strat­egy to level the eth­nic play­ing field revolves around high­light­ing the role that peo­ple of all cul­tures play in Men­non­ite churches, schools and orga­ni­za­tions, espe­cially non-traditional eth­nic groups and assign­ing these peo­ple into posi­tions of lead­er­ship is a very tan­gi­ble way of doing this.  (Please don’t read this and think that I am sec­ond guess­ing any spe­cific lead­er­ship assign­ments that have been made.)  As a white male with a name like Loewen, I stand to lose from any kind of affir­ma­tive action selec­tion process, but my oppo­si­tion to this mind­set isn’t purely self­ish.  Mostly, I don’t like this kind of top down men­tal­ity.  The solu­tion is not to give more power non-traditional groups, but for all of us to have less power together.  If we are using cul­tural par­ity at the lead­er­ship level as our only mea­sur­ing stick, I think we are neglect­ing the more impor­tant work that is hap­pen­ing at the grass­roots level.  Almost all of us have expe­ri­enced some form of Men­non­ite cul­tural dis­en­chant­ment, but we can’t respond to it by adopt­ing an in and out men­tal­ity.  We need to live out an ongo­ing simul­ta­ne­ous cri­tique and repair of our­selves and our com­mu­ni­ties.  The next gen­er­a­tion of teenagers will have issues with us no mat­ter what.

Called to Service, Called to Peace

Published on October 27, 2009 by Cheryl Woelk. Closed

A “Reader’s Write” let­ter in the Sep­tem­ber 7th print edi­tion of Cana­dian Men­non­ite asked Men­non­ite Cen­tral Com­mit­tee, in their re-organizing of New Wine, New Wine­skins to look to the ser­vice aspect, described as “emer­gency food, cloth­ing and hous­ing assis­tance; dis­as­ter reha­bil­i­ta­tion and recon­struc­tion; and eco­nomic, social and com­mu­nity devel­op­ment” and leave “jus­tice and con­flict trans­for­ma­tion” to other organizations.

Read­ing this, I reflected on the ser­vice groups from MCC that I am famil­iar with in Korea. A group of alumni met recently in Akron, PA. They meet once every three years to gather together, share sto­ries and mem­o­ries, learn about new work in the region and renew their com­mit­ment to Korea and each other.

Hear­ing about the “ser­vice” work they were involved in, set­ting up orphan­ages, work­ing in hos­pi­tals, estab­lish­ing a voca­tional school for orphan boys, I real­ized that this ser­vice work is peace and jus­tice work. All of these min­istries addressed the needs of the poor and the oppressed, the least in soci­ety. If the least are being cared for, and their needs ful­filled, does this not con­tribute to the peace and jus­tice of a region? Is this not what Jesus calls us to do as part of the new way of life?

See­ing how the ser­vice of these peo­ple con­tributed to the peace and jus­tice of Korea 60 years later, I also hear the voices of the peo­ple they served who ask why the vol­un­teers didn’t talk about their faith and their com­mit­ment to peace. Many of the vol­un­teers were PAX men, serv­ing as an alter­na­tive to mil­i­tary, but few of the peo­ple whose lives were shaped by these men’s refusal to par­tic­i­pate in war knew of their reasons.

Hear­ing the sto­ries of ser­vice work in Korea again from the reunion, I am inspired by those who give their life in pure ser­vice. No, their pur­pose was not to go out and cre­ate peace, but to align their small offer­ings with God’s pur­pose, and see how God trans­formed their gifts into peace and jus­tice for many. Per­haps through “jus­tice and con­flict trans­for­ma­tion” work around the world, more ser­vice work­ers can do the same.

Why Halloween Matters

Published on October 27, 2009 by WillowMan. Closed Tags: , .

My old masques are lost some­where in stor­age but some­thing inside me still wants to dress up like Drac­ula for Hal­loween. All Souls Day and All Saints Day and Hal­loween, all spe­cial days from pop­u­lar cul­tures at this time of the year, help me remem­ber the under­world and the dead.  The ori­gins of these fes­ti­vals cover a range of cul­tures from pre mod­ern reli­gion that com­bine threads of var­i­ous hol­i­days. When some­one knocks on my door imper­son­at­ing a  robotic look­ing devil that per­son is pro­ject­ing a fear already present in my cul­ture. By imper­son­at­ing the demons of evil I make them vis­i­ble so that I can do some­thing with them per­haps even re form them into objects of oppor­tu­nity rather than enemies.

Many of my neigh­bours around the world believe that unless departed spir­its are treated respect­fully their spir­its will haunt the liv­ing.  All of us remem­ber our loved ones who have died.  In Viet Nam josh sticks are lit on spe­cial days and food is set out for the spir­its of the dead espe­cially the ances­tors.  Accord­ing to one tra­di­tion the cus­tom of “trick or treat­ing” goes back to the mid­dle ages when poor peo­ple begged for a donut like soul cake and if they received a cake they would agree to pray for departed souls. The prayer con­nec­tion to “trick or treat” has not sur­vived but its inter­con­nec­tion to another world of dev­ils is alive at Hal­loween usu­ally at our front doors.

All Souls Day  is a time of great cel­e­bra­tion espe­cially in Latin Coun­tries and the Philip­pines.  A fes­ti­val atmos­phere not unlike a Men­non­ite relief sale per­vades as fam­i­lies spend the day and often the night at the ceme­tery where the departed ones are buried. In the Philip­pines peo­ple bring food, flow­ers, and can­dles to be placed on the grave site.  Tents are con­structed for overnight stays.

The ceme­ter­ies are so crowded that peo­ple sleep on top of the grave sites. Chil­dren invent new games like col­lect­ing melted wax and com­pete to be the one who makes the biggest ball of wax for recy­cling back home to make can­dles.  Fam­ily ties are strength­ened.  Peo­ple who have not talked to each other for months or even years due to dis­putes are forced to con­verse at the door of the  land of the dead.  Politi­cians move among the peo­ple giv­ing words of greet­ing and com­fort and silently court­ing support.

In for­mer times tra­di­tional priests sold prayers on behalf of departed souls who may be await­ing final entry into  heaven.  The reli­gious sig­nif­i­cance of All Souls Day is being eroded by advanced mar­ket prac­tices.  Chain stores set up tem­po­rary out­lets to push their prod­ucts at the ceme­tery where there is steady traf­fic.  All Souls Day and night is a time to wear good clothes.  It is an occa­sion when return­ing over­seas work­ers show off how well they are doing.  Rich peo­ple build mau­soleums, an extended crypt with ameni­ties for liv­ing, at the ceme­ter­ies where they can stay in com­fort for the entire cel­e­bra­tion.  Young peo­ple dance and kar­ioke music com­petes (and usu­ally wins) over the sound of prayers and pas­sion music.  Masked behind all the danc­ing, eat­ing and fes­tive activ­ity is the expe­ri­ence of unbro­ken con­nec­tion to the spir­its of those who con­tinue to make us who we are.

This year in the com­pe­ti­tion to wear the best Hal­loween cos­tume that imper­son­ates a mod­ern devil I bet an award some­where will go to the one who imi­tates a high finance “too big to fail” cap­i­tal­ist who just made off with a fan­tas­tic bonus.  And if the dev­ils work as a team which the top ones tend to do I bet they will find a way to shmooze with politi­cians.  Like priests in long for­got­ten cul­tures they will raise money and gar­ner power in places where the dead, whose good we cel­e­brate, can’t talk about what both­ers them and the liv­ing are cautious.

When Hal­loween is over some of us will go to church where we might be reminded that this is All Saints Day a time to  remem­ber the Saints includ­ing mar­tyrs.   Orig­i­nally many Chris­t­ian mar­tyrs were exe­cuted because they refused to wor­ship a Roman emperor, the sym­bolic head of the pub­lic reli­gion of the day.  Some came to Chris­t­ian faith as sol­diers.  Their faith inter­rupted very promis­ing careers and some­times led to per­se­cu­tion and death. Beside these ancient mar­tyrs this year we may choose to remem­ber peo­ple like Tom Fox, the CPT worker (Chris­t­ian Peace­maker Teams) who was taken hostage and killed in Iraq while try­ing to live out the way of non­vi­o­lent love.

This sea­son, Hal­loween reminds me of the dilemma that all peo­ple of the book face at some point.  If God is so good and per­fect why is there so much evil and vio­lence?  By remem­ber­ing my free­dom and auton­omy I am respected.  I am allowed to get stuck with an obses­sion that one of those dev­ils offers by trick­ing me for a treat.  I am also allowed to make choices about who I am and where I want my weight and over­weight to be felt.

The masks and elab­o­rate mas­quer­aders of the sea­son remind me of the dan­ger­ous energy around me.  I can do bet­ter. By remem­ber­ing the Saints and Souls I am inspired not to be trapped, tricked or cap­tured by the gam­bling ener­gies of high finance, con­sumerism and the atten­dant arma­ments required for their pro­tec­tion.  I don’t know if Drac­ula had all of this in mind when he inspired me to dress up for Hal­loween.  If he comes to my door later this week I will thank him for remind­ing me of all this bad stuff around me and that I (and the peo­ple of the earth) have some impor­tant choices to make in the com­ing year.

Paper Fragments

Published on October 27, 2009 by Paul Loewen. Closed

I went for a bike ride today and I ended up at some trails near where we live that go down to the bank of the Red River, and to an old aban­doned train bridge. The ground dropped a good fif­teen feet to the river and I stopped, put my bike aside, slid down, and am stand­ing on a piece of ground that has fallen away from the shore­line, and on which three trees are hang­ing out over the brown water below.

I noticed a piece of paper in the grass beside me. It was white, and on it was writ­ing in pur­ple. I picked it up, and read the four words: “I hate my life.” It was a receipt from 7–11. Some­one had pur­chased a medium slurpee and an adult monthly bus pass for a total of $74.36 on August 31st, at 8:27pm, at the 7–11 at 1131 Nairn Avenue. Now I obvi­ously imme­di­ately felt sym­pa­thy and sor­row for this per­son, that could, in ele­gant and fine hand­writ­ing, say: “I hate my life.”

Lower down on this piece of land there are other pieces of paper, a pen, pen­nies, candy wrap­pers. A plas­tic bag. And a receipt for Sirens; some­one bought a denim skirt, a PVC jacket, a solid casual top (2), boots, and a few other items. They were there on August 28th at 6:38pm. There’s a movie stub, from Kil­do­nan Place for the movie “Gamer,” only 13 days ago. A coupon book­let from La Senza. And fur­ther down, another receipt for a movie.

Some­times I put thought to the fact that there’s some 7 bil­lion peo­ple on this planet, and some 700,000 in Win­nipeg. And when you go spend an evening at the Forks, and you don’t rec­og­nize a sin­gle per­son, you real­ize just how big this world is. Some­times it’s nice to be anony­mous in a larger city. Some­times it’s sad. Clearly some­one, some­one who stood on this very same place that I’m stand­ing, some­one who was at 7–11 on August 31st at 8:27pm doesn’t like the anonymity. Doesn’t like feel­ing alone. Doesn’t like whatever’s going on in their life.

These pieces of paper — these parts of other people’s lives — serve as a reminder to the fact that this world is not about me. That this city is not about me. That this life is not about me. I am not alone. I should never pre­tend that I am. There are oth­ers — oth­ers that are here now and oth­ers that have been here before — and I can­not go through life think­ing only about me when there are peo­ple who are will­ing, who want, to write out the words “I hate my life” on the back of a receipt and leave for a ran­dom stranger to find.

Tak­ing Heart,

Paul Loewen

After Virtue Part II — Endless Debates

Published on October 21, 2009 by David Driedger. Closed

Wan­der­ing the Eth­i­cal Wilder­ness with Alas­dair Mac­In­tytre
Part I

After sketch­ing a land­scape in which our moral frame­work has been greatly dis­fig­ured and frag­mented over time Mac­In­tyre pro­ceeds with the obser­va­tion that most moral or eth­i­cal debates have no real end.  War is wrong, war can estab­lish peace, war can be just.  Abor­tion is unjust, abor­tion can be a nec­es­sary evil, women deserve to have rights over their bod­ies.  These debates con­tinue on through the years over kitchen tables, news­pa­per edi­to­ri­als, aca­d­e­mic peri­od­i­cals and gov­ern­ment debates.  Eth­i­cal debates get reduced to issues which pro­duce oppos­ing par­ties (and there­fore bat­tles of will) which in turn accept no com­mon cri­te­ria for deci­sion mak­ing even though we may evoke larger par­a­digms such as jus­tice or duty or dig­nity.  M. asserts that we have all but lost con­nec­tion to the orig­i­nal for­ma­tion of these larger moral cat­e­gories and so there can be no deci­sion mak­ing when it comes to ethics because the only thing in play is “expres­sions of pref­er­ence, expres­sions of atti­tude or feel­ing,” which he labels as emo­tivism.  With emo­tivism there can be no appeal to some­thing shared and agreed upon unless it so hap­pens that a culture’s pref­er­ences hap­pen to align.  What emerged then as moral stan­dards came from those with the great­est influ­ence and abil­i­ties of persuasion.

How­ever we might agree or dis­agree with this the­o­ret­i­cal under­stand­ing of moral think­ing M. asserts that west­ern moral­ity has sim­ply embod­ied this approach as true.

This chap­ter resounded so clearly in my mind as I raced through the end­less debates and con­ver­sa­tions I have car­ried on with friends, fam­ily and strangers only to come out either exhausted or frus­trated or most likely both.  We have lost a com­mon tra­di­tion of moral think­ing and replaced it with com­pet­ing wills to power (M. sees Nietzsche’s char­ac­ter­i­za­tion as essen­tially cor­rect).  So what do the moral char­ac­ters of M.‘s mod­ern emo­tivist moral­ity look like?  He turns to this in sub­se­quent chap­ters as he explores the Rich Aes­thete, the Bureau­cratic Man­ager and the Therapist.

Backyard Stories

Published on October 15, 2009 by Cheryl Woelk. Closed Tags: , , , , .

backyard

“What are you doing here?” He asked in a voice of intim­i­da­tion, as his young daugh­ter watched on, “Where are you com­ing from?” We had sim­ply been enjoy­ing an after­noon walk while vis­it­ing friends, his next-door neigh­bours, and were head­ing back. “Well this is my prop­erty, you should know, and you bet­ter not make it a habit com­ing through here like this.”

Shocked at his threat, I looked at the fence­less yard seam­lessly blend­ing into our friend’s. When we arrived, I had com­mented how com­mu­nal it seemed, and so nice not to have fences between the prop­er­ties. From the landowner’s response, how­ever, per­haps a fence might have been necessary.

I felt angry. I was angry at his dis­re­spect for us as his neighbour’s guests, I felt defen­sive in response to his threat, and I felt sad for the lack of hos­pi­tal­ity he showed to us as his daugh­ter watched. The intense indi­vid­u­al­ism and sense of prop­erty, jux­ta­posed with the offer­ing of open­ness and an invit­ing space con­fused me.

Our neigh­bours across the street in Har­rison­burg also have big, open back­yards. Instead of defend­ing their space, how­ever, they invite every­one to share it. Neigh­bours take turns host­ing gath­er­ings or BBQs. A lit­tle com­mu­ni­ca­tion pre­vents double-booking, and also builds rela­tion­ships. The col­lec­tive work of gar­den­ing and yard care also crosses over prop­erty lines. As recip­i­ents of their hos­pi­tal­ity, we expe­ri­enced the fruit of their community-building firsthand.

I won­der about my ten­den­cies to defend or share. Where do I seek to defend and look out for my stuff? When do I open my life and pos­ses­sions freely to the peo­ple around me? Am I hos­pitable to both strangers and guests? I hope the mes­sages I send through my responses to oth­ers, whether just pass­ing through, or long-term rela­tion­ships, will wel­come every­one into my backyard.

Crash and Bang

Published on October 13, 2009 by Paul Loewen. Closed

Jeanette and I had just stepped out of our apart­ment for our first chilly walk of the year. We usu­ally walk out the back, cross Hen­der­son, then head down to the Fraser’s Grove area. The streets are nice, the houses are nice, and the area is quiet. It’s become our favorite place to walk.

We were about 50m down Fraser’s Grove when we heard a loud noise. Imme­di­ately we assumed it was a car acci­dent. Run­ning back towards Hen­der­son, we came around the cor­ner to see an SUV in the process of run­ning over a light post on the ground. We assumed this was the acci­dent, but as we drew nearer we real­ized that this was only part of the after­shock. Two peo­ple were already mov­ing the light post from the mid­dle of Hen­der­son, get­ting pieces of it out from under their cars.

In the entrance to Tim Horton’s were two cars, the glass from their win­dows dec­o­rat­ing the pave­ment below. The red card had a rounded inden­ta­tion in its back door from where it had been pushed into the light post. On the other side was a mas­sive dent from where it had been T-boned as it turned into the park­ing lot, the South-bound SUV hit­ting its side.

By this time, many peo­ple from Tim Horton’s and other estab­lish­ments had come out and were check­ing to make sure that both dri­vers were okay. We made sure, as well, and then looked at the dam­age to the cars. In the back seat of the red car, imme­di­ately beside the inden­ta­tion from the light post, was a baby seat.

We prayed a quick thank-you that there was no baby in the seat, and that both dri­vers were on their feet. The expe­ri­ence reminded me that, as much as we feel rooted on this earth, we are here just a short period of time. As much as we assume that life is a right, it’s truly a gift. And it gives a whole new mean­ing to “God our Protector.”

Tak­ing Heart,

Paul Loewen

Reflections on ‘Preventing Violence’

Published on October 10, 2009 by Cheryl Woelk. Closed Tags: , , .

preventing_violenceFor one of my classes, I read “Pre­vent­ing Vio­lence, Prospects for Tomor­row” by James Gilli­gan. Gilli­gan presents an insight­ful the­ory of causes of vio­lence and thus vio­lence pre­ven­tion. If we think of vio­lence as an ill­ness, he says, we begin to look for under­stand­ing causes and pre­vent­ing fur­ther spread of vio­lence rather than focus­ing on blame and pun­ish­ment. Shame and humil­i­a­tion can trig­ger vio­lence in peo­ple who are also at high-risk for vio­lence due to a vari­ety of other socio-economic and polit­i­cal factors.

I find Gilligan’s com­ments about the rea­sons for the con­tin­u­a­tion of vio­lence in chap­ter 8 par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing. I had asked the ques­tion of why vio­lence con­tin­ues through­out the book. Why do peo­ple keep sham­ing oth­ers, per­pet­u­at­ing social and eco­nomic inequal­i­ties, and con­tribut­ing to other social sit­u­a­tions which they know lead to vio­lence and which they know they can rem­edy? What func­tion does vio­lence serve in society?

Gilli­gan begins to address this in the final chap­ter, although I hoped he would go fur­ther. The small group of peo­ple who have gained wealth and power in a vio­lent soci­ety need vio­lence for them to con­tinue their gains. I feel angry and a desire to lay blame while read­ing his descrip­tion of the wealthy few hav­ing so much. Yet I also agree with Gilligan’s sug­ges­tion that peo­ple do not nec­es­sar­ily have an inten­tion to hurt oth­ers. It becomes impor­tant to under­stand deeply the points of views and real­i­ties of every­one in the social struc­tures, and then to nur­ture rela­tion­ship. The struc­tures con­ve­niently hide con­nec­tions so peo­ple do not real­ize the impacts of their actions.

Gilli­gan uses a metaphor of an ocean to sum up his the­ory of vio­lence. All peo­ple share an “ocean” ecosys­tem, in which all peo­ple live and are con­nected. This ocean, though, has become so pol­luted that we can no longer see each other. This view gives a broader per­spec­tive pro­motes com­pas­sion rather than judg­ment. Every­one suf­fers from the dirty ocean, whether we real­ize it or not. The ques­tion is not about who to blame. It is “what do we do now?” and “how do we make it right?”

Wandering the Ethical Wilderness with Alasdair MacIntyre

Published on October 10, 2009 by David Driedger. Closed Tags: .

I came across the name Alas­dair Mac­In­tyre as I am sure many oth­ers have in the work of Stan­ley Hauer­was.  And as you read more Hauer­was you encounter again and again Mac­In­tyre.  I am cur­rently tak­ing a course in pro­fes­sional ethics in coun­selling and was given the oppor­tu­nity to choose a text to read and review.  I imme­di­ately took the oppor­tu­nity to finally crack open MacIntyre’s After Virtue.  I am, so far, quite intrigued and hope to share a bit of my jour­ney into the text with you.

Mac­In­tyre begins his work by ask­ing the reader to imag­ine.  Imag­ine that there were a dis­as­ter in the field of nat­ural sci­ence.  “Wide­spread riots occur, lab­o­ra­to­ries are burnt down, physi­cists are lynched, books and instru­ments are destroyed.”  And finally a polit­i­cal power comes into place and bans sci­ence from being taught or prac­ticed.  In time though there is a move­ment to revive this ancient prac­tice and a new gen­er­a­tion learns piece­meal from the scraps that remain.  A new expres­sion of sci­ence emerges but it remains arbi­trary based on par­tial and ran­dom bits of knowl­edge that have sur­vived.  No one real­izes the inac­cu­racy of what they are doing because they have no mem­ory or recorded his­tory of sci­ence as it was in its total­ity.  Mac­In­tyre sug­gests that this imag­ined state of affairs for the nat­ural sci­ences is anal­o­gous to the cur­rent state ethics.  Their remains scraps and frag­ments of eth­i­cal lan­guage and rea­son­ing but they no longer fit into the coher­ent whole from which these con­cepts and prac­tices emerged.

This was an unex­pected but help­ful frame­work by Mac­In­tyre to intro­duce his explo­ration and retrieval of par­tic­u­lar moral tra­di­tions.  I think the image by and large holds.  We con­tinue to pre­serve a par­tic­u­lar vocab­u­lary around ethics.  We speak of jus­tice, hon­esty, com­mit­ment, integrity, inten­tion, respect, val­ues, etc. and yet these terms tend to be stretched and shifted with an elas­tic­ity that makes us won­der where and how they can gain pos­i­tive and eth­i­cal trac­tion in our age.  Mac­In­tyre seems to sug­gest that there is indeed a way for­ward in ethics that is, well, eth­i­cal.  Let’s see where it goes.