Every so often, the past gives us a little nudge (or a clout). Sometimes it’s gentle…a transportive song (for me it was The Killers ‘All These Things That I Have Done), the smell of a new shower gel that was just like the one Body Shop used to make in the nineties or a Facebook memory that says, “On this day, fifteen years ago…” and shows you in a shirt you no longer own; a defined cheekbone…
Other times it’s more insistent: news from old friends, a job you almost took reappearing, or the uncanny feeling that your life has circled back to a familiar place, only this time the furniture has moved.
Our relationship with the past can be a complicated one. It’s not something we have so much as something we negotiate. Like any relationship, it can turn unhealthy if one side starts doing all the talking. There are times when nostalgia can become clingy – whispering that things were simpler, that you were better, happier, more certain. And there are other times when we treat the past like an estranged relative we’d rather not acknowledge: locked in a box marked “lessons learned,” kept safely out of sight.
Neither approach works for long. The past, inconveniently, refuses to stay where we put it.
This week, I heard that one of my old haunts had closed, permanently. A small bar where I used to work and socialise over twenty years ago. Back then it was the best of times: cheap beer (if you knew where to stand), loud music, and the easy companionship of people who had no idea where life might take them. It was the kind of place where ideas seemed bigger after midnight, where someone always had a theory about politics or God (normally me) or the perfect sandwich, and everyone else nodded like converts. I thought of Orwell in Down and Out in Paris and London, describing those drunken nights when the broke and the brilliant crowded into smoke-filled rooms, “putting the world to rights” with the unearned confidence of youth. They were penniless philosophers, dreamers in aprons, declaring revolutions between refills. For a few hours, everyone was sure of everything. Then morning came, and certainty drained away with the dregs of the bottle.
That’s what I remember most about those bar years: the illusion of endless time, and how intoxicating that was. You didn’t realise that the people sitting beside you — full of opinions, laughter, and half-plans — were already dissolving into memory.
The truth is, the past has a way of colouring how we see the present. If you leave it unchecked, it can start editing the story for you — turning every current challenge into a rerun of an old disappointment, or every opportunity into something that slipped through your fingers once before. But when you stay in conversation with it, not silencing it, not submitting to it: you start to see the past as a teacher, not a tyrant.
I once read somewhere, no idea where, but it was a philosopher reminding us that memory is not a library but a garden. You don’t just store things there; you cultivate, prune, replant. You decide what grows and what quietly composts into something useful. I’ve come to think that’s the healthiest way to manage our relationship with the past: treat it as something alive, something that needs tending.
When I look back at my own past — the countries, the schools, the people — I can see how each version of myself still lives somewhere inside me, occasionally shouting advice I didn’t ask for. The younger one says, “Be bold, take the risk.” The tired one says, “Be sensible, you’ve learned this lesson before.” And the present self stands in the middle, trying to referee the debate.
Maybe that’s the work of adulthood: learning to let the past speak without letting it drive. To take its wisdom without accepting its fear. To love who we were without wanting to move back in with them.
On a cellular level, we are literally not the same person we were back then. What gives us our identity, even our personage, are our memories. The philosopher John Locke argued that personal identity is founded on consciousness, not on the substance of the soul or body. What makes a person the same person over time, he said, is the memory of past experiences.
So, we’re stuck with it. Our past is the necessary scaffolding of our identity, the backstory of every decision. But like any relationship, it needs boundaries. We can listen, but we don’t have to obey. We can remember, but we don’t have to recreate.
The past, at its best, is a mentor who steps aside once the student can stand alone. At its worst, it’s a ghost who keeps rearranging the furniture.
The trick, I think, is to keep it close enough to converse with, but far enough to keep perspective. To let it remind you where you came from but not dictate where you go next. And to plan for the future – to see opportunities not turned pale by thought of past failures, but instead grasped by the ‘new’ you.
There was an international break in March. For those unaware, the ‘international break’ is normally a couple of weeks where football (soccer, but I’ll be calling it football today) that is played in England’s top tier (the Premier League) pauses so that players can play for their own countries in international friendlies or cup qualifiers. It’s also a break for fans like me whose team, like a toothache which leaves them in perpetual discomfort and concern with brief moments of relief, are not at their best.
I support Everton FC.
Don’t worry. I’m not about to angrily disgorge a thousand words about the state of Everton FC on my blog. In fairness, things are looking up: new stadium is looking fabulous, the financial fair play rule issues that have dogged us for so long seem to be resolving themselves and finally, it looks like we are signing players in the right positions, I mean, how many times have we been obstreperously banging on about full backs who can…wait…wait…Dillon…happy place…you promised – remember?
I did. Actually, this blog will combine Everton, football in general, the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity from Thomas Aquinas and the philosophical concept of ‘mereology’. These all sound like rather strange bedfellows, so I’ll explain as succinctly as I can how they came together in my brain and what I mean when I make the statement: I love Everton more than football.
It’s Spring Break, I’ve had a little more thinking time.
It all began because it’s the international break (as mentioned earlier) and I was recalling a conversation I’d had with a work colleague, in a bar in Tashkent, when we were chatting about the England international team. It was just before the European championships and he was asking me about my thoughts on such and such player and potential systems England could play as well as my view on other players from other European countries and honestly, I couldn’t really engage too deeply on this because I don’t really care about the England football team, I love Everton.
I am, what is classically referred to as a ‘club over country’ man.
Well, the discourse remained buoyant and frothy dark beer kept coming and I was probably very erudite and sophisticated and at one point during a feisty encounter, while the table received multiple index finger jabs, my friend said: ‘I think you love Everton more than football’.
Let me tell you something about frothy dark beer. Frothy dark beer drank too excess does not mix well with coherent, rational philosophical thought. Therefore, I agreed with him about the Everton thing and popped that comment into my long-term memory. I say ‘popped’, I probably fell over a couple of times through the frontal lobe on the way, leaned on a brick wall around the limbic lobe, threw up all over hypothalamus (which will stain, no doubt) before eventually arriving at the hippocampus wearing inexplicably only one shoe.
However, it got there and stuck around and was unexpectedly recalled after I’d engaged this week in another favoured past time, reading about the concepts of God. My preferred concept of God (because like ice cream, we all like different flavours) is a ‘Simple God’. Now, I want you to read my blog and enjoy my musings, so I am going to explain this as succinctly as possible. Before I do, let’s be clear, I am no theologian and certainly not an academic. I read this stuff because it’s excellent mental exercise and very interesting.
A simple God is popular with several medieval philosophers, but I’m taking directly from Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas was a fascinating chap and wrote extensively and exhaustively about God including his most famous work Summa Theologiae but ended giving it all up after an epiphany because, and he states: “All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me.”
I thought ‘epiphanies’ were meant to be good things, so there you go. Anyway, they made him a saint so I’m sure he’s not complaining.
Parked within his hefty tomes is the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity (DDS) which states that God is completely without parts or divisions—He is not made up of separate qualities or components like created things – He simply, is. Unlike humans, who have distinct attributes (e.g., we have wisdom, power, and goodness as separate qualities), in God, His wisdom, power, and goodness are all identical with His very being. He does not “have” existence; He is existence itself. This means God is unchangeable, eternal, and perfect, because any change or division would imply imperfection. I don’t know about you, but I need an example to help me with knotty concepts so an example of this is light. We know that a pure beam of white light may appear simple, but when passed through a prism, it reveals different colours. God, however, is not like the divided light; He remains fully unified, with no separation between His attributes. It’s a hugely problematic position to hold and has come under fire a great many times over the last 800 years or so, however, I really enjoy the argument’s structure its overall ontological deliberations and (unlike God’s necessity) I have a good grasp of it.
Reading through DDS during the international break dislodged the ‘You love Everton more than football’ comment from my hippocampus (never found the shoe) and given that I am on Spring Break (did I mention that I have a little more time) it occurred to me that I wonder if it makes sense to love the whole of a thing (Everton) more than an important part of it (football).
To give this a proper good going over, I am going to need another philosophical concept and one that I grasp even less than God’s necessity. It’s from the branch of philosophy related to formal logic and it’s the one that the mathematicians love and the one I’m most likely to swerve at parties. If you’ve ever tried your hand at the metaphysics of logic, then you have my respect – these guys are a league of their own. However, I try to be sociable and know I will always learn something, so I grab a handful of kettle chips (but no dark frothy beer…especially with the logicians) and try and get involved.
The branch of logic I require is called mereology:
Mereology is the philosophical study of part-whole relationships, exploring how entities are composed, how they interact, and what it means for something to be a part of something else. Mereology focuses on concrete objects, such as a wheel being part of a car or a brick being part of a house, as well as abstracta, like a melody being part of a symphony or a chapter being part of a novel.
A key topic in mereology is the push-pull between what’s termed constituent ontology and a non-constituent ontology. Ontology is the branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of being, existence, and reality and a constituent ontology examines whether objects are fundamentally composed of more basic constituents or if wholes exist independently (non-constituent ontology). For example, as shown above, constituent ontologies, define entities based on their decomposable parts (e.g., “a car consists of an engine, wheels, and a chassis”). A non-constituent ontology might instead classify a car based on its function (e.g., “a car is used for transportation and is related to roads and traffic laws”).
Arguments about the coherence of DDS have been played out between these two competing ontologies with a far greater detail, sophistication and application then what’s about to happen here! I’m in it for the mental workout.
On first blush, it makes perfect sense to say that the F.C. part of Everton FC is pretty intrinsic. I would certainly agree that Everton FC would not exist physically without a stadium, or ticket sales, or staff and players or a whole myriad of physical constituent parts. Everton is contingent upon its physical parts – like a car is contingent upon its physical parts. What’s interesting here is that stadiums, tickets and persons who play football are all concrete that is to say they all exist in our physical world or to put it how philosophers would frame it: they are temporally located and extend through space, like you, right now, reading this, in whatever place you’re at, whatever time you’re in.
However, ‘Everton’ and ‘Football’ are not physical; they are not concrete; they are in of themselves abstract. I can go to Goodison Park (at least till June!), buy scarves with the Everton crest. As well, I can point at 22 persons kicking a ball for ninety minutes in adherence to the rules of football – but I cannot touch ‘Everton’ or ‘Football’. They are both concepts – they are both abstract. So the concept of Everton FC could equally be realised as having the following parts: A community of persons, either in that area of Liverpool or anywhere in the world with a shared love of the values of Everton. Seen as parts, these values have (in my view) virtuous properties for example: charity work, community projects and team values such as togetherness, perseverance, loyalty and honour. The ‘Football Club’ (FC) part is a sporting pastime that could equally be any other sporting pastime related to the geographical location on ‘Everton’ or intrinsic value parts related to ‘Everton’. Therefore, the parts of Everton: community, history; geography; tradition; spirit are equal in relation to the part of ‘football’ (a sport that is played by a set of rules and outcomes) giving us Everton FC.
Everton’s function is as a club that plays football, but it also serves as a community focus, charitable exercise, embodiment of values that could be considered virtuous (teamwork, perseverance, fair play, community focused) a function that provides a continuous tradition that links these values (parts) across decades of history.
Furthermore, by applying a non-constituent ontology to the concept of Everton FC as a whole and by not placing any kind of hierarchal ‘part-whole’ structure onto ‘Everton’ and ‘Football Club’ I can talk of Everton FC’s parts as being relational or associative to its whole. Football Club is a part of Everton but only in relation to the club not as a constituent part (as Everton is also a geographical place with values). Everton is in equal relation to its other parts: community, spirit, charity etc. as it is to ‘football’
So, when I consider the parts of Everton FC as relational and I think about the part of ‘football’ as well as its other parts – there’s sense in saying that in relation, the parts of the club that are identified as ‘Everton’ as: honour; community; charity; perseverance; tradition are in of themselves more virtuous than ‘football’ and are more deserving of my love than a game of football.
So, I can love Everton more than football.
That said, if they sign a good ‘right back’ next season along with a couple of wingers who could provide decent service to a number nine…I could easily be swayed.
In the city we currently call home, the main language appears to be Russian. The ‘second’ language is Uzbek – but only with the confines of its capital, Tashkent. I am reliably informed that the more we explore Uzbekistan, the more we will hear its own language. This is the fourth foreigncountry I have lived in and my first since France (over 25 years ago) where English is not the main international language. We were given fair warning that this would be the case and decided as a family to embrace this challenge and put various language apps and some good old-fashioned confidence and bravado to good use.
Five months in and we have a good grasp of some basic phrases, numbers and can read the letters phonetically. It’s not bad given the overstuffed confection box of new experiences we’ve had to sample and familiarize ourselves with, including navigating the weekly grocery shop. We have started using the local markets to buy the bulk of our groceries – if for not for any other reason than it is certainly cheaper. But we have found it has, to some degree, accelerated our learning of the Russian language. There are a couple of stalls where I am now recognized with a degree of familiarity:
“As-salamu alaykum” shouts the dairy guy as he sees me coming to buy our weekly 8 liters of milk ( we really should simply invest in a cow) – his hand warmly outstretched.
Walaykum-asalma” I reply.
Uzbekistan being 90% Muslim means you mostly hear the Arabic greeting – and the locals are always surprised to hear me giving the correct Arabic response!
I got round to learning the Russian numbers and alphabet and, along with some stock phrases and most often used nouns, he and I can converse very simply on what is required on that day.
Most folks we interact with have as little working English as we do Russian. However, there’s a cashier in our local supermarket ‘Korzinka’ who is always pleased to see me so she can use some of her English (and I my Russian). I popped in yesterday and store was uncharacteristically busy. I searched on my Google Translator for the phrase ‘it is busy today’ but then remembered that I am some ways off a reciprocal conversation – and even if I managed to say the sentence correctly – there could be no back and forth. And that’s when I realized how much I miss the simple exchange between strangers.
All my life I have taken for granted, as an English speaker, the ability to converse with those around me – but not just converse but convey light and shade – depth and width depending on the nature of the interaction. This ability, this often-daily connection has been temporarily suspended…and I miss it.
There are many situations where we find ourselves conversing with someone new. Maybe it is purposeful, with utility at its core; there’s something I need from this new person and likewise, a service they may be paid to give. Then there’s situations where a shared experience is heightened by turning to a fellow patron and exchanging views, emotions, reactions, and insights. When you think about it – communicating with strangers is something that happens so frequently, fluidly, fleetingly and, at times, fruitfully – that its position within the framework of our human experience is less functional and more proprietorial.
A stranger is another person with whom we are not familiar. And there are no guarantees that the time of interaction with a stranger will necessarily inform greater familiarity. As I have stated, interactions with strangers vary from the purposeful to the accidental – from the obligatory to the exploratory. What I miss, funnily enough, is the obligatory. Maybe it’s my Englishness…that’s not a rabbit hole I plan to explore here! I think that for the most part, we all recognize and agree with Aristotle that we should pursue a ‘good’ life and part of that goal is an obligation to a degree of civility and adherence to a ‘moral code’. Therefore, what troubled me most, given my newfound challenging situation? Is it that I could be perceived as rude? I mean, there aren’t a great many Caucasian men here in Tashkent, so I would assume most folks would initially surmise my foreign status – and I certainly know the greetings.
No, my melancholic reflection was not ushered in by some worry of being rude.
More plausibly it could be that I always have something to say! Now, there’s some truth to that! I am not going to sit here typing away and pretend that my personality is not underpinned by a social confidence that enjoys watching myself navigate conversations. But again, that’s not what is at the core of the malaise. It is simply because I am not fulfilling that obligation to converse and connect. Every interaction is like a simple melody – it has a beginning, a middle and an end. I have the beginning, it’s typed into my Google Translate and I often practice how to say it so that it’s not too ‘Franglaise’ (or should I say…Englussian…?), but there is the middle part that will come…the listener ready for the a reciprocal comment in Russian…and it will not come. I am in the current sticking point in this stage of my learning where I feel the scald of inability to completely fulfill my obligation.
I am confident, as with my French, that I will reach a degree of simple conversational Russian if we stay in Tashkent long enough. What I will remember, however, is that some obligations should not be seen as being needfully and dutifully filled with dispassionate execution – maybe, more than I realize, some obligations should be coupled with warmth. Why? Because some obligations pin my humanity, badge my morality and can simply make my day.
Religions come and go – their plurality and diversity representative of the complexity and mystery of the human mind. However, ‘faith’: that ability to believe beyond our knowing is a constant, intrinsic and universal trait we all share.
In this month’s blog I want to establish that ‘faith’ is an inherent quality and essential to our humanity. Whether you believe in God or not, our capacity for faith and its transcendental essence is an indispensable part of our personhood and as such should be respected. It is a quality that, arguably, sets us apart from all other sentient beings on Earth. However, that some folks want to compartmentalise, rationalise and indoctrinate that ‘faith’ into rules of being, acting and speaking is not obligated to be respected – only tolerated.
Apparently – he was great.
Back in the dusty days of 313AD – when Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs would not have substituted ‘Wifi and Battery’ for ‘Physical Needs’ the earth bound but thoroughly omnipotent Roman Emperor Constantine proclaimed that Christianity should be decreed ‘tolerant’ in the empire. Great news for the Christians who up until that point had been having a thoroughly awful time of it. Emperor Constantine (who, as powerful men go, has a belter of a name; far more magnificent than Jeff, Bill or Steve) ruled across continents and also claimed his own conversion to Christianity thus paving the way for this burgeoning monotheistic belief system predicated upon a God literally walking the earth to take a firm hold.
Some three hundred years later, in the deserts of Saudi Arabia – the prophet Mohammed (PBUH) also declared that all ‘peoples of the book’ should be tolerated
‘Do not argue with the followers of earlier revelations otherwise than in a most kindly manner…’
(Qu’ran 29:46)
Despite the affirmative announcements from these two men – the reality of tolerance never became a thing of permanency. In the Middle East, from Constantine’s century onwards, Sunni and Shi’ite divisions emerged in Islam and and in the west, schisms in Catholicism took hold – Western Europeans (in particular) endured burnings and torture as Catholics and Protestants bludgeoned it out across the centuries proclaiming the heretical nature of the other. John Locke, the 17thcentury English philosopher, who philosophised consistently if not prodigiously on toleration wrote in his ‘letter on toleration’ (against the backdrop of this religious fire and fury) that religious toleration was about allowing persons to be free to practice their faith without fear of persecution. Again, the jury remains out as to whether anyone paid attention.
This is where writing my own blog is such fun: I agree with Emperor Constantine The Great, The Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) and the Oxford Scholar and world renowned philosopher John Locke – we should tolerate religious belief in so far as it should be permitted without persecution. Where I disagree is on how much ‘respect’ I should be obligated to give it. That should be saved for ‘faith’.
Some were less tolerant that others.
Let’s start with ‘toleration’. I think there can be agreement that Locke’s definition of religious toleration is a good enough universal understanding of the term. Let’s allow fellow humans to worship in peace so long as that doing so contravenes no objectively held moral no-no’s (like, no-one should tolerate a return to Mayan sacrificial ceremonies – even if there’s ‘pot-luck’ afterwards). Subjectively speaking, toleration is about standing aside, but not following behind. It’s about taking a person’s way of practicing or speaking on a topic – recognising a connection to a more concrete aspect of our shared humanity but not necessarily committing to its values and beliefs. For example, I don’t necessarily agree or get behind views espoused by right-wing politicians…but I tolerate their opinions because I fundamentally respect free speech. Respect the intrinsic right, tolerate the subjective practice.
Respect is different from toleration. Respect requires you to not only allow but also recognize and give obligations to the necessary elements of a thing because those elements have an intrinsic worth (possibly because it is a universally shared trait or an objective moral good). For example, I always think that those who serve in the military are a good illustration of this. We would all agree that we must tolerate (to some degree) decisions made by democratically elected governments, even if their surface ideology isn’t aligned with ours. Even more divisive is when those governments vote for military conflict. All that said and however we may feel about those politicians who vote to using force, the men and women who serve their countries commit to an element of sacrifice to a higher cause, above and beyond their own lives, a transcendental sense of duty and that obligates our respect, that ‘oughts’ us to listen, respond and respect in that calling, irrespective of how we might feel about a governments’ decision.
So, what we tolerate – we permit, but we are not obligated to do any more than allow it to exist without persecution. What we respect, we are obligated to be party to some or all of its cause, aligning ourselves with some value – for there is some universally agreed element of that thing be it objectively ‘good’ or a shared human element that we must allow and accept. To this end, I tolerate the practice of religion – but save my respect for everyone’s capacity for faith.
What the theist will most likely struggle with here is my desire to bifurcate faith and religion (I’ll be honest, I wrote this blog more than partly to use word ‘bifurcate’…tick). Faith is a fundamental and indispensable part of religion. It is the engine that drives a belief system that a divine power: unobservable, untestable and unmeasurable can still exact force and cause on a natural world. Faith (in its religious context) is the belief in something that we cannot see, hear, touch or taste but that forces control over our lives and every single atom on the planet. So why do I respect ‘faith’ when I don’t necessarily agree that such a thing exists? For me, the intrinsic part of a person’s faith is the belief in something greater than themselves which, practiced at its best, is something which is a force for good. Examples can be found in Art and Music, particularly religious music. I respect those individual persons whose belief in a higher ‘good’ (and it must be ‘good’ to be worthy of respect) can move them to create music and art that transcends, inspires and invigorates. Faith moves us beyond the limits of ourselves.
I want to maintain the word ‘faith’ as narrowly defined in its spiritual understanding. I recognise we can ‘have faith’ in events yet unfolded that we hope will be positive or ‘faith’ in other people’s best selves – but for the purpose of clarity and semantic truth, I am using ‘faith’ to mean belief in an unseen deity (or deities). It’s a committed move on my account – because I must establish that ‘faith’ whilst differently perceived between persons, is an intrinsic element of being human – therefore, as we should respect human freedom, pursuit of happiness and our own and others physical fidelity ; we respect faith because it could be argued to be what makes us uniquely human. For the atheist or the phenomenologist – Faith is either illusory or a construct to make sense of a world out of our control and whose mechanical clicks and whirrs we are but witnesses too… but I wonder if the necessary presence of a capacity for faith, even faith that a mechanical universe can click at all – is power enough to make it worthy of respect? . Maybe that’s a topic for another blog.
To cleave ‘faith’ and ‘religion’ I am establishing that ‘faith’ is an intrinsic human quality that we all possess that allows us to doubt the limitations of our senses and believe in powers unseen. However, to categorize, rationalize and order this component of our humanity – humans turn to religion. Religion is the ordered and proselytized practice of the doctrine of scripture and its codes of conduct. It is the thing that takes the natural element of our ‘faith’ and utilitarianizes into ‘do such and such’ for a good outcome and ‘avoid such and such’ to negate a bad outcome. It is how humans have practiced their faith and has changed over the eons. From a panoply of Gods to the axial age of monotheism. From deities in your drinking water to deities in your dreams. And as prophets, seers and shamans have codified and sought to rationalize this unseen phenomenon so we are fraught with scriptural contradictions, contrary understandings and at worst, the appropriation of words of conduct twisted to make normal that which should be abominable. Such is the complexity and fallibility of religious teaching.
The constant unchanging form – is the faith that sustains them. Religion needs faith, more than faith needs religion.
Conclusion
If faith is a part of who we are and is what connects us as humans, then it is worthy of our respect. We should tolerate others’ views and practices (where doing so contravenes no civil or universal moral law) because in doing so we are ourselves lifted. However, never forget the essence which drives all of this – a capacity for faith. The essence which juices your self-belief when all things seem low, because maybe someone or something out there will provide for the best you can be. It’s what coaches your drive to be as good as you possibly can be – the faith that there could be a greater version of you existing beyond, though not impossibly beyond, your natural world. Let’s all respect that capacity for faith both within ourselves and others – and tolerate that joy and passion to be expressed by the clasping of hands, the removal of shoes, the bowing of heads, and the recitation of prayers.
In this months blog I have been reflecting on ‘regret’. Regret is an emotion that, unlike its more fleeting extended family members, can stay with us for the entirety of our lives. It comes to us at the lowest point and whilst its attachment to our souls can be light enough to bear; it can often be so burdensome that learning to live with it can take a lifetime. However, when we accept its encumbrance, it can facilitate healing and, in some ways, let us experience what it means to be a truly vulnerable, imperfect, humble and hopeful human. There are times though when we would do anything but confront regret, but we can’t change the past – so why does wrestling with regret often mean trying to unpin ourselves from that we have no earthly power to manage?
We can regret our own past actions, past actions of others, future actions and acts not even committed. I remember many years ago, fresh out of theatre school, I was asked by my former drama teacher if I would like to pop back to my old secondary school and lead a GCSE drama class. As the topic was ‘movement’ one such exercise involved watching each other walk around the room to try and determine a character trait. One girl walked a couple of circles and as we watched I made a mental note to ask her why she had her arm tucked into her jumper during the whole exercise. When she stopped (to a trickle of applause) I fully realised, she only had one arm. The words ‘why was your arm tucked into your jumper’ were literally forming in my mouth, awaiting a single draw of air to make them real. I gobbled them up. But here I am, some 30 years later, regretting the thought and, even more bizarrely, regretting ‘what might have happened?’
And it is this facet of ‘regret’ which I find the most puzzling. What might be the possible ‘good’ in mentally revisiting something we regret? What might be the reasons we ponder so on how things ‘should’ve been’ if only we had the chance to do it again?
Why do we regret that which we cannot change?
At its best – regret is a teacher. A harsh teacher, but an honest one – and one who knows that the lessons learnt will last a lifetime. Regret can inform us on how to do better or act better should a similar situation arise. Regret teaches us to be humble and to seek forgiveness of others when those sorrowful feelings are authentic and deeply felt. At its best – regret makes us better people. In some ways, it hoists us to the highest part of our humanity: selflessness.
But that’s some monolith of an ideal to scale. When you reflect on the periods or episodes in your life when your actions have had negative consequences for yourself or for others – have you always managed the high level of reflection and communication needed to obtain the sagacity of regret along with the vulnerably to accept its enlightening potential – or do you just wish you could’ve rappelled back down, gone back and done it differently?
There could possibly be some good in revisiting a regretful episode to glean some learning from it. Maybe there’s a puzzle element in this recounting and revisiting that could have some value. Maybe if I had said x instead y then z would not have happened which ended up being a negative and uncomfortable experience. Maybe, if having said y instead of x your pet cat ‘Tiddles’ may have found the power of speech and finally had the chance to tell you that they’ve had ‘proper’ tuna and that ‘Whiskas Tuna’ tastes nothing like the real thing. You see what else we can do when we permit ourselves an unobtainable fantasy? There is a difference between learning about ourselves and connecting with a wrong-doing and reimagining a fantasy world where everything turned out right in the end.
It is our nature to wish things could have gone better. I cannot begin to tell you how many arguments I win in my head whilst showering in the morning. I mean I am slaying my interlocuters. It’s embarrassing really. But when the shower is turned off and I realise that that the sound of blood rushing to my head was drowning the sound water beating against it – I am no better off, I am no wiser for the exercise.
And yet, it is still done. We still revisit, recount and replay knowing full well that the scenario in our heads my change, but the reality stays the same and there is no replay only repair; there is no redo…only regret.
So, what exactly are we ‘regretting’ when we refuse to accept that which has already happened? Clearly, there is the regret of the negative outcome and to whomever that had afflicted. There is also the regret that our character has been stained by the event – maybe to such a degree that no ‘walk-back, double down, 90-degree cotton spin cycle’ could ever shift it. So, to some end, ‘regret’ here could be that we hadn’t spotted a way out. If we are replaying the incident in our heads, we are not searching for a solution (for that is impossible to attain) we are searching for an excuse – a way of viewing it differently. To this end, when we replay and revisit – we are not wishing for a better outcome or seeking the learning moment, but instead – like a pit-bull defence attorney, stalking a witness and eyeing a changeable jury – we are searching for the evidence to prove we were not in the wrong. Ultimately, we are seeking an acquittal from regret and move to the less serious crime of ‘well, I’m sorry I made you feel that way’. If we can sidestep the impending ‘regret verdict’ – that could seem like a win.
Because that’s the problem with regret – its finality. Once we are tried, we are sentenced. Maybe the desperate actions of replaying and recounting could be the first steps in a grieving process – denial – for if we’ve wronged, we know what comes next – and it ain’t always nice. It’s like a sprawling dark theme park, mournful and sullen with rides upon rides, each one requiring you to experience an emotion that’s unwelcome, uncomfortable and may possibly require another turn. But ride them we must for if we fully accept our culpability and enter our guilty plea- there’s no turning back. You gotta buckle up and settle in. The journey through regret is ours to take, but not always ours alone.
It’s irrational to relive the past and believe that in doing so it will change. It’s disingenuous to relive and replay an event, if we were totally culpable, in order to win out on a technicality so as to avoid the longevity of discomfort regret can bring. If we choose to regret that which we cannot change, it is most likely to no positive end. What is done, is done.
Regret, instead, is the beginning and not the mournful end.
Conclusion
I would bet that accepting blame, pushing through its challenges and actively seeking to repair has actually levelled you up. There’s something about the truthfulness and vulnerability of owning our constant imperfection that provides an opportunity for growth. To touch the face of perfection rather than don its mask. I would also bet that not every regretful episode has been profoundly despairing, with some finally yielded a positive nurturing mindset. The consequences of our negative and regretful action don’t end with everyone looking peeved and the rolling of credits to a melancholic piano. How regret informs an ‘ending’ is unknown. But a mindset that personal growth, nurtured through the repair to those harmed can be known and that such a mindset reminds us that our ‘ideal-self’ is not always an abstract fantasy.
Before school finished (finally) for summer, my Primary (Elementary) aged son came home pleased to have received a certificate from school praising his hard work and effort. We were delighted to hear about his journey and reflected with him on the ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ of a year like no other (fingers crossed). However, it felt discombobulating that he should be rewarded for something that is good ‘in of itself’. We wouldn’t ply him with rewards for being ‘honest’ or for showing ‘respect’ because those are qualities he should possess – because they themselves are good qualities.
When we talk about something being ‘good, in of itself’ we mean that the thing doesn’t require anything else to make it ‘good’. For example, the member of staff who helped pack my shopping today shouldn’t be thanked because he did his job, his job is not what defines him– he is thanked because he is a fellow human and that kindness, that ‘thanking someone’ is a virtuous act that is good ‘all by itself’.
My argument this month is that if we place a work ethic as a ‘rewardable act’, in school it somehow makes its nature, its essence, contingent on an external, rewardable, measurable outcome. In other words: we make ‘working hard’ a rewardable act instead of an established virtue in of itself. If, in its place, we reinforce the value and virtue of hard work through reflection – and support internalising it within the individual child – then we respect that a work ethic is good ‘in of itself’ which doesn’t need a reward to validate it.
You may or may not know it, but if you work with children in any capacity be it their parent, teacher, guidance counsellor…you will most likely utilize behaviorist psychology to bend them to your will. ‘Behaviorism’ refers to a branch of experimental psychology which places the importance on learning through association rather than ‘cognition’ which relies more on logical structures. Whether you explicitly learned such techniques in training for a role – or recall how effective they were on you; behaviorism is the brand leader and therefore most recognizable technique for disciplining and modifying child behavior.
Of Behaviorism’s product range – one of the most popular is ‘operant conditioning’. This is the one where good deeds are rewarded and bad deeds punished. Only children who are good get ice cream. If you keep picking your nose, your brains will fall out. If the wind changes, it’ll stay that way…forever. These examples of ‘positive reinforcement’ and ‘negative reinforcement’ are very effective in modifying behaviors. Any time you have laid out a course of action for a child – and wish them to attain a goal – you may promote a pleasing outcome if done correctly or a less than positive outcome to keep them on the straight and narrow. Either way, tangible rewards, punishments or dire consequences can be powerful associations to learning. If you work in teaching, behaviorist techniques are a daily tool in the ever-present toolbox.
For the purpose of this month’s blog, it is the technique of positive reinforcement through a tangible reward that will be my focus.
Nothing wrong with this per se. Operant conditioning is highly effective, especially when it comes to gaining results in an expedient way. Recently, Carol Dweck, in her groundbreaking book on ‘Mindsets’ changed the game somewhat when she suggested that teachers should seek to reward ‘effort’ not ‘outcome’. Her shift of using positive reinforcement for the effort put in toward a goal over the measurable outcome of the goal itself was, in my view, a welcome shift from the old paradigm of praise the trophy, not the journey. However, I cannot help but feel an extra opportunity is being missed in terms of supporting the child’s growth as a person, for whilst rewarding effort is commendable – it is still a ‘reward’ and an extrinsically sought reward as well.
Extrinsic rewards or motivations are those things sought outside of ourselves. If teenagers tidied their rooms (right!) for fear of an argument with a parent or for $20, that’s an extrinsic motivation. The consequence is coming from ‘outside’ of themselves.
“I need to act in this (good) way, for fear of a bad consequence (negation of reward) or in the hope of a good consequence (gaining a reward). “
If the same teenager tidies their room because a tidy room is virtuous and keeping it tidy maintains that virtue – their motivation is intrinsic. The desire to do well is acted upon not because of a consequence, but because it is good ‘in of itself’. They may experience good feelings and positive sensations and garner the praise of others – but these were not the primary motivations.
I would argue as well then, that intrinsic motivations are more sustainable. They are internalized and are acted upon because of the ‘good’ that the action itself possesses. They are locked in, and not only because it makes the person feel good – but they are ‘objectively’ good and transcend the need for reward. Extrinsic motivations rely on others or in some cases on the constant requirement of a separately sourced outside consequence. Rewards must also be well considered – they must match the achievement. What person would engage in a gargantuan effort for a small candy bar?
How could promoting this mindset look in the actual real world? Let’s imagine that ‘Sally’ has worked hard on her ‘Volcano’ project for school. Her final piece is not terribly good, but the teacher wishes to reward her effort:
Extrinsic / Consequence/ Reward: Fantastic effort today, Sally – here is your effort certificate.
Intrinsic/ Good in itself / Virtuous: Sally, I think you have worked very hard today, but how do you feel about your efforts? What were some of the positives from working as hard as you did? Do you think others should work hard as well? If so, why?
Let me stress – I am not ‘anti-rewards’ for effort – of course not. But I would argue that a model of reflection and critical thought promotes a deeper connection to a virtuous act – an extended learning opportunity. Her hard work isn’t finished with the brandishing of the reward, but instead a process of reflection, discussion and critical thoughts which embeds the virtue of working hard beyond measurable outcomes or full-stop rewards. Ideally, Sally is left not feeling like she has been given a token gesture – but she’s been able to fully understand the quality that working hard and persevering enriches not only her own learning – but is a constructive personality trait.
Why should a ‘work ethic’ or the practice of putting in effort be considered so highly? It doesn’t require much in the way of evidence gathering to know this to be true and not just in schools but in the workplace, culturally and spiritually. Two of the world’s largest religions have some clarity on the virtue of hard work. Most famously in Christianity is the ‘Protestant Work Ethic’. This perspective, forged from Calvinism, places significant importance on act of working hard as being good ‘in of itself’ where working hard, along with ascetism and frugality’ is of itself a form of worship to God. This belief of working hard as an act of worship is also mirrored in Islam with Qur’an being pretty clear that time should not be wasted.
But hold up – surely this isn’t universally true!? The German existentialist philosopher, Frederick Nietzsche, doesn’t necessarily agree that ‘working hard’ is always good in of itself. In his ‘Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality’ he opined how whilst the virtue of a hard work ethic will use up all that ‘nervous energy’ it comes at the cost of energies being put into ‘love, refection, brooding and dreaming. I will leave it up to each of you to make your own decisions on the virtue of brooding. It’s worth pointing out that, in the same book, Nietzsche also said that ‘I deny morality just as I deny alchemy’! However, the point here is that where we put our hard work and efforts is a whole other story!
It would be hard to deny the argument that, whether through philosophical reasoning or its application in everyday life, a work ethic is an objectively good thing. This status places it alongside fairness, kindness, benevolence, perseverance, honesty – all virtuous actions that feel beyond the chocolate bar and a pat on the head. These ways of being or ways of acting are not virtuous because of their consequences or how they can be measured, they are valued as good in themselves – shouldn’t ‘working hard’ rank alongside them?
This month’s post takes on a deeply personal note. Earlier this month a friend of mine, and to many in the hospitality community of Leeds, died far too soon. As with previous recent personal losses, I have found the Facebook Remembrance pages a real comfort and something of a ‘living’ memoriam. In this post I will share my views and insights on this service provided by FB and why I believe, against the myriad of things they do that make me question my ‘membership’, it is something of true value.
To the lay persons amongst us – Facebook is a bright, red pocked reversed saltire of organized chaos. Its innumerable features come and go like guests at a party with each one either improving with age or ignominiously leaving without a parting word. In the 14 years I have used the social media platform I’ve kept the number of bells and whistles I ring and play with to an absolute minimum. However, when my brother passed away in 2015, we had to address his social media identity. Simon was not an avid user of social media per se – but he enjoyed posting on subjects that were close to his heart: such as the local community buzz and his passion for cars. When Simon died, we had to organize for his Facebook profile to be changed to ‘Remembering…’. I don’t recall it being a laborious process; one more sorrowful light switched off as we cleared the rooms of a life lived. However, his remembrance page became a place where friends and family could share pictures and memories as we all expressed our grief and came to terms with our loss.
It wasn’t until a few years back when the full capacity for Facebook remembrance became more visceral. In February of 2018, one of my closest friends died after fighting lung cancer for twelve months at the age of 42. David and I first worked together at The Wardrobe restaurant and nightclub in 1999 and remained very close for nearly twenty years and shared, unlike my brother, a wide and very active social circle. At the time of his death, he had a five-year-old son, and my two boys were six and eleven respectively – so we shared lives beyond the hedonism of our twenties and well into the ‘middleship’ of our new families. I was certain we would see retirement together and fill the autumn years of our friendship with time spent reminiscing to the sounds of laughter from our respective grandchildren. His death was a hammer blow. A desperately unfair event that came with no justification – just a steep drop off a smooth unforgiving cliff face with no ridges, hand or foot holds to cling to and take stock – until his Facebook profile moved into ‘remembering’.
It quickly filled with pictures, videos, stories of rum-fueled, beer powered exploits through the bars and restaurants of Leeds a number of which we worked in or opened together. It became a place to find purchase – to pull ourselves into a place of some security – where grief ‘could happen’ and be shared across time zones and free from geographical boundaries. To this extent – it operated as a traditional ‘In-Memoriam’
The concept of ‘in-memoriam’ has been a western stalwart of the grieving process for over a millennia. An opportunity for all who knew the departed soul to mark make on how their living spirit had touched their lives and shaped their own identities. It also operates as a grief-marker for those of us forced to live ‘after-life’.
The concept of ‘in-memoriam’ has been a western stalwart of the grieving process for over a millennia. An opportunity for all who knew the departed soul to mark make on how their living spirit had touched their lives and shaped their own identities. It also operates as a grief-marker for those of us forced to live ‘after-life’.
‘After life’ is an interesting term. Within everyday conversation it refers to those who believe in an immaterial soul whose existence carries once the body has ceased to be. We can never truly know whether this is true, but we do know that we ourselves, those ‘left behind’, must lead lives ‘after’ the passing of a loved one. To this extent it is we who are experiencing an ‘after-life’. David’s death and the use of his FB ‘Remembering’ page gave an added dimension to coping ‘after-life’ and remains a way of coping to this day.
Our Facebook pages are an extension of our identity – an updated digital representation of our conscious minds. Though it is managed by us, its necessary component is that it is co-constructed with friends and family. So even though it is our conscious mind that creates and updates our profile – that other important element, the part co-constructed by others…continues. So, unlike a ‘book of remembrance, ‘remembrance’ becomes active. The architect has passed on – but we, the friends and family keep building. David was a chef by trade and taught me a great deal about how to love food. Not long after he died, I was at a friendly gathering where a professional chef and friend to the host was cooking. My eldest son donned an apron got stuck into the ‘mis en place’. David would’ve loved this, I thought. So, a quick snap of my son in his makeshift ‘whites’ made its way to David’s page and was quickly ‘liked’ and discussed by David’s friends. And this is how it warms the refuge of our grief. Our FB identity is our community of friends. We can post and comment and share on the episodes of our life that he would have found heart-warming, funny and irreverent! We are not all living some covert illusory consensus – we know he’s dead. But his identity is not. It literally lives on through this place where his personality, his history and his face and voice remain accessible and engageable.
The Facebook Remembering service has truly been a gift for me personally – and it’s such a treat when friends post videos they found on their phones, or visit a place special to them that reminds us all of David’s life and presence. There’s also potentially a place for his son to visit, to discover David’s life and how much he meant to so many of us.
Remembering Tom (my friend who passed earlier this month):
Tom, you were such splendid company. You supported my blog when I started it last year and were one of the first to subscribe. We enjoyed many discussions and debates as our paths crossed numerous times across the hospitality sector in Leeds in the first decade of the new millennium. You were defined by a warm gruffness that suited the identity of an old soul whose sarcasm and ironic disposition could be unwieldy and hurtful in less experienced hands. Instead, with you, it came as insightful, comical, and always with an earnest heart. The sadness of your passing is amplified by the young family left behind who must now forge ‘after’ lives without your companionship. However, as grief requires us to fashion a ‘new normal’ the core materials that forged the legacy of your identity – your work ethic, your authenticity and your capacity for love are forever present and will provide the foundations for your children’s identities and will be the substance of their resilience.
Tom’s family have chosen ‘Cloth Cat’ as a place to donate instead of flowers. A dynamic organization that provides music education and opportunities to children in the more deprived areas of inner city Leeds.
This blog will contain a middle-aged man talking about TikTok.
Yes! This blog is going to involve TikTok, okay! I can talk about TikTok and not have to reverse a baseball cap, cross my arms and summon an ice-cold phrase like “your cappin, bruh”.
Stay. Don’t go. That first paragraph may only have been funny in my head.
This month’s blog is a blend of philosophy, sociology and how both those disciplines informed a parenting opportunity to explain a few more ‘whys’ about the world.
If you have teenagers, live with teenagers, or teenagers play a role in your life – it’s good to project a presence in their sphere of influence before they wipe you out completely with one swish of their finger. Fortunately for us, our eldest is still happy to include us (selectively) in his world and it is not uncommon for him to emerge from his bedroom and come downstairs to talk about the latest TikTok encounter that has left him perplexed. Before I get into this – can I just state that I like TikTok (which, given my demographic, has just dropped its share price by 80%). But I do! What I really like is that it does provoke debate. For our eldest (let’s call him ‘Number One) TikTok represents a portal into the wider, more complex world, the world that we ‘parent-bots’ are obligated to prepare him for. So, let’s take this opportunity to dig deep, unpick and hopefully enlighten.
“Come back Number One, and unroll your eyes from the back of your head…this might be interesting”
A topic that has yet to fully shake itself into some semblance of order, and one that has irked him for longer than previous videos is the subject of ‘neo-pronouns’.
Neo-Pronouns or ‘new’ pronouns are an extension of the established singular personal pronouns such as ‘he and she’. ‘He and She’ refer to the establish binary genders of male and female. However, for persons who don’t identify with either male or female binary constructs, (persons referred to as ‘non binary’) ‘neo-pronouns’ offer an alternative ident crucial to their well-being and sense of self. For more insight on what these neo-pronouns look like, check out the link below:
Number One had no problem with this, his problem was with some of the more bizarre neo-pronoun epithets being requested via TikTok such as rabbit, pussy-cat and kitkins but I could see that the bigger question was how established truths taught in school and reinforced by social interactions (like boys are ‘he’ and girls are ‘she’) could suddenly be so questionable. What other established truths could be unmasked? Was anything real?
Well, Number One, there’s a handful of threads there we just don’t have time to pull on right now. However, there’s a sociological perspective which might offer an insight into how it can be that whilst it’s obvious what men and women ‘are’ – we can still say that there’s a fluidity in their meaning.
It’s about a sociological perspective called ‘social constructionism’ and its daft Uncle ‘Post-Modernism’ and rational Aunt, ‘Epistemology’. I don’t know if the whole family analogy’s gonna work here – so let’s stick to Social Constructionism and put the ‘Uncle, Aunt’ and the history lesson back in the box.
Social Constructionism rejects ‘meta-truths’ such as pink is for girls, blue for boys and gender is objective based upon the observable and universal truth that girl babies are born with vaginas’ and boy babies have penises. Put as simply as possible: social constructionism is the perspective that our reality (as we know it) is socially constructed – put together by ourselves and others both from our personal sphere (family, school, church) and the larger spheres (government, media) that form our society. It’s not a clandestine, Rothschild operation! It’s a sociological perspective based upon previous philosophical concepts and good old fashioned research. It means that how we understand the reality we daily experience is based upon not only our own subjective experience of the world (what we ourselves touch, taste, see and hear) but the sharing of ‘consensual truths’ (that we all agree the grass is green) and shared semantic truths (how we name things and what those names mean). So we have blend of what we think is so, and what we all fundamentally agree is so.
We must be wary, however, that possibly all semantic truths (taught definitions of things) were given to us by other folks who themselves – constructed those truths. For example – if you want to be a successful fashion model you will need to be thin. Why? Because the people that dominate the modelling industry in recent modern history have claimed the language and the construct of what modelling is. Therefore, if I told you to think of a catwalk model – your mind may picture a tall, thin woman.
We should accept that social constructionism is a solid enough theory to give it some attention. It has been of tremendous use in challenging prejudice, racism and sexism – questioning authority and demanding deep dives into the semantics, cultural norms and traditional values which rule our society and dominate the interactions within our personal and collective lives.
Men and Women both have different reproductive organs, given different names – names we all agree on. But if we were to transplant the male reproductive organ directly onto a woman – would that automatically make her a man? It intuitively doesn’t feel like the reproductive organ does enough to confer gender. It should do because a man has a penis and we all know its called a penis and all agree to what it does and where it is – so that’s enough for a human to be a man, right? The answer of course is that our sexuality and our gender identity is not simply the clump of cell, skin and muscle that make our private parts. We know there are a constellation of psychological, mental, emotional, environmental and cultural stars, creating and defining our sexual and gender identity. And each of those stars are prone to change and are constructed socially, and because they’ve been constructed socially, there’s a chance their semantic construct (what they are named) and the shared ‘truths’ about them (what we all agree on to be so) has been created by powerful persons in the past.
For example, when the powerful maxim that men are the breadwinners and women stayed at home to raise children became societally fixed – there was a consensus on its truth. A truth buoyed by biologists (only women can have babies) evolution theory (men are genetically programmed to hunt and provide) and religious doctrine (Adam the first human in the image of God – man as head of household) and ta-hah…the labor preferences (where each gender’s contribution to society is best served) between men and women became as pronounced and as set as the physiological one and in fact; became an essential component.
But that labor difference of a man and woman’s place in society is not an objective biological truth. It isn’t so that having a vagina and a physical ability to lactate means you stay and raise children. Of course women can have babies, raise a family and work full time and of course men can have babies (adoption ) raise a family and work full time – so the physiological differences are not necessary upon what each gender can do in their family and their societal roles. What made us believe it to be this way? Those who dominate the agenda – dominate the language. As a nice analogy, let’s have Meryl Streep explain it to us:
But even the concrete assertion that our genitalia confirm objective gender can be questioned. Consider the rare condition of ‘ambigious genitilia’. For this condition neither sex is clearly present. The social constructionist has no problems here as they know that gender is socially constructed therefore the person growing and developing with this condition will be defined as more than what the condition delineates for the confused biologist. For whilst the pervasive and powerful elements of society will label and construct meanings for the child, the child as they grow into a more sentient and rational adult will also have (hopefully) the power to construct their own meanings and ways of being. For the objective realist – the lack of certainty of a condition such as ‘ambigious genitillia’ will mean them putting a reluctant foot into a world which questions the kind of grand truths the objective realist swears by every day.
However, this is where I should stop pitting the two sides against each other and to pull back from an ivory tower over-view effect. In the real world, of course we accept that some things appear universally real and agreeing on that is important and equally some are up for debate, whether morally or in terms of their existence. We need to consent on shared knowledge, but we also need to recognize that not all truths are universal. And this is key to social justice campaigns such as gender equality. If some narrow view of evolutionary bioethics is to be believed than men were meant to be hunter gathers and women child bearers and homemakers. Social constructionism saved us from such a myopic and limiting view of the role of the two sexes and now we push back against any suggestion that there should be set gender roles based upon physiognomy. What happened next when it comes to LGBQT and transgender is the next stage in our progress in better communicating and understanding each other’s differences.
Conclusion:
This isn’t a blow by blow account of my conversation with Number One son! I introduced him to how it is possible that seemingly irrational things can exist. Of course men can have babies for what is a man? Of course we can jump to the moon if we employ logical possibilities instead of physical possiblities. Billions of humans all over the globe put their decision-making processes and moral responsibilities into the hands of a divine being that cannot be objectively seen or measured. – and for those rationale theists, there’s nothing confusing about that at all. The purpose of it all is about how we wish to be seen and wish to be heard – flexing our freedom of thought and our sacred individuality. If a TikTokker is laying out their neo-pronoun stance because that is how they wish to be seen and that is how they wish to be heard then there is no harm in that.
But running that freedom of thought and expression, powering that ability to question established truths and co-construct new ideas is the engine of social constructionism. It is not a perfect engine – but it has been a charioteer of change which whilst discomforting for some individuals; social constructionism drives, somewhat ironically, individuality itself.
In this month’s blog, I will suggest that when we think of our own identity, it can be misleading to believe that it is the same thing as us being independent, individual persons. In fact, our identity is comprised of many components and by being part of many social and cultural groups. I am Dillon Wolfe, an individual person. There are no other Dillon Wolfe’s, like me, existing as I do now in this time and in this place. However, in terms of my identity, I’m not the only Dillon Wolfe ‘man’ or Dillon Wolfe ‘father’ or Dillon Wolfe ‘teacher’. ‘Man, Father, Teacher’: these are all groups or communities the membership of which is not only how I identify myself, but how others identify me.
What do I mean by identity? I mean that through recognising or idenitfying which groups I belong to, others have a clearer idea as to my obligations, my passions, my skills, my ideologies etc. In other words, ‘who’ I am can be reasonably, if not wholly accurately, inferred from my group memberships. If this has traction, then how responsible are we when others within our community act reprehensibly? Are we obligated to speak out against terrible actions committed by community members because it harms our own identity as good consistent individual persons? Or does our own individuality preclude this, and instead permit us distance from how our communities act? I will argue that we are our communities and that, as a member of the community of men, I am obligated to speak out against the impermissible and intolerable behavior of that community. For to be silent, or worse to be supportive of such behavior not only harms me personally, but stunts the flourishing of that community.
The shocking murder of Sarah Everard, at the beginning of March this year, stunned the UK. What transpired throughout the rest of the month prompted a global reaction, mostly an outpouring of not only sympathy for Sarah and her family, but empathy for the strata of harassment women face from men on an all too common basis. This harassment ranges from sexually vulgar language in the street, to women armed with house keys when walking home alone at night and of course to the horrific events that led to Sarah’s murder. As the month has progressed and the case developed, as did the deeper the discussion into the problem of ‘men’.
I will never forget one of the first journal articles I read as a Social Work undergraduate was around the ‘problem of men’. Its theme was how, if present at the home, a man can be a risk to his wife/partner and their children in terms of domestic abuse and/or child abuse and yet when absent – he is problematic by providing no fiscal support for dependents and the long-term emotional damage faced by children with absent fathers. I remember being stunned by the article and, whilst recognizing the academic context within which it was written, I was disconcerted by the bleak picture of men being painted – a picture made real by my own observational experiences in social work practice.
Events such as Sarah’s murder cause shockwaves. Not just of shock and grief, but also how we function as a society. When a social bomb such as this explodes – the shrapnel flies into areas across our cultural field. One such piece which lodged in the craw of newspaper editors across the world was the notion that it is ‘men’ who must shoulder some of the blame and that it is men who are the problem. When Baroness Jones, a Green Party peer, suggested men should have a 6pm curfew it was meant as a retort to the Met Police’s own advice that women should avoid going out at night on their own – a tacit admission by them that sexual harassment against women is, like Covid, ultimately incurable and at best, chronic. What followed for Baroness Jones was another predicable social media (male) malaise – the incensed misogynist: full of threats of violence and threats of death. However, a line that came through often and to all intents and purposes in the defence of men was the bumper sticker: ‘not all men are bad’. Whilst the truth of the statement ‘not all men are bad’ is debatable (define ‘badness’ for example) let’s narrow it, and understand it in the context of the sexual harassment narrative women face daily and ask: Don’t I as a man and all the fellow men I know have an obligation to act not only to protect but also to better the community into which we belong?
Integral to my argument this month about the phrase’ not all men are bad’ and its drinking partner ‘a couple of bad apples’ is that they attempt to distance the speaker from a community to which they belong and a community they are obligated to act upon to correct mistakes. For whilst we may think of our identity to be a monolithic – we are in truth identified by the multiple groups or communities to which we belong. Therefore, if one of our communities fails, and we as an individual agent or person fail to act, we may not be representing the very best of that group and could be tethered to the individual or their acts which brought the group into disrepute.
Let’s get some clarity by asking an obvious and ultimately daft question – am I, as a man, to blame for Sarah’s murder?
Of course, I am not to blame for Sarah’s murder or for any other crimes committed by other men against women. However, if I don’t accept the evidence that there is an issue with men’s behaviour within the context of the treatment of women and seek to move the needle – I am not fulfilling my obligation to be my best self within that community and uphold the goodness of that community’s nature – particular as a father of boys. This could cause a situation whereby I am tacitly condoning such awful behaviours with my silence.
It does appear that there are some folks who either find it difficult , or fail to see the issue with, understanding that whilst they are indeed an individual ‘person’, that ‘individuality’ and ‘identity’ are not the same. Our identity comes from being part of a ‘community of persons’. My identity is defined from being part of the community of men; community of Everton football supporters; community of teachers, of social workers, of fathers etc. When a Social Worker was on the front page of a tabloid having failed to protect – we as a community of social workers all felt the sting, shame and regret and all shared the burden in seeking improvement and bettering our practice. When my football team fails to win a game or its players act in impermissible ways – I don’t stop supporting them, or claim that my identity as an Evertonian is only when it makes me feel good. People would question my commitment to a group and also the nature of my own personality if I flip-flopped between my communities when something was wrong.
Our identity is not separate to the communities which define it, they ARE our identity. Clearly there’s no single definition of what a ‘man’ is – but being part of that ‘community of men’, I strongly believe, is about having a consensus on some of the critical defining points of what a man is including, and this one’s up there with ‘penises’, not abusing women. And yes, unfortunately, our communities fail us as well as lift us up. It’s a fluid relationship – but it is still a relationship that requires work and honesty and for me, my membership to the community of men is life-long. I am identified as man not because I held a meeting and told everyone – but because of the myriad of pixels that comprise the physiological, psychological, sociological and philosophical identity of ‘man-ness’. Those numerous-pixel points when seen as a whole, bring in to focus a picture of ‘manhood’ that is significant to my identity. I would argue that whilst others in my community can debate which of the pixels has the most significance and which ones are necessary and which contingent – there is a broad consensus as to what constitutes a man. Therefore, to observe the actions of the ‘community of men’ that are reprehensible and NOT condemn it, and NOT call it out and NOT support the victims of such actions is impermissible because we ARE our communities.
Conclusion
When the community of men fail, which is depressingly often, I am attached to that failure. Our obligation to act when one of our communities’ fail is because if we don’t, then it is our nature as good moral persons that suffers. I suffer when my community fails and vice-versa. Clearly there are some communities we can walk away from, but there are also some that we must change when we something rotten. I would therefore question the membership of any one of our community of men who hid behind the illusion of their independence from our group.
This month I am responding to my good friend, Nick Morgan. Nick is an effortlessly talented teacher and someone who’s been at it for nearly twenty years. He’s one of those teachers that would’ve made you love maths as a kid especially, if like me, you hated every graph papered day of it! He was kind enough to suggest this topic and I thought this was a different way to approach a blog post. Here’s what’s been turning over in Nick’s mind this week:
…I started thinking about it again after reading some twitter responses to Trump being removed from social media. Exactly the same stuff that first brought this idea to my mind years ago when Katie Hopkins [Katie Hopkins is an outspoken self-styled iconoclastic rightwing social media sophist] was booted off Twitter. Lots of the responses refer to an erosion of freedom of speech in form. Now, my monologue is not about the merits of the decision, nor does it concern the nature of the speech that might be losing its freedom. What strikes me is the perception large proportions of people appear to have developed. As Twitter et al are all private companies, they can essentially promote and ban whomever they like based upon whatever criteria they deem reasonable. It’s up to them. Much like a store choosing to only stick certain books, or a radio station banning certain songs or artists. Social media platforms are not government provided or a universal right to access. There are lots of them about and I’m certain many wouldn’t ban Trump or Hopkins at all. What I find most interesting is that the ubiquitous nature of the big social media companies has eroded and blurred the lines. People seem unable to identify them as “just an app I use” but rather see them as “the world” and, hence, someone’s removal from a particular platform as an attack on overarching liberty itself. Essentially, more and more people seem to view social media platforms as society itself. Which is curious but also a little sinister and unnerving.
Nick has raised some interesting and other debatable topics in his question – from the nature of free speech itself to the pervasive role social media has in most of our lives. But let’s keep the brief narrow to his core complaint. His issue is social media platforms and how, by interfacing with these programs for over a decade, our perception of their nature and their purpose has become entailed with the nature and purpose of free speech itself.
Why is this a problem?
Because ultimately, they are not the same thing either by nature or purpose and viewing them as identical leads to the misconception that one depends on the other. In this month post I will try to give a philosophical account as to why this perception may be the case and why it is flawed.
To begin with, what do we mean by a thing’s ‘nature’ and a things ‘purpose’ because I’ve introduced this concept about ‘nature’ and ‘purpose’ near the beginning of the post and a good place to start is defining those terms philosophically. To do this, I’m going to ‘riff’ off Aristotle somewhat and suggest that when we talk about a thing’s ‘nature’ we are talking about its ‘essential properties’.
Essential Properties are the things an object (concrete or abstract) absolutely needs to possess to be rightly and truly identified as the thing it claims to be.
With me so far?
Let me give you an example. When we think about a ‘table’ philosophically we would say that its essential properties could be:
Being made of a hard material substance such as wood, plastic, or marble. A table made of warm jelly, whilst potentially hilarious…would struggle to retain its identity.
Having ‘legs’
Having a ‘top’
And that to be a good table (which would be its ‘purpose’ – more on this in a minute) it must be able to permit dining, or a game of cards, or a whole bunch of laptops when everyone is working at home. A good table fulfills its purpose by being the best table it can be and retains its nature by losing none of its essential properties. If a table becomes broken or somehow deficient, we can still call it a table – but it will have lost its purpose (the poor thing).
We could go on with the list of essential properties and there may be some debate over what should be included and to what detail. But if I were to stand in front of my dining room table and begin to remove or change some its ‘essential properties’ (like removing one leg at a time) it would very quickly cease to be a table and instead be the ‘parts of a table’ and I would have a degree of explaining to do to my perplexed family.
Next, let’s flesh out that ‘purpose’ a little more. We are going to stay with Aristotle who says that everything has a purpose and that a purpose is to always achieve some kind of ‘good’ (I type the word good with speech marks because it doesn’t just mean the opposite of bad; in a philosophical context – ‘good’ can also mean flourishing, thriving and growing). If you’re a person or a moral being your purpose is to be morally good (living a good life). If you’re an object: a knife, table or chair for example, then you’re being the very best knife (always sharp), table (always sturdy) or chair (always upright) you can be. This can sound a little far-fetched, but hopefully you get the point. I also hope any objects reading this post will feel suitably inspired.
Twitter
Twitter, of its nature, is a company which provides a service, but it also requires adherence to policies and rules of engagement. Furthermore, as a business, its necessary purpose is to make profit through the sale of its services. Just to sidetrack on slightly uneven footing for a second: as an abstract entity, Twitter is essentially amoral meaning it is neither good or bad and therefore under no obligation to be ‘morally good’. The folks who run Twitter are moral – and the persons who made laws that govern the business are moral and the shareholders and consumers are also moral and may demand the business act in certain ways– but Twitter as an abstract concept is amoral – because it’s not a person. Maybe that’s why it’s so easy to project differing values onto it…just a thought.
Clearly what’s best for a business is to make a profit. That is its ‘good’. If it does not make a profit, it is not a ‘good’ business (not thriving, flourishing, growing) and therefore does not fulfill its purpose. Likewise, if the purpose of the service it provides (to make money which sustains its nature) can be identified as connecting societies, and not just micro-societies (interest groups for example) but horizontally across global groups and vertically throughout every echelon of class and socio-demographic then that can certainly give it the look of being identical to society which is possibly why it has become so entwined with the right to ‘speak freely’.
Freedom of Speech
In Western democratic societies the nature of free speech is such that it is one of those inalienable rights which means, it cannot be taken or given away. Inalienable rights (happiness could be one, health another) are gifted to every person at birth. Some thinkers (such as John Locke) were of the view that ‘freedom’ itself was not a right bestowed upon a citizen by law, rather it is a ‘natural right’ that necessarily required laws to make it more concrete. For him, it was the egg that came first.
There is an also an argument that within democratic societies, the purpose of free speech is essential, maybe even necessary to such a society. In other words: it cannot be truly healthy or ‘good’ if its free citizens cannot speak freely with each other or are in some way restricted or silenced. Let’s also make the valid point that the problem of curtailing free speech only comes when governments do it, not necessarily private companies.
Now we begin to put the two together and see if we can blend the seams. To be active in the Twitter-sphere, whilst we do not speak per se, we do express our thoughts and opinions as is one’s inalienable right. With the borderless reach of Twitter adorning it the cape and cowl of society along withthe secondary purpose of Twitter being somehow the same as one of the essential properties of a good society (speaking freely) then if some folks were denied access to freely speak via such a platform – they are arguably denied their inalienable right to free speech, its purpose to promote to a healthy and flourishing society. So now we can see the potential to view the two as identical. Put another way: I have an inalienable right to speak freely – I can speak freely through Twitter – Twitter has suspended me – my right is inalienable (you can’t take it away from me) – therefore, pitchforks at dusk.
However, the problem at hand is this: Twitter is not ‘society’. It is engaged in by ‘societies’ as a form of expression of speech but this does not mean it shares the same nature as ‘free speech’ (they have very different essential properties) and neither does it have the same purpose (the purpose of Free Speech is not to create profit).
Believing then that Twitter and Free Speech are identical to each other in so far as they are the same thing is a contradiction as they are each clearly different in both nature and purpose and that is why those who decry being suspended from such a service see their rights as impinged.
Contradictions always cause consternation:
How can it be possible that she runs a dog sanctuary and is cruel to cats?
How is it that he comes to work every day and yet gets nothing done?
That’s because running an animal sanctuary is not necessarily the same as being kind to animals (see Tiger King). Also, coming to work every day is not the same as being productive (ahem, though I can’t think of any examples). Therefore, whilst Twitter looks like free speech and leaps tall buildings in a single bound like free speech this does not mean it is free speech. Whilst having access to a social media account is a convenient and entertaining way to express our thoughts and opinions – it bears no resemblance to centuries old, carefully considered, legally defined and desperately cherished right such as ‘free speech’. One of the essential properties of free speech is that it is something you are born with a right to possess; unlike the services of an amoral profit-driven entity.
In conclusion (finally)
As I hope to have laid out in my argument; once we dismantle and analyze the different parts of something: its nature and purpose – we can quickly ascertain the differences in that nature and purpose giving us a much cleaner sense of what similarities or identities may exist. I would suggest Nick that the kind of folks who don’t engage in this mode of thinking are either not of a cast of mind to do so, or else they are deliberately speaking at a frequency not audible to every listener.
Post-Script (Optional)
I decided to keep the debate on free speech within Western democratic countries. Clearly, not every society views free speech as the ‘west’ does. Secondly, I focused on Twitter alone because it took centre stage in current affairs and just to keep the flow of the prose though please assume a tacit inclusion of Instagram, Facebook, Ello et al. Thirdly, the debate around the purpose of free speech which I set up as being necessary for a healthy society is arguably thin and possibly weak, but this was done consciously to keep the word count down. I can dive deeper into the topic on another post in the future if people are keen to have the discussion. Finally, there are millions of folks who don’t engage with any social media who feel perfectly happy with their free speech and find no issue in this at all. However, even as I type, President Trump has had his social media platforms pulled out from underneath him and his acolytes are decrying the move as suppression of freedom of speech. Therefore, whilst some of you really don’t see the issue, there’s clearly enough that do which makes it viable for discussion.
‘Do as I say, not as I do’ is one of those phrases that, from the heart, can illuminate and provide insight and wisdom. I love its appeal as a prologue to the sagacity and experience of the utterer. Whomever speaks these words is by admission opening themselves up to a conversation about their own personality flaw or where they’d gone wrong in the past. However, it can be construed as hypocritical and dismissive, authoritarian and contradictory and this can blight the authentic power of this phrase – because spoken well it can, like a spell, alter pathways and outcomes into a much better place for those who hear it.
The phrase could be the motto for the any person who tacitly or experientially understands why a decision or way of acting might have bad consequences for someone else in a similar situation. Still, when I reflect a little deeper, it’s a phrase that promotes that most frustrating nature of our humanity – the person I am in my mind is still better than the person I am in the moment. “Do as I say” (for the person I was back then was right) “Not as I do” (for the person I am now is still flawed)
Today I want to talk about this phrase used at its best; spoken by the person with good intent.
“Do as I say, not as I do” I will argue is another example of how our imagined selves are always so much better than our clumsy, thoughtless, awkward real selves and there’s some ancient philosophy at work which might shed some light on why that’s the case. This phrase, at its best, establishes that none of us are perfect and all are vulnerable to error and that where we have experienced perfection in some action in the past, our realisation of how well it went often only comes after the event, where reflection provides the building blocks to construct another positive component or facet of our ideal self.
Let’s have an example. In fact, I will use the last time I uttered the incantation. As a teacher, particularly of adolescent students, it can be difficult to methodically and in stark detail explain to them why their actions (or lack of action) may be drawing the ire and frustration of another teacher. You don’t want to dive too deep into the complexity of adult human interaction with a fourteen-year-old and equally you don’t want to speak with too much familiarity about the idiosyncrasies of a colleague. It last occurred in a conversation with an embattled Middle Schooler who seemed to consistently run into trouble with a particular teacher. I was recalling to this 8th Grader how ‘when I was his age’ (cringe) I had a similar combative relationship with one of my teachers. But I wanted the 8th grader to know that my own feelings of frustration at the time with that teacher all those years ago were justified (and still smart *insert undisclosed number of years* later) but rather than act mindfully I acted on emotion and dug myself a deeper hole which ultimately hung a label round my neck which followed me into High School. Returning to this current conversation, I knew there would be sway within the empathy of ‘I know what you’re going through’ in my chat with the student but what I can’t disclose to this young man is that there’s a power imbalance in the teacher’s favour at play that is too great to overcome and that there was a way to play’the game which would not only ameliorate the situation but could offer a life skill moment for future encounters. At which point I am left with no option but to tell him straight what to do and hope my own story of woe resonates and thereby complete the ritual of ‘Do as I say, not as I do”
But it’s not technically ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ is it? It’s ‘Do as I say, not as I did’. However, I can rectify that by saying, with a degree of confidence and the backing of plenty witnesses (mostly long-suffering friends and a weary, smiling wife) that I still let my emotions rule the moment. I still allow overwhelming feelings of injustice put me in fight mode when oft times ‘flight’ is the more sensible course of action. So, the perfect ‘Dillon’ (rationale, thoughtful, wise) is usurped by the actual ‘imperfect’ Dillon (impatient, passionate, headstrong).
So now we have a concrete example of the contradictory nature of the phrase. Often, acting with pure emotion in a heated scenario can lead to a worsening of the situation. Keep a level head and act rationally and not, as I do, which is more often than not reply “Oh! You think that do you? Well, let me tell ya….”
Reflecting on past successes add to our internal rendering of our own ‘ideal form’ or ‘ideal self’. The Greek philosopher Plato believed in ‘the forms’. He held that there exists the perfect form of what we consider to be abstract entities. Perfect form of justice, perfect form of courage etc. Let me put it this way; you and I can disagree on whether a painting in a gallery is truly beautiful, each holding a subjective opinion as to what counts as beauty. However, we both agree that there is such a thing as ‘beauty’. Furthermore, for Plato there really does exist the ‘perfect form’ of beauty which we as humans can never actually experience but the sense of which is somehow imprinted into our minds at birth (and the whole metaphysic of that claim is for another day).
I think that such a concept of ‘perfect form of self’ is also within us and like Plato’s forms is unattainable. Instead it is such a thing as we strive too be. Examples of falling short might be coming up with the witty call back hours after a difficult and flawed encounter – or being able to better recall facts to win an argument after the moment has passed. We are always so much smarter, faster and better after the event.
Like the perfect forms such as ‘beauty’ and ‘courage’ we can accept objectively there’s such a thing as an ‘ideal self’. Then we act as the subjective architect and construction engineer of our own ‘ideal self’ (just as we accept there’s an objective form of ‘beauty’ and begin to construct our own tastes that reflect that ideal form). This is done through experiences of societal and cultural influences, the good and bad, the ups and downs giving us the data to create an imprint of our ideal selves (based on an objective concept of such a thing) which should inform us as to the best way to act. But like so much about the world we perceive – our ideal self can become kaleidoscopic and illusory. We lose sight of the ideal self as being a template and aspirational and look for different ‘ideal selves’ or even believe the ideal self is expected. ‘Ideal Parent’ ‘Ideal Work Colleague’ Ideal Student’ How could we ever consistently be so many different things to different people? And more worryingly, why should we always expect to be…perfect?
‘Do as I say, not as I do’ is probably the coda that breaks that ineffable goal, and rightly so. When the content of our advice or guidance is packaged clearly and authentically with this phrase and delivered with humility it can, to some degree, also reinforce the most human trait we all possess…that none of us are perfect and where we have had success it is from the guidance of others and limned with our past failures. If we accept Plato’s idea of an ‘ideal form’ of self then we must also accept that we will never truly know that ideal form and that’s okay for it’s meant to be a template to draw our identity on not a puzzle to complete. ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ says: we still fall on our faces – it just doesn’t have to hurt as much is all.
When we say we ‘belong’ somewhere – we may be thinking in ‘concrete’ terms. This means that we can belong somewhere ‘legally’ through our passport or other documents which properly affiliate us with a place or person. For example, because I have a British passport I am British and therefore belong in Britain. Clearly, this sounds problematic – especially for persons who live a global life.
‘Belonging’ is a powerful and deeply felt sensation – but what does it mean to ‘belong’ somewhere?
This week, from our home in Doha, we sent off for our daughters first passport. She’s 10 weeks old at the time of writing and was born right here in Qatar at Al Wakra hospital. Therefore, she is currently without a nation. She cannot be Qatari by law (unlike if she were born in the USA for example – where she’d have dual citizenship) and until her British passport arrives then technically, she is simply a child of the planet. Ironically, she cannot be a child of the planet as that would disturb whichever border agent who, as they quizzically eye our smiling faces, sternly asks us again why she doesn’t have a passport and what do we mean ‘child of the planet’?
What our daughter doesn’t know which her older brothers do, is that she will be a true ‘Third Culture Kid’ (TCK). TCK’s are normally children of military or diplomatic families or families, like us, who have chosen to live and work in different countries and raise a family within different cultures. The term captures the experience of these children whereby they live with one culture at home (though not always) their ‘second culture’ which is usually the culture of the host country which leads them to creating their own ‘third culture’.
It always gives us such a thrill when we hear how our boys begin to assimilate, adapt and adopt the cultural nuances and norms of where we live. In Texas it was hearing our then three-year-old asking me ‘What ya’ll makin’ for dinner’ where the Texan drool of ‘y’all’ was interspersed with the dying embers of his Yorkshire twang. As I write this today my eldest is playing Fortnite online with his friends and every so often he will shout “I didn’t shoot you! Wallah! I didn’t shoot you!”. In Arabic ‘Wallah’ is one’s promise to God and it is an oft shouted demand or protestation of innocence from the Qatari children heard numerous times within my classroom! But hearing my son dropping this and several other Arabic words into his conversations reminds us what an incredible life he is leading right now.
This post is not exclusively about Third Culture Kids – though if this theme speaks to you then I highly recommend David.C.Pollock and Ruth E.Van Reken’s book “Third Culture Kids”.
The experience of expatriate families, though full of opportunity and undeniably some privilege, comes at a cost – and that can be a sense of belonging. By living lives that are highly mobile, multi-lingual and cross cultured there are no roots put down. Arguably, in the 21st century and certainly through Covid-related necessity – technology and video calls do well to ameliorate the disconnect across thousands of miles between loved ones in ‘home cultures’ but I sometimes wonder where my children will say they ‘belong’? So, when we say we ‘belong’ somewhere, what do we mean?
For Merriem Webster ‘belong’ is to be:
“attached or bound by birth, allegiance, or dependency; to be properly classified; to be in a proper situation; to be the property of a person or thing”
Merriam Webster
For me, I can say I have a sense of belonging to my home country of England (lived experiences) and a concrete sense of belonging (British Passport). It is the country of my birth and home for the first three decades of my life. I can also unequivocally say that I belong to my wife. Along with our marriage certificate, our shared experiences, shared stuff and shared parenting certainly confer a concrete sense of belonging both in the possessive sense ‘I belong to her’ and the abstract ‘sense of belonging’. But for our daughter – ‘belonging’ within the definition of: ‘attached to allegiance to birth country’ does not strictly apply. She will have a concrete sense of belonging to us (legal duty) to the UK (legally) and feel a sense of belonging to all of us as a family but where, as an adult TCK, will she feel she belongs geographically?
We can belong to groups (families, communities) and places (birth places, places we live) and people (our children belong to us – legally in the same sense spouses can belong to each other) so is it enough for our little girl that she gets to belong to a community and persons but that she may miss out on the wide, thick root of ‘sense of belonging’ in terms of a connection to a country that not only bore you – but the generations before you? Our children don’t have the past ‘present’ in their lives. Thinking culturally – catchphrases of any given golden age of television are not heard by them. I sat down and watched ‘Blackadder Goes Forth’ with my two boys and they really enjoyed it – but it occurred to me then, as it does now, that because we are not physically in England these societal cultural narratives and norms are not omnipresent in their lives. For them, they are British by birth and passport and so can live their lives with that legal ‘concrete belonging’ (as will our daughter) but that ‘sense of belonging’ are those deep fibrous connections that define us, give us our identity through shared family experiences and daily life within our born culture which are dense and provide greater ‘kinship’ that a document simply stating a nationality. For our daughter her passport will confer British nationality – but her place of birth will forever be Al Wakra.
I do believe that for our two sons, an abrupt return to a UK school during these formative schooling years will not be such a shock. They were both born in the UK and whilst our middle son left when he was two years old – he does have some memory of his time there. For our daughter, it is her constructed ‘third reality’ built around us as a family unit – an international school setting and a host country culture fully experienced which gives her that sense of belonging. Should she find herself in a small village school somewhere in West Yorkshire that process of deconstruction could be difficult for her– particularly if it comes during those upper Primary early Secondary years.
I would argue then that thinking about concrete belonging in a legal sense is not the be all and end all. Belonging doesn’t come with such narrowly strict parameters and isn’t monolithic in nature (I belong here and here only). Instead it is like a matrix of neural pathways in a growing brain. As familiarity and affiliation grows with a connection to a place or persons – so that connection strengthens; its once thin fibrous tendrils become like strong branches. Also, conversely, as we drift away from places and persons what once felt like a solid link loosens and itself becomes weaker and less substantial. Surely, this is the nature of our lives – especially in the 21st century. To be committed to one place and one community may provide a dense and almost concrete sense of belonging – but change is inevitable and to think of belonging in such a narrow view (a time, a place, a document) could bring ambiguity and distress when change or upheaval inevitably occurs.
In Conclusion…
I will close by also suggesting that there is something melancholic to ‘belonging’. It contains that word ‘longing’ which suggests a desire for something just out of our reach, over the horizon. Maybe the issue with searching for or reflecting too deeply on ‘belonging’ is that it is illusory in the sense that such a firm concrete feeling of belonging is not something any of us could ever have, despite documents to the contrary; people divorce, change citizenships, alter names…there is too much change for such a thing to be real. But by promoting a ‘sense of belonging’ as something that is fluid which doesn’t commit us to an unchanging ‘state of affairs’ and doesn’t have to be about an attachment to a single thing – we can ourselves construct healthy affiliations to persons, places and things which promote our own growth and senses of belonging without committing to ideologies or ways of being and thinking. For our own children, their experience of belonging may will be with people over places and who knows, maybe our daughter will return to the Middle East one day – to somewhere she truly belongs.
In this post I will argue that being ‘anti’ something is a powerful stance. It can commit you to be in opposition to more than the actual thing you are against – and by doing so ties you to be opposed to things that could be a power for good. I will suggest that this is most true in areas of moral ambiguity such as those persons who are in opposition to vaccinations or ‘Anti-Vaxxers.’
When you think about it, we often define ourselves by what we are not. It’s such a powerful device to ensure our personality, our values and our identity are registered correctly by others. But when we claim to be ‘anti’ we are stating not just what we oppose – but all that fosters and sustains that which we find reprehensible.
I was born in the South-East of England but became an Everton fan at the age of ten. It wasn’t until much later when I worked in Leeds that I met “true blues.” I loved the stories of how Everton supporters would define themselves by how much they hated the “reds” of Liverpool FC. There was the grandfather who refused to have tomato ketchup in the house; the parent who would not allow his son’s best mate into the house to play because there was red trim on his trainers – I even worked for an Evertonian who wouldn’t allow red pens in the building! But I want to classify such things as ‘preferences’ because when the people of Merseyside remember the 96 who died at the Hillsborough tragedy over thirty years ago – they are truly one city.
That’s not to say there’s anything wrong in marking our personality traits through our preferences and dislikes. Announce to a room of strangers that you like pineapple on your pizza, marmite on your toast or cream first on your scone and get ready for a debate. Enjoy the ‘Hampden roar’ as you advocate the ‘correct’ way to put toilet roll on a holder or make a cup of tea. But these preferences, I would argue, are trivial and represent less of a holistic flag in the ground compared to what we are “anti.”
Understood grammatically – ‘anti’ is a prefix and is from the Greek to mean ‘opposite’ or ‘against’ and there are plenty of examples throughout history of ‘anti’ movements that have halted hate and evinced equality.
But how does it work for the more culturally divisive and more ambiguous moral panics such as vaccinations?
I am pro-vaccination, but I am always willing to listen to and be informed by an opposing view and I know that for those who have concerns on either religious, cultural or political grounds their stance on vaccinations couldn’t be starker. They are ‘Anti-Vaxxers’. But by making their position so vehemently and presciently on the negative don’t they risk causing more distance and distrust not only on this position but on a variety of others? I want to be clear on my issue with the prefix, when you say you are ‘anti’ you are saying you oppose much more than the single subject of your ire. If I say I don’t like olives on a pizza – my preferences are clear as to the presence of olives. However, to say I was ‘Anti-Olives’ would surely infer I have greater issues than with the olea europaea itself. I am fumingwith the whole matrix of olive oil production from the techniques of olive cultivation, farming and production practices all the way to promotion, advertising and consumption of this small fruit. I would argue that when a person makes a claim to be ‘Anti-Vaccinations’ they are not just stating an opposition to injected medicine, they are also claiming an opposition to the machinery of government and the perceived oppression of the individual and free-will.
And that is part of the problem of the prefix ‘Anti’. Its power lies in its ability to not just offer a clear opposition to a things purpose – but also to the components of the assembly line that brought it into being and sustain its presence. For the ‘Anti-Abortionist’ the opposition isn’t just on the purpose of abortion (the ending of ‘life’) it is also toward perceived moral flaws or political agendas that maintain abortion as a lawful option. The Anti-Racist isn’t just opposed to a racist act but also the systemic structure which maintains a racist ideology. I would argue then that ‘Anti’ causes fear but also distrust because it demands of the listener a worry about more than the single subject and furthermore; it places the proponent of the ‘anti-stance’ as distrustful of others and as someone who operates within a negative platform.
But is this necessarily a bad thing?
I would forgive my fellow humans for waking up each day and finding something else to be ‘anti.’ The feelings of fighting against oppression and pushing back against an injustice are a dopamine hit. We can cast ourselves in the movie in our minds as the hero of the piece with permission to be loud, to be forceful and to be heard. And of course – significant events in history have demanded such action. In areas of moral absolutes – the ‘anti’ stance is justified by clear evidence of wrong-doing either through our shared human values or well as quantitative evidence. In doing so it can expose the objective and demonstrable ways a government, cultural/social institution has been acting in egregious ways to maintain an unequal or oppressive state of affairs. However, on the topics where the moral high ground is ambiguous, what is the value in appearing so demonstrably combative when there is ambiguity or muddier waters? I would argue that for the anti-vaxxers , the ‘anti’ causes them to expose mechanisms where its less obvious (than say ‘slavery’ ) that there is something ill at work. Their anger is not at the concept of ‘medicine’ or the metal millimeter width of a needle – the anger is more abstract – it’s at the concept of free will and more insidiously, the concept of objective truth. So by opening the floodgates to how vaccinations are harmful – the Anti Vaxxer also taints the scientist, observable evidence of ‘good’ and our very own conceptions of self (i.e. am I really in control of my own life – or am I being controlled?)
Because ‘Anti’ allows us to ‘expose’ the mechanisms of oppression it causes a greater fear in others. But if the Anti-Vaxer is fighting against the oppression and fear caused by governments and scientists isn’t there a contradiction when their stance causes exactly the same feelings of oppression and fear in others? I would suggest that negative actions, without dilution or a segue to compromise, simply cause more…negative actions. What if the Anti-Vaxxer were to find positive ways to promote choice for an individual citizen or positive ways to influence the scientific community or local government. Would you be more inclined to find some common ground with the one who makes you feel informed and empowered rather than left questioning and in fear? The issue the Anti-Vaxxer has, unlike the Anti-Slavery proponent, is that the Vaxxer’s ‘anti’ footing is on less firm ground.
In Conclusion…
We should, when we moved to do so, make our stands for the values and principles we believe in. Our values and principles of the more universally morally reviled human inventions (slavery, FGM, racism) deserve to have the engines of their machines of hate exposed – and we should use our ‘anti’ stance to do that. We should also find solutions and show the vulnerable and the afraid how to be empowered. But where the moral certainty becomes opaque – the evidence flawed or at the very least still open to debate or when, in the heat and adrenaline rush of a fight, Anti Vaxxer’s tarnish more than their perceived enemy, they create distrust to the ‘good’ of objective evidence, the science of healing and place others in the shadow of fear and uncertainty. Call for questions, call for more research – but a second thought towards calls to blanket opposition and the ‘anti’ stance may create more discourse and less discord.
In the third and final post on this stream of thought I will consider a more earthbound, strictly atheistic ‘law of nature’ perspective of human experiences. The argument is that on this view, nothing could possibly be actually ‘transcendental’ in any objective sense of the word as to be ‘beyond our own limits’ is to suggest the existence of something beyond our own world to make that comparison with!
Therefore, something can be ‘adjectively’ transcendental to me, yes – but arguably not transcendental by any objective measure or as a noun.
It would appear that I have to give up hope of ascribing a truly ‘out of the ordinary; beyond the limits of human experience’ description of ‘transcendental’ to my moment of enlightenment, because for the hard-core existentialist (referred to as epiphenomenalist – but that’s the last time I use that term) it is only material bodies which really exist. We should instead call my experience what it apparently was: a series of chemical reactions which my subjective conscious mind – thanks to fifteen years hence of experience and training – can now label as adjectively ‘transcendental’ and not objectively so.
And the problem with this? Do I now have to commit to a mechanistic, materialistic, universe? And what do I mean by these terms?
Well, put simply, a mechanistic-materialistic perspective of the universe is one where all things are reducible to being part of a large-scale mechanism with all that populates it being material things only – those things which are made of matter and have form, existing in time and taking up space. All our conscious thoughts do not take place outside or separate to our brain…they are, in fact, all generated by our physical brain neurologically. It’s a place in which there could exist no ‘universals’ as there are no shared essences which bind us – only similarities. The theist will easily paint a bleak, cold-deep recesses of space ‘where no-one can hear you scream’ scenario for any who should seek something more prosaic. But actually, that’s not what troubles me within the context of my story.
What troubles me is that such a mechanistic view commits me to what’s called ‘determinism’. For a superb debate and explanation on determinism and freewill you can’t go wrong with the excellent ‘Philosophy Bites’ and in particular May 2012’s episode on Neurology & Free Will
If we are part of a series of universal moving parts playing out to a seemingly eternal ‘Rube-Goldberg-esque series of events then there was at some point a ‘first cause’. Don’t get the theist started – they’ll tell you who caused that ‘first cause’ and it wasn’t simply the mega out of-nothing explosion neither but for the atheist it was the Big Bang that set in motion all the things that happened from the hydrogen in-rush to the point, that evening in 2005 when, in a top bedroom in a terraced house in a Leeds estate; Classic FM played the first mandolin strum of ‘How Sweet the Moonlight’ that would inevitably lead me on my journey. To be a determinist is to essentially say ‘it would ever have been thus’. All events in my life, like all the events preceding my conception, and my parent’s conception and so on, would have led to a new girlfriend’s love of classical music – a radio switched on and internet research on ‘countertenors’
I would suggest this makes ‘How Sweet the Moonlight’ incidental. It could have been any song that evening (though arguably, the Hard Determinist would say ‘no – it still would’ve always been ‘that song’) that would have driven me onto that new path in my life of self-discovery and growth. So does a purely existential universe view – devoid of objective perfections and divine interventions, concepts of free-will (debateable), immaterial souls and arguably a separate conscious mind make my experience ‘less transcendental’ because, quite frankly, there wasn’t really anything ‘special’ about it.
Now I need to make my stance on this matter. The time for explanations and ‘question-begging’ must come to an end.
In conclusion (finally)
I can accept determinism; I can accept that I was always going to have that evening which would have led me on my journey – and I can accept a world without an interventionist God. But I can also feel sound that it was a transcendental moment because, as I began to argue previously, irrespective of what would have always been – the moment was clearly ‘transcendental’. No, I didn’t know it at the time but I would in fact go on to push ‘beyond the limits of my experience and knowledge’ – I would indeed transcend self. I concede to a secular use of the term I yield to an existentialist viewpoint and it would appear I cannot satisfy my previous argument that ‘transcendental’ connotes ‘divine’ – but maybe in the future that could be a separate post.
a final thought…
But for all of us, theist and atheist alike – it is possibly the outcome rather than the inspiration that should be the focus of wonder. There is a warm feeling, a satisfied scratch of the itch knowing that there are moments in our lives where we could be on the cusp of something greater than what we are now. And when we reflect on those transcendental moments…we can offer insights and encouragement to others whose lives may feel all too horizontal. After all, our encouragement and belief that their life’s journey could turn on a dime might be the intervention their God had planned for them…
In my previous blog I talked about a single experience some fifteen years ago which would go on to promote tremendous personal, cultural and intellectual growth. It was from hearing Jocelyn Pook’s ‘How Sweet the Moonlight’ sung by the countertenor Andreas Scholl. I often reflect on that experience as being ‘transcendental’ but is this description problematic for the non-believer? My heart wishes to retain this moment in my life as ‘out of the ordinary’ but to do so, must I commit to what a theist might call ‘the hand of God’?
Transcendent: exceeding usual limits; extending or lying beyond the limits of ordinary experience; (In Kantian philosophy): being beyond the limits of all possible experience and knowledge
Merriem Webster Dictionary
Part of my problem is that I don’t think it’s possible to use the word ‘transcendental’ without it’s other-worldly connotation. For the very existence of the term almost demands at the very least that something beyond the limits of ordinary experience could exist. There is an argument that terms such as ‘sacred’ and ‘transcendental’ can absolutely have secular meaning and that all we need is the ‘idea’ that such fantastical – natural law-breaking entities could exist. But if I commit to my 2005 experience as being truly transcendental – I get the benefit of believing that forces outside those of my own conscious mind can affect me directly.
For the theist reading this, there is probably a slow sagacious nodding of the head. She is possibly reading this thinking ‘yes – this is what we Christians/Muslims/Jews/ or any faith that believes in an interventionist God have known since revelation. You can only truly have a transcendental experience by the will of an entity that is itself – transcendental. How is it possible for your own limited human mind, contained within three pounds of grey matter, to truly experience anything other than that which you can account for either by sight, taste, touch or sound. Your feelings back then in 2005 as Andreas Scholl’s voice captivated and inspired you was not simply a psychological reaction culminating from the physiognomy of chemical signals in your brain flooding within you a hormone induced feeling of transcendence – it was God, actually ‘lifting’ you to a higher place of knowing, albeit briefly, to set you on your path to greater enlightenment. You know that the experience was truly other-worldly as your subjective world as it was, to all intents and purposes, forever changed.
Alright. Well…now I have a problem. I like this. I like this a lot. There is a tremendous amount of comfort in knowing that experiences that are transcendental could be evidence that a power, greater than that which I can imagine, are finding ways to help me grow and improve – and if it were possible to simply park the role of a celestial being in my life right there – then that would be useful. I love my God because She only gets involved to make sure I’m not missing any great opportunities to improve. Were it that simple. That rabbit hole entrance to faith (God as interventionist and interested in ‘me’) comes with a series of other commitments which, as I said in the previous blog, I simply cannot make. Commitments to doctrine, to ritual, to the paradoxes of Scripture and the fallible human hand making sense of the ineffable. I will absolutely concede that we are not limited to the Abrahamic faith’s interpretation of a divine being – there’s other ideas out there – but the natural world, understood by others and witnessed by me gives no objective proof that such a thing exists. There’s a reason why a belief in God is called a leap of faith.
So I still have the ‘transcendental’ problem. I can’t (or won’t) cross that Rubicon to a belief in God. So before I give over to the a-theist view, can my experience be saved from a simply psychological one? Let’s be clear on what exactly was the ‘transcendental’ moment for me in 2005. At that moment of hearing ‘How Sweet the Moonlight’ I was ‘transfixed’ ‘mesmerised’ ‘transported’ – as I have been in many other experiences before and since. No doubt I was experiencing strong psychological affects all of which were very pleasant. Within those four minutes and fifteen seconds I was not lifted to an astral plane nor did I glimpse Nirvana. In actual fact – the incredibleness of that evening was only realised upon reflection. I would certainly not have described that evening as a ‘religious experience’.
Ahhh! So is that the true nature of transcendence? It is not something one ‘feels’ rather something one ‘realises’. Transcendence only comes through context – through careful study of the whole story – not simply a tiny section of it. Maybe I can describe it as transcendental because it is only some years after the event I can fully appreciate the significance. Now I have context – I can clearly state that was a moment beyond the ordinary. I can only know I was beyond the limits of my own experiences because I had no idea what was to come next. This has potential for allowing transcendental to retain the meaning above but not tie me to the divine.
But yet it would appear then that I must concede that the experience itself was purely psychological and it’s lasting affects assigned to more earthly and ultimately human reasoning – so why do I feel a little disappointed? And why should I feel that psychological explanations are simply a ‘silver medal’?
It seems reasonable to ascribe ‘transcendental’ to the effects of the experience later on in my life, as I see it as part of a longer journey – but why did it happen then? Was that moment simply incidental?
In my last blog on this train of thought I will explore what it would mean to say it was simply incidental that “How Sweet the Moonlight’ would come to be such a significant moment. There may be some problems linked to free will and causality to consider – but as I prepare my thoughts, I wonder if the itch that remains present is whether my conscious mind could ever be enough to explain how some experiences can be so…beyond my limits.
StoatAubergine 