Difference

I was involved in two conversations that centered on the subject of differences between people. Which got me to thinking.

In the earlier conversation we discussed the question of difference as it applied to the church context. It is no surprise that Sunday morning is probably on the most segregated time in America as churches gather (and this is ironic) to preview what will be like in then end. Often times congregants think and speak nostalgically about the time when people from every tribe and tongue will finally get along.

Question: if the ultimate goal will be lived mutually with people from diverse backgrounds, why aren't we interested in engaging that aspect of the future now? I know you've heard the other critiques about the foolishness of racial discrimination in the church so I bore you with that.

The other party in this conversation hinted that there is a sense in which an appreciation for that which is different permits minimal contact. We were talking here about phenomenon that is happening at churches across the Twin Cities metro where caucasion congregation meet in the morning and a non-white group uses the facilities for services later on in the day.

The other conversation I was part focused on the processes and experiences of being an outsider in the confines of a social majority. Those of us who happen to be outsiders in this particular context were asked about what insiders should know to ease the process.

This brought me back to thoughts I've had in the past about the relationships in a communal community. Here's an excerpt:

The community paradigm is a much better model of operation. From the very roots of the word—common unity—there is a deep regard for the value of each being. You can’t have common interests if you don’t individual interests. Notice, it’s about unity itself not unity around something else. Whatever community you can think of exists for the reason of unity. This allows the community approach to be more inclusive than the team approach: anyone, regardless of how or what they can do for cause is open to join the community because it exists for the unity of the interests of all individuals. Implicit in this is the idea that each individual and the premium they place on the goal is important. The community idea, because it draws from those things that you and I have as human beings, lends itself accessible to all people regardless of ability, race/gender or creed.

These thoughts together with Buber's opinion on the actualization of the "Thou" in human interaction have me thinking that the best appreciation of difference in community comes when we can welcome, nurture, and appreciate difference in community. This demands close proximity and sacrifice.

We should value difference from close up. What say you?

On contigency

I've recently gained a new appreciation for the ability to hold one's tongue in the midst of contentious and controversial discussions. Part of this appreciation is a direct function of the reality that many of my friends are intellectuals who are engaged in the consciousness of being human. This often means that arguments and agreements often abound in our conversations.

Sometimes, one can only listen and contemplate, left behind in the debris of fast moving conversation. I found myself in such a place yesterday.

The topic at hand was the issue of the multiplicity of doctrine and dogma in Christianity. "Why can't we all just understand things the same," was the question that was asked. Why is "truth" so contentious? Being the rhetorical scholar, this got me thinking about the possible value that contingency has in spurring engagement.

The value, in fact the very existence of rhetoric (however you want to define that term), relies on the existence of uncertainty. Politicians and marketers can spin messages at us in attempts to influence to vote for them because they cannot guarantee they have our support. Conversely, people don't by ad time during prime to broadcast their views over the possibility of the sun rising tomorrow. Once an understanding of the earth's orbit around the sun was established, that issue spoke for itself. Gone were the days that people sat around and debated the issue. In other words, rhetoric (regarding that particular matter) became obsolete.

Rhetoric imposes on us in ways that we cannot avoid. It invades our psyche with a pervasiveness that our best rationalizations sometimes cannot outlast. Rhetoric transforms our emotional state. This transformative nature of rhetoric demands we engage it; that we find reasons of our own either to go along with rhetorical appeals or resist them. In short, reasoned thoughts are the antidote to rhetoric. However, when rhetoric evanesces the needed to protect oneself from it dissipates too. You and I don't go around conjuring ways of rebutting arguments that the sun won't rise tomorrow because no such appeals are addressed at us.

It is this engagement, this need to respond to contingency that makes contingency valuable. If there was no variance of vision for what the ecclesiastical community ought be like, why would we care about engaging the question of what the church ought to be like? If, hypothetically speaking, this country knew for sure that Ralph Nader is going to be the next president, what need would there be to listen to any of the other candidates?

It is precisely in the contingency, in the uncertainty that you and I find impetus to engage in the issues of our day.

Discrete rationality

Over the last view days I've become increasingly aware of notion of discrete logic and how in some ways, many ways, my life is comprised of a confusing mesh of an unending number of mutually exclusive rationalities rather than being a symbiotic amalgam of ideals all flowing from one core. To demonstrate what I'm trying to describe I offer this hypothetical: Lets say I go out to lunch and decide to order takeout. On my way back to the office, let's say I encounter a homeless person who forcefully relieves me of my lunch. How am I to react?

On the one hand, I'm instinctively incensed because of the violation of my person and the fact that my sustenance is jeopardized by the loss of my food. In fact the whole notion of restitution upon which much of our society's legal system rests encourages that I not only be incensed, but also go ahead and a payback for my losses. Yet on the other hand, I'm called to be sacrificial; rejoice in that I've been able to relieve the suffering of another human being and that's an honorable thing to do.

Still the question; what to do in that situation?

In the persistence of that question, we are forced to address a narrow ethical dilemma. This dilemma is "narrow" in that there isn't much else in the way of pre, con, and post-text to the hypothetical situation I just proposed. There is no room to contemplate the situation from a broader perspective. The entirety of my person is parochially reduced to the status of being an ethical being; nothing more. Information about whether and when I would had last had food would shed an interesting light on this situation. Likewise, finding out more about the person and their story would aid one's analysis of the situation.

This is not how we are trained to think. Society indoctrinates children with discrete logics about language, math, science etc. starting at a very young age. Interestingly, it seems to me that little effort is put into acquainting these kids with notions about a holistic outlook in life. The same is true on the job for adults, very few companies take cross training as seriously as they take divvy up the task at hand into spheres of specialty. "Niche marketing" is the term given to the development of discrete sales pitches. The whole field of ethics is contest of discrete ethics that sometimes are at odds with each other

Who's responsibility is it to tout the whole, the non discrete? How do we keep ourselves from falling witlessly into the parochialism that dominates our world today? How far back do we need to step back?

I hope these questions are not only rhetorical, but can also serve as guides for the times when we're pressed into a discrete take on a situation.