Some religious leaders provide leadership on disputed social, economic, and political questions; others do not. Jesus did not. The hot political topic in his day had to do with loyalty to the rule of the Roman government. Jesus’ enemies tried to trap him by posing the question to Jesus whether we should pay taxes to Caesar. If Jesus said “No,” then he would have gotten himself in trouble with the Roman authorities. If Jesus said ”Yes,” then he would have aroused the antagonism of the Jewish people. Jesus’ reply was to ask the questioner for a coin. Jesus asked, “Whose head is on the coin?” The antagonist said, “Caesar.” Jesus replied, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”
Jesus thereby chose not to take sides on the hot political topic of the day. It was obvious what the political and military consequences would be if the Jews had revolted against Rome. At the beginning of his career as a public teacher, Jesus settled that he would not pursue “the kingdoms of this world.” Jesus gave a different kind of leadership—spiritual leadership. If that leadership had been accepted as, among other things, a tactical alternative to revolt, it would have allowed the Jews to survive. But Jesus did not argue on this basis for the leadership he offered. He simply offered his spiritual alternative.
Developing this religious philosophy, I have tried to carry out the same choice. When I taught applied ethics, I made it my business to ensure that my classroom was a place where people of any position were respected and listened to. I held up a model of reason practiced by Thomas Aquinas, who took on the discipline of researching the most important counter-arguments to challenge his own views and then, after carefully stating his own position, responding to those counter-arguments with fairness and reason. I assigned readings that showed well-informed and well-argued positions based on different ethical philosophies. In class I would sometimes set forth something like the strongest case I could for each side in the debates. I did not hesitate to criticize what I regarded as poor arguments. But not for a moment did I suggest that all positions are equally wise, or that it is impossible to come to a correct judgment about such matters in particular cases. I occasionally assigned students to find a law review article relevant to a topic of discussion; because lawyers get into details of careful reasoning about topics more than philosophers usually do. It became abundantly clear that it takes more than reading one’s favorite newspaper or listening to one’s favorite radio talk show host in order to form a well-based ethical judgment—not to mention the fact that a personal dilemma may often not yield to ethical reason alone; in such cases, ethical reflection becomes a stage in a wider prayer process.
I believe that this philosophy needs to stand for responsible family life rather than personal indulgence, for the service motive as well as the profit motive in business, and for global concerns rather than nationalism. But how those urgent needs are to be worked out alongside legitimate, competing concerns I leave in silence. Not only do I lack the expertise to offer guidance; I believe that this philosophy functions best when it avoids entanglements with issues that can interfere with the clarity of its spiritual ethical priority: humankind as the family of God.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Titian_-_The_Tribute_Money_-_Google_Art_Project_%28715452%29.jpg/657px
During this time of political, social, and economic turmoil, it is easy to be drawn away from your original purpose into the fray of these difficult adjustments. I applaud your decision to remain true to your original purpose. There are other forums for these highly emotional charged issues that others may join if they so desire.
Dr. Perry
This is a helpful reminder. Thank you.
During this time of political, social, and economic turmoil, it is easy to be drawn away from your original purpose into the fray of these difficult adjustments. I applaud your decision to remain true to your original purpose. There are other forums for these highly emotional charged issues that others may join if they so desire.
Dr. Perry
This is a helpful reminder. Thank you.
In light of recent events I more or less chose the path of silence. I did so feeling some degree of reticence, maybe even shame. All around me friends were expressing views on issues of justice and politics, often with strikingly different theses and pointing to equally different reasons. I wondered about my reticence to chime in, particular given my occupation and background, and I wondered if they expected me to say something. Would they think of me as indifferent or lazy? I would have, of course, offered something upon the asking, but otherwise I have remained, and continue to remain, relatively silent.
What accounts for this silence are the following:
1) The public forum of social media and popular discourse are not, to my mind, regions where people are willing to truly engage in civil conversation. Mostly, popular culture is about sound and information bites, and I have been a little more open about critiquing our larger values being more concerned about information than about formation, where the latter means the cultivation of wisdom over the accumulation of facts and factoids. Thus, I am reluctant to chime in where I don’t see any real invitation to do so. And, if I do, it is in a very oblique manner, much like what the Buddhist call ‘upaya’, or ‘skillful means’; not to say that I am necessarily skillful at skillful means!
2) I like to think through things as much as possible before I contribute anything.
3) My project of lifesmanship emphasizes differences between categories such as fairness, justice, and harmony. Each of these values has their own proper domain, and the domain of harmony extends from my immediate familial circles out into my social circles and perhaps a bit beyond. Insofar as these are the circles I am nearly always in I find it often more ethically suitable to cultivate harmony among my family and friends than to be outspoken in the name of fairness or justice. Granted, many issues are important and deserve serious deliberation, especially when one’s position thereof is inextricably linked to one’s character. But how these issues surface in any context is not always clear, which is another moment of skillful living: when to speak and when not to speak. And also how.
4. This last reason is an idea that I may have trouble articulating as it is something of a new direction in my thinking about life, value, and character. The best that I can come up with now may sound rough and maybe even unkind, but it is surely not. I don’t see goodness necessarily always tied to morality or justice, especially where those come to dominate a life. There are many justice warriors out there, but not all — maybe most — are doing good. When we think of Martin Luther King or Mother Theresa there is in them a different movement — a single movement — where their acts of justice and kindness become simultaneously acts of beauty. The strength of beauty is has the power and force to pull in all elements into one force, and this force is future oriented. When we find something beautiful we want it near and we want to understand it more, to contemplate it, and to orient much of our lives to it. The vision of justice that MLK not only saw but experienced was his life’s project and vision. I will be so bold as to say that this vision of justice for him was beautiful, and it was what also oriented his life toward wonder and gratitude, and most certainly value.
Simply and crudely put — and I haven’t worked this out quite yet — many of those most outspoken about matters of justice seem to me to be doing so in a manner that is neither effective or conducive of what I consider to be a good life. Susan Wolf points this out in her critique of so called moral saints. For her this is the moral drive — largely fostered by modernist ethics of duty and consequence — to completely give oneself over to morality, but where morality is thinly construed. Her critique is that doing so involves the neglect of many other “self-regarding virtues” that very often improve not only one’s own life, but the lives of those around them. I find something correct about that, but I might even extend it or tweak it a bit to include those inward orientation of wonder and gratitude and being very valuable.
So silence is not indifference, and a sense of justice untempered by orientations of the beautiful, wonder, and gratitude does not, in the end, seem to promote a deep form of justice.
I was thinking as I was going here, so forgive if I was less than clear, or if there are multiple holes in my presentation.
Charles, we are honored by your generous bestowal of time, personal openness, and philosophical thoughtfulness in sharing so many aspects of response to the topic.
When morally active living becomes beautiful, it shows an integration that has a power greater than less mature forcefulness and uncivil discourse that makes no place to give thoughts like yours a receptive hearing. But I believe that your kind of thoughtfulness will eventually be heard and will eventually prevail. It has its own beauty and power. (And, by the way, thanks for summarizing something of that famous article of Susan Wolf that I never took time to read–smile).
Your sharing also reminded me about how silent I became on lots of things during the early phase of my philosophical education where I had no idea how I would answer a host of common problems; at times it felt like my mind was just undergoing a massive assault on my previous ways of thinking. It took me years to form an opinion about political questions.
Finally, your thoughts remind me of the opening sentence of my chapter, “A Confucian path from conscientiousness to spontaneity” in The Golden Rule: Confucian tradition has honored the beauty in genuine goodness, where the shadow of self-conscious hesitation is gone, and nobility of character expresses itself spontaneously.
Thank you for the kind words. What do you think about the stance that so much of the vitriol that surrounds political activism, and certainly fueled by so-called identity politics and the strong polarization that frequently accompanies our political milieu is at least in part fueled by a simplistic and reductionistic view that political truth is more about knowledge than wisdom? In short, it seems to me that many outspoken people will claim that politics is solely a matter of aligning propositional truths, anecdotal evidence, and observations, which are then formed into a coherent system or view, and that since it appears to be cogent those who cannot see that are simply wrong. I see this play out quite often. While facts and logic certainly have their place in political conversation, I wonder if politics gets reduced to this kind of discourse misses something. If politics is the art of the possible it will, it seems, have a lot to do with practical wisdom rather than intellectual or physical force. This art is much more about a “thinking with” the other, rather than the individualist appeal to reason alone. Hmmm, I hope I will agree with this in an hour!
Charles, the way I express some of what you just observed is to say that polarized debate results from each side using a narrow set of premises. If we start by listening to others stories, we usually find that their conclusions are based on commitments to one or more values that we can identify with. When the consciousness of values becomes full, we have left a narrowly intellectualized level of analysis and response. Onesidedness is sometimes right: in a particular situation, a narrow premise set may contain precisely what is needed to slice through all the confused talk and identify what needs to be done. But such reasoning never satisfies philosophical standards. But spending too much time trying to listen sympathetically to every voice can paralyze insight and action. That’s what takes a deeper wisdom to know when enough is enough, when it’s time to conclude deliberation. For me, that’s when a prayer process leads through the course of action that best satisfies the truth, beauty, and goodness we have been able to discern.
In light of recent events I more or less chose the path of silence. I did so feeling some degree of reticence, maybe even shame. All around me friends were expressing views on issues of justice and politics, often with strikingly different theses and pointing to equally different reasons. I wondered about my reticence to chime in, particular given my occupation and background, and I wondered if they expected me to say something. Would they think of me as indifferent or lazy? I would have, of course, offered something upon the asking, but otherwise I have remained, and continue to remain, relatively silent.
What accounts for this silence are the following:
1) The public forum of social media and popular discourse are not, to my mind, regions where people are willing to truly engage in civil conversation. Mostly, popular culture is about sound and information bites, and I have been a little more open about critiquing our larger values being more concerned about information than about formation, where the latter means the cultivation of wisdom over the accumulation of facts and factoids. Thus, I am reluctant to chime in where I don’t see any real invitation to do so. And, if I do, it is in a very oblique manner, much like what the Buddhist call ‘upaya’, or ‘skillful means’; not to say that I am necessarily skillful at skillful means!
2) I like to think through things as much as possible before I contribute anything.
3) My project of lifesmanship emphasizes differences between categories such as fairness, justice, and harmony. Each of these values has their own proper domain, and the domain of harmony extends from my immediate familial circles out into my social circles and perhaps a bit beyond. Insofar as these are the circles I am nearly always in I find it often more ethically suitable to cultivate harmony among my family and friends than to be outspoken in the name of fairness or justice. Granted, many issues are important and deserve serious deliberation, especially when one’s position thereof is inextricably linked to one’s character. But how these issues surface in any context is not always clear, which is another moment of skillful living: when to speak and when not to speak. And also how.
4. This last reason is an idea that I may have trouble articulating as it is something of a new direction in my thinking about life, value, and character. The best that I can come up with now may sound rough and maybe even unkind, but it is surely not. I don’t see goodness necessarily always tied to morality or justice, especially where those come to dominate a life. There are many justice warriors out there, but not all — maybe most — are doing good. When we think of Martin Luther King or Mother Theresa there is in them a different movement — a single movement — where their acts of justice and kindness become simultaneously acts of beauty. The strength of beauty is has the power and force to pull in all elements into one force, and this force is future oriented. When we find something beautiful we want it near and we want to understand it more, to contemplate it, and to orient much of our lives to it. The vision of justice that MLK not only saw but experienced was his life’s project and vision. I will be so bold as to say that this vision of justice for him was beautiful, and it was what also oriented his life toward wonder and gratitude, and most certainly value.
Simply and crudely put — and I haven’t worked this out quite yet — many of those most outspoken about matters of justice seem to me to be doing so in a manner that is neither effective or conducive of what I consider to be a good life. Susan Wolf points this out in her critique of so called moral saints. For her this is the moral drive — largely fostered by modernist ethics of duty and consequence — to completely give oneself over to morality, but where morality is thinly construed. Her critique is that doing so involves the neglect of many other “self-regarding virtues” that very often improve not only one’s own life, but the lives of those around them. I find something correct about that, but I might even extend it or tweak it a bit to include those inward orientation of wonder and gratitude and being very valuable.
So silence is not indifference, and a sense of justice untempered by orientations of the beautiful, wonder, and gratitude does not, in the end, seem to promote a deep form of justice.
I was thinking as I was going here, so forgive if I was less than clear, or if there are multiple holes in my presentation.
Charles, we are honored by your generous bestowal of time, personal openness, and philosophical thoughtfulness in sharing so many aspects of response to the topic.
When morally active living becomes beautiful, it shows an integration that has a power greater than less mature forcefulness and uncivil discourse that makes no place to give thoughts like yours a receptive hearing. But I believe that your kind of thoughtfulness will eventually be heard and will eventually prevail. It has its own beauty and power. (And, by the way, thanks for summarizing something of that famous article of Susan Wolf that I never took time to read–smile).
Your sharing also reminded me about how silent I became on lots of things during the early phase of my philosophical education where I had no idea how I would answer a host of common problems; at times it felt like my mind was just undergoing a massive assault on my previous ways of thinking. It took me years to form an opinion about political questions.
Finally, your thoughts remind me of the opening sentence of my chapter, “A Confucian path from conscientiousness to spontaneity” in The Golden Rule: Confucian tradition has honored the beauty in genuine goodness, where the shadow of self-conscious hesitation is gone, and nobility of character expresses itself spontaneously.
Thank you for the kind words. What do you think about the stance that so much of the vitriol that surrounds political activism, and certainly fueled by so-called identity politics and the strong polarization that frequently accompanies our political milieu is at least in part fueled by a simplistic and reductionistic view that political truth is more about knowledge than wisdom? In short, it seems to me that many outspoken people will claim that politics is solely a matter of aligning propositional truths, anecdotal evidence, and observations, which are then formed into a coherent system or view, and that since it appears to be cogent those who cannot see that are simply wrong. I see this play out quite often. While facts and logic certainly have their place in political conversation, I wonder if politics gets reduced to this kind of discourse misses something. If politics is the art of the possible it will, it seems, have a lot to do with practical wisdom rather than intellectual or physical force. This art is much more about a “thinking with” the other, rather than the individualist appeal to reason alone. Hmmm, I hope I will agree with this in an hour!
Charles, the way I express some of what you just observed is to say that polarized debate results from each side using a narrow set of premises. If we start by listening to others stories, we usually find that their conclusions are based on commitments to one or more values that we can identify with. When the consciousness of values becomes full, we have left a narrowly intellectualized level of analysis and response. Onesidedness is sometimes right: in a particular situation, a narrow premise set may contain precisely what is needed to slice through all the confused talk and identify what needs to be done. But such reasoning never satisfies philosophical standards. But spending too much time trying to listen sympathetically to every voice can paralyze insight and action. That’s what takes a deeper wisdom to know when enough is enough, when it’s time to conclude deliberation. For me, that’s when a prayer process leads through the course of action that best satisfies the truth, beauty, and goodness we have been able to discern.