Nelson Mandela was a complicated person. He was no pushover; he was an activist, a revolutionary, someone who got things done and wasn’t afraid to break a few eggs when necessary. But his greatest contribution wasn’t the overthrow of apartheid in South Africa, which arguably would have happened at some point anyway — it was the peaceful way in which the transition happened, and the inclusiveness, forgiveness, and ability to look forward with which he led the nation thereafter.
Now, the concept of “New Year’s Resolutions” is a pretty awful one. Most people resolve to lose weight or some generic version of being nicer, and most fall off the wagon pretty quickly. A health club I used to go to would display signs in January saying “Regulars: don’t worry about the crowds, most of them will be gone soon.” Not very encouraging, but pretty accurate.
But the idea of resolving to be a better person is a good one, and the beginning of a new year is as good a time as any. So without making an official resolution, this year I’d like to be more like Nelson Mandela.
Not that I’m likely to be lifting any peoples out of oppression or anything so grandiose. My personal stakes are quite a bit lower. But we live in a world where people are constantly disagreeing with each other, taking opposite sides on various issues. And disagreement about important things should be engaged in vociferously; some positions are simply wrong, and sometimes they are wrong in harmful ways. But I want to make more of an effort to treat people I disagree with as fellow human beings, not simply as opponents or enemies. When disagreement occurs, I want to start as much as possible from a position of interpretive charity, imagining that everyone in the conversation is acting in good faith and willing to listen with an open mind. That’s not always the case, but it’s the right default assumption. And it’s one that is really hard to make. There’s an enormous predilection for equating disagreement with bad faith. I disagree with that person, so they are my enemy. It’s an attractive attitude, since I get to imagine that the defense of my beliefs is a lofty moral stance. But giving into that impulse not only sends conversations down a race to the bottom, it weakens my own position. I hold nearly all of my beliefs tentatively, subject to correction in the face of new information or better arguments. To ensure that I have the most accurate beliefs possible, it’s necessary to hear the best objections to them and take them seriously, not take the lazy way out of painting their proponents as bad people.
I have a couple of science/religion debates coming up: with Hans Halvorson at Caltech on January 23, and with William Lane Craig in New Orleans on February 21. These kinds of discussions can get intense, so it’s a good challenge to try to consistently take the high road. My goal isn’t to “win” any debates; it’s to help people understand my point of view, and hopefully even learn something myself.
It’s completely possible that I’m misconstruing what Mandela was all about; I’m no expert. But I figure if he can work with the people who kept him in prison for 27 years, I can speak respectfully with people in public and on the internet. Even if they’re totally wrong (you know who you are).
Gag!
Dear Sean, you do not strike me as someone in need of apologizing for past transgressions of acting in bad faith. Although emulating Nelson Mandela is probably never a bad idea, I have a hard time imagining you speaking disrespectfully with people in public or on the internet. Personally, I am not a big fan of New Year Resolutions. If something is important enough to alter one’s lifestyle, there is no need to wait for some “special” day of the year. Doing so just cheapens the whole idea, in my eyes. I can appreciate your use of this tradition to make an important point, however.
Looking forward to your upcoming debates.
Happy new year!
If something is important enough to alter one’s lifestyle, does it really matter if one starts on some “special” day of the year?
Dear Sean,
Just FYI, you might want to correct this: “with people on the in public and on the internet.”
I fail to see what can be gained from debating Craig. He plays to win, not to find truth. I was resolved never to watch any more of his debates but I may have to watch yours.
I’d rather see small group discussions of right minded people who are working for understanding. The Moving Naturalism Forward round table was a great idea except it just seemed to me that the group was too large.
1) Thoughtful people who annually make new-year’s resolutions are mostly of the free-will believers variety. Nevertheless, their annual failures do not make them doubt their belief, only admit that their will has so far not been strong enough. But if the active will—that which directly translates to, say, health-club regularity—is conditioned on the strength of some underlying will, which itself is uncontrollable, it cannot be said to be free, can it? “You are free to will what you want, but you cannot want what you will.”
And that brings me to my second topic here, also touched upon in Sean’s post. A few months ago I was corresponding with a university professor—a scientist but a religious one—on precisely the above issue. He had written a philosophical book arguing that beyond physicalism and physical (macroscopic) determinism there is ample space for free will. His response to my first contesting email, (which was duly courteous and respectful of his religion,) was dismissive, as if saying “I’m the professor, I know all your arguments and I’ve already refuted them, go read my book carefuly.” Pretty soon it became clear to me he wasn’t sincerely open, and, despite my care not to touch a religious string, he seemed to be on the alert against anything he feared might imperil his religious commitment. Therefore,
2) while the position of interpretive charity is certainly the proper starting point, “imagining that everyone in the conversation is acting in good faith and willing to listen with an open mind,” don’t stick to it once evidence to the contrary begins flowing in. Once it’s clear your opposite doesn’t share your openness and shuts him/herself to what you have to say … my reaction was and would be to disengage.
Good topic. Good post. Keeping bona fides is a good way to start every year.
The question is whether inclusiveness, forgiveness and the ability to look forward is the same thing as foregoing land reform; leaving ownership and control of banks and industry unrestricted, and limiting social welfare to what is acceptable to the owners. Didn’t Mandela’s course lead to Marikana? How is this so much more admirable than the course that led to Umkhonto we Sizwe? Cuban troops in Angola may have inflicted the decisive defeat on apartheid. Castro is a pariah, unforgivable, deemed to look backward despite being a partner with Mandela in the struggle against apartheid. Might there be a lesson in the difference in the conventional views of these two allies?
Michael– Thanks, I’ll fix it.
Very well said. Something we should all aspire to. It’s extremely rare for us to change anyone’s mind in an argument. Usually, all we can do is lay the seeds that might eventually lead to a change. The chances of those seeds bearing fruit is much higher if we can find a way to lay them without acrimony.
Very well said, indeed.
The difficult part is when you have a person that believes in their position by faith, and not by logic and scientific principles.
This person cannot be reasoned with. This person enters into the debate in order to malign or to support their FAITH, which can mean anything from the supporters of the Electric Universe or Aether Wave Theory to religious people. There is NO science that can convince this person of truth.
May you make believers out of Trolls and fanatics alike. I wish you all the best in your endeavors.
PEACE
Sean – the New Orleans link is advertising February 21-22 for the debate with WLC. Is that correct or is it indeed the 28th? Also wondering if there are plans for either or both of these to be recorded.
Great resolution!
Oops, sorry, it is Feb. 21-22 — I’ll fix it.
Yes, they should definitely be recorded, and there’s also talk of publishing the proceedings.
Thank you for that Sean.
The college that is sponsoring this debate has a program in a Louisiana prison, Angola, that was the subject of an interesting article in the New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/us/bible-college-helps-some-at-louisiana-prison-find-peace.html?_r=0
Maybe you might find the book Love 2.0 from Barbara L. Fredrickson inspiring… She also has an interesting talk on TED.
Sean – That’s noble of you to not care about winning your debate with William Lane Craig, but I hope you spend some time preparing. Laurence Krauss is a smart guy, and Craig made him look like an idiot. Read transcripts from as many of Craig’s debates as you have time for, but also watch videos of some of them. Craig’s hyperbole is enhanced by his verbal style. Be aware that Craig has succinct retorts to virtually any atheistic argument. The sheer quantity of unsupported assumptions they contain can fluster his opponent because it would take more time to tear each one apart than they can possibly have. My suggestion is that you go on the offensive and describe your cosmology, and follow his tactic by describing what HE would need to do to prove it wrong – following up in your rebuttals reminding that he hasn’t addressed the items you listed.
I missed this fine post until today due to the birth of a grandchild (yipee). Our cognitive biases explain a lot of why we so readily assume bad faith.
http://rpseawright.wordpress.com/2012/10/17/bias-blindness-and-polarization/
Some of us have the view that language is to be evaluated along multiple axes, only one of which is denotative truth. (Other axes involve expressive or transactional functions.) This has implications for the principle of interpretive charity: even in cases where a specific utterance is false when interpreted as a proposition about a matter of fact, we may find other interpretations according to which the utterance is not a proposition, but functions in another way, with which we can engage or sympathize.
This is especially the case in religious contexts. “Grandpa is looking down today and is proud of you Jimmy” can simply be a way of saying “Grandpa would be proud of you, if he were still alive.” So a normal person doesn’t contradict the statement, they say something like, “Yes, good job Jimmy.” (We could also find examples not involving the supernatural. Most of Wittgenstein’s work involved uncovering the hidden grounds of metaphysical statements like “other minds exist” or “I know with certainty that this is my hand”.)
I don’t enjoy the kind of science/religion debates in which Sean engages. If I have to treat the debate as a merely factual exchange, then I side with the atheists. But I usually feel that the pro-religion person makes a mistake by accepting the objective framework of the discussion, abstracting from everyday uses of religious language. Therefore my proposal of an expanded principle of interpretive charity is appropriate for dealing with religious persons “in the field”, so to speak, but perhaps not as pertinent when one has a debating opponent who is only out to win an argument. My suggestion, though, is still that you go beyond the specifics of an argument, to the social and psychological (or “existential”) levels of meaning lying behind it. That’s where the possibility of agreement lies.
Having spoken of cases where one may agree with other, non-epistemic meanings of a sentence, even while considering it false, I can’t help mentioning an example of the converse: disagreement with a sentence one considers to be factually correct. My example comes from a lecture by Sean, in which he said “The universe doesn’t care about you.”
Because I don’t think that the universe has anything like a personality or conscious intentions, I have to rate his statement true. But I consider its utterance ill-advised, because it expresses an unjustified and pernicious sentiment: it conveys the feeling of alienation or not-being-at-home in the universe. Whereas I believe that there are many good reasons for feeling at home in the universe.
Notice the peculiarity of Sean’s sentence: because no one ever asserts that, e.g. “my refrigerator doesn’t care about me” (because there is no question of it being able to do so), Sean’s sentence carries an implication that the universe COULD care about you, it just happens not to. Of course he doesn’t mean that (literally), but he leaves the implication there because he takes pleasure in destroying the worldview of someone who uses mythic ideas to combat alienation. The principle of charity would involve finding a kinder way of engaging with such a person. And in my view it would involve demonstrating the compatibility between a naturalistic worldview and a positive emotional attitude toward life.
I hasten to add that Sean has written some very good things along those lines, about the creation of meaning and the realization of value. But my feeling is that his involvement with the community of polemical atheism gives him a blind spot about this very creation and realization of meaning, when it happens to make use of mythic narratives or slogans.
If you want to sell your books set up talks with people like William Craig and discuss what you both can agree on. Talk(debate) about what love is(I believe you recently got married), that everything is connected in the Universe which many believe leads to profound awe, appreciation, respect and gratitude(?equivalent to a “religious” experience if not spiritual). As you likely know the word physics comes from the Greek word physis which means nature. So who can argue that delving into the deepest mysteries of life is not a good thing. You get the idea.
Neuroscience tells us belief systems are imbedded in the left brain. New ideas come through the right brain. And those concepts or ideas that are in conflict with deeply imbedded belief systems can create discordance which leads to anxiety, depression, anger, and so on. Using very light lines to anchor your belief systems appears to be the way to go.
Many folks learn through a variety of pathways to want to be “right or correct” about how they see reality. Sometimes this leads to the appearance of being “self-righteous” which turns most people off. I don’t see you in this category and this is why I enjoy watching and listening to your talks. And I love your sense of humor! Being serious is an absolute waste of time, a put off to most folks, and a detraction from being “a happy camper”
Hi Sean, great to hear that commitment from you. I personally admire that quality of open-mindedness and charity in what I’ve seen of Dr Craig’s debates, and with you also desiring that, your debate with him should be beneficial for viewers to clarify the issues involved with cosmology and God. Really get to the bottom of things fairly with him, I’ll be indebted for your help to clarify the issues.