The Futility of the "Moral" Argument
I think I've figured out that trying to argue morality with someone who can't think outside the walls of their own, just doesn't work. It becomes a wall between us that the words cannot, despite however cleverly phrased, penetrate. Then again, you must ask, how does a woman "penetrate"?
Much has been written about the feminization and masculinization of discourse. I think you can see a difference even in the words that are chosen or the way, if you watch a person close enough, you'll see that communication is so much more than words. People speak with their hands, their eyes and their silence as well. The way their hands fall, open and closed. The emphasis of a smile. I tried to learn this but I couldn't bring myself to smile when speaking about modern day slavery. The comm teacher commented I should try anyway. I thought, doesn't this make it seem light when it is anything but?
What I wouldn't give for a space in which people simply value LISTENING more than persuasive speech. I've been reading different op-ed's and "how-to's" by and for "activists" on both sides of the political ravine (left/right) and I think you can see each building a budding little arsenal with the intent of assuring their own first, second and third strike capability. And so how can you seem shocked by the war of words (and weapons) that nations so happily wage if the people who shape discourse do so through their ability to "dominate" it?
I'm feeling futile today. Blame the cold that won't go away. Blame depression. Blame my having to spend four hours at work last night sitting with psychotic patients. Blame economics. Blame that eerie feeling of de ja vu at the sight of the new Time magazine cover page with the next "enemy" already in caricature. Already a face of "evil" plastered on a front page, framed by words of "nuclear" "disarm" "threat" and "force." Sometimes you just want be a turtle and crawl back in your self and say, well shit, if the sky falls you can't say I didn't TRY to warn you.
That's so apathetic isn't it? Sorry.
This semester has (as short as it is thusfar) has been both wildly exciting and tremendously pathetic. Moreso than any semester I've had yet in college. It's so hard to be pulled in a thousand different directions. A mental drawn-and-quartering. It's growth I suppose. Shedding old skin for new. I just can't understand how I'm finally getting to take the most lustworthy classes for my brain ("modern" sociological theory, really great literature from the middle east AND an actual HUMAN RIGHTS history course) and I'm so overloaded emotionally that I can't string together a simple reason I feel so apathetic yet alone a solution to it.
Perhaps it's "Senior burnout."
I dropped a class thinking that might help. I'm in the process of trying to find a job that won't leave me injured and depressed. I'm learning to throw off the tyranny of people in my past whose love is most toxic and their hate, downright deadly. This should be good, should it not?
There have been days recently that I have woke up wanting to quit college. This SHOCKS me because I really do love it. I want to teach for crying out loud. I also want my dishes to get washed, my house to be clean, my bills to be paid, my cabinets to have food in them, my health to be somewhat existent and to be able to spend time with those I love. School doesn't prevent this but then again, you can't survive eating your textbook (or perhaps you can, but for how long?)
Lately, I'm more enchanted by the frost on the ground and the amazing colors of sunrise/sunset than I am by Parson's theory on power.
How do you get people to take the time to listen and actually hear/process what you are trying to say without reacting to what little they chose to hear? How do you do this within yourself to give them the same respect you really wish for yourself? I believe deeply that we need a new dyanmic, a new way of communication that is inclusive and centered NOT on persuasion but on LISTENING. On that note, I'm planning a new tattoo for myself. I need to pick between the kanjii for peace or one I'm actually leaning toward, "Listening" which has characters for the ear but also the heart and the mind. Listening with you whole being. There is such beauty out there and I think if we stay inside our little bubble worlds, we'll miss it. Like a blink, it will be gone.
Of course, this is itself a silly, futile "moral" argument. I think something needs desperately to change in the way that "diplomacy" works in the micro and macrocosmic/public and private spheres. When nations behave like children on a playground, some playing the role of bully, picking fights with anyone who seems different or vulnerable (almost always with the help of audience/crowd) and another throwing temper tantrums in the corner (whose punishment is to be ignored) one must ask as a bystander, where are the parents in all of this? Who will play the adult?
peace!
"in your revelation
in the symphony
there you stood in your own delirium
and all your satellites are fragments here
i feel a little crushed and out of control
and all your gravity
it's meant to bring you down
makes me feel so crushed and out of control" --crushed by Collide
3 Comments:
"Lately, I'm more enchanted by the frost on the ground and the amazing colors of sunrise/sunset than I am by Parson's theory on power."
Jen,
I really like this, but I want to leave off commenting on it for a bit but circle back to it later.
In this post and in the one before, you ask about distinctions between public and private manifestations of various issues. As you know, at my blog I recently posted on public space in a not-terribly-sophisticated way, but either tonight or this weekend I'm going to revisit that idea within a political context because of something I read today. Anyway, it just seems serendipitous to me to have been thinking about these things and see that you are as well.
Anyway. You were failing to "penetrate" (and your interlocutor was, too, it sounds like) because, first of all, it sounds like you BOTH were convinced you each were right. S/He would dearly love to make you see her/his point of view every bit as much as you wanted him/her to see yours. But--and I'm just guessing here--you spent more time talking about trees than you did the nature of the forest itself. And that idea--the nature of the forest (analogous to public space, as I see it)--seems like a good place to return to the quote from your post.
There is something beautiful and honest and, despite the temporal quality of specific frosts or dawns/dusks, enduring about not just them but about your contemplating them. Theories of power come and go; for some time to come, though, there'll always be sunrises and -sets. That is definitely cool, definitely worth contemplating.
In your politics, and in those of your interlocutor, what finally MATTERS? What are your respective visions for the world and the principle(s) by which you'd achieve them? What does a "just" world look like to you and to him/her? All this is to say that the walls may be sturdy, but those walls have to rest on something--and maybe that something is more shared, more held in common, than either of you realize.
Jen,
Firstly, nice blog.
Now to the point of the post. I’m not sure that the kind of unmediated listening you seem to be wanting is possible. And, yes, I do mean the fully pessimistic implications.
In the previous post, you ask if people show up at lectures of opposing views for the explicit purpose of being contrary. I think yes. There are those people who feel the need to defend their worldview against any opposing ideas. If that worldview is sufficiently tied to their core sense of self, they will defend it quite aggressively. They may limit their contact with contrary ideas. Or they may feel the need to occasionally bravely venture out into the world to do combat if the threat has sufficient immediacy. It’s all in the service of assuring oneself of the essential correctness of one’s worldview and the integrity of one’s identity. If who I feel I am is tied to how I think about something – what I believe – than I just won’t be open to persuasion on the point.
The question of why it is that some people define their sense of self in such a way that competing ideas are not threatening or maybe even constructive, while others seem to have an unending list of uncompromisable beliefs is too large for my present purposes.
And, also, I just don’t know.
It does seem to me that those who choose – even need – to live an examined life are in a distinct minority.
My "argument" isn't really mine. It is questioning the macrocosmic shift necessary to find that common ground you speak of. So when I write about the "futility" of the moral argument, I really mean exactly that. BECAUSE we each alone are more secure in our version of morality than we are of those whose views are different than ours (foreign, contested, etc) than to try to use persuasive speech in that context becomes more of an assault and less an open and equal playing field. This is why I wrote that I wished for a space that this could occur. I think we need to move beyond our wishing to bring each other to "our side" and recognize that in declaring sides we're already defeating the inclusivity necessary to listen and be heard.
So words become arrows either losing momentum in the air, falling short of the desired target or the become lodged in the other's person...inflammatory and infectuous. I'm really tired of the use of word as weapon in the public and private sphere. I'm equally tired of the assaultive silences. The whole issue of "penetration" pertains more and less to the idea of the overarching metaphor of a healing space. Space as woman. What will she be filled with? What healing can she bring forth? See, in American politics (international politics/realpolitik etc) there is the overarching metaphor of aggression, penetration, subjugation and conquering. Both sides use rape metaphors to excuse their own rape. Both sides lay blame cloaked in metaphors of submission, softness and vulnerability. Tenderness isn't desirable. Toughness is. Inclusivity isn't on the agenda. Arm-twisting bullying rhetoric is the flavor for the day. BOTH sides do this. Listen to activists who are fighting war using the most angry, hostile speech. Does this get the chickenhawks to stop? No.
The cleverness of the argument is lost on them. They cloak themselves in the coat of arms of their chosen "morality" and no arrows can penetrate them. No logic can break through their defenses. This is really the heart of what I was trying to argue and analyze in my sudefed head way. Does this make better sense?
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