Category: Identity

The Force May Be With You

Elsewhere, I’ve discussed a threefold conceptualisation of time:

  • chronos, the ticking clock of linear time
  • kairos, the fleeting moment, a singular point in time
  • aion, boundless or infinite, “the fulfillment of time” (Baumlin, p. 155)
Image by Gustavo Rezende from Pixabay

Baumlin offers an image for aion, the uroboros, which is paradoxical for being finite, the serpent swallowing its tail. In concert, he suggests, these three concepts comprise a “spatial-temporal sequence… from point, to line, to circle” (p. 155). Point–line–circle can seem both time and place, which we might call setting, which is a curious way to consider eternity.

Into this setting we’re born to live and die, and if that seems a bit morbid, then let’s turn to something more uplifting, like Hannah Arendt, who wrote that people “are not born in order to die but in order to begin” (Arendt, p. 246). Death would be the end of us except that each new generation comes along, not only to sustain and maintain but also to begin anew. Birth interrupts death and renews the world.

At birth, Arendt suggests, we arrive into a world already underway, a kairos moment in chronos time. Growing up with parents, surrounded by culture, we come to feel somewhat defined by this world that precedes us, by what has been carried forward from the past. Arendt calls this our belatedness and then, pointing bluntly to education, poses an alternative that she calls our natality. As part of the world underway, our belatedness can be outweighed by the promise of natality, an encouragement to look toward the future at our potential to be something more, something different.

Of course, like any application, details lie in context – time and place, the people involved. What is potential for some is conflict for others, or maybe impossible. Set against belatedness, natality can pose a paradox that leaves us feeling discouraged, even paralysed. The force may be with you, but yeah… hard to know, really. Always in motion is the future.

By the same turn, if we’re not encouraged toward the future but simply expected to carry on what’s been brought forward from the past – stifling our potential, frustrating our promise – we may be again left feeling discouraged, or complacent, or in any event dissatisfied, perhaps without even understanding why. Anyone marginalised by such continuance may simply remain that way. Meanwhile, a continual obligation to steward beginnings (… this being what a teacher does) can come to feel like weary efforts at futility – again, the paradox of natality.

Stewardship of any new arrival to the known world demands a dose of self-awareness and the restraint of long patience – with thanks to Fitzgerald, the capacity to keep in mind two separate ideas while still being able to function.

Context is everything. So, if “our thinking and behaviour are determined by the systemic structure, independent of our particular place in it” (Sarason, p. 29)… even as that singular perspective matters, we need to see beyond mere individuality. And if we’re all part of something larger, more populous, then our coming to know other people can help us begin to appreciate the motives behind their decisions, or at least help us to realise – if we’re honest – that there’s probably more we don’t yet understand.

As this accounts for size or scope – something larger, more populous – so it also accounts for time – past, present, future – which is a curious way to consider character, if not growth and relationships. Maybe that’s why we decided to call it education.

The Bridge to Hell…

Peter Benson’s article, “Francis Fukuyama and the Perils of Identity,” in Philosophy Now (Issue 136), got me thinking again about multiculturalism. I’ve had plenty to say about multiculturalism – seldom positive – although none of it here on The Rhetorical WHY.

If you haven’t yet leaped to conclusions about me, I’ll point out that the full title of this post is “The Bridge to Hell is Paved with Problematic Intention.” It’s meant to be a little satirical, a little disparaging. It’s a wordy mash-up of axioms, cultural and academic. I’m okay with wordy this time.

I’m also conscious of the juxtaposition of my crude title and the wisdom of Dr. King. I’m less okay with this but felt the contrast worth any shock, ambiguity, or misapprehension.

Read on, and take issue as you must or as you will.

The Bridge to Hell is Paved with Problematic Intention

Has the trumpeting of multiculturalism taken itself so literally that even individualism (… multipersonism?) is insufficient?

Taking itself, as I say, more literally, multiculturalism sets one culture at equal stature with the rest – seems fair enough – apparently, a shift in meaning from diversity to inclusion, which implies that diversity wasn’t working on account of exclusion.

So, within Culture X or Culture Y, as we might imagine an individual being equal alongside other members, we can imagine across the two cultures potential impasse: “… unresolvable conflicts between mutually exclusive viewpoints [that] dominate the political landscape” (Benson, 2020). I still grant here individual differences, but I have in mind some divide between distinct communities of individuals, i.e. a divide between cultures.

In relation to Culture Y, for example, Culture X might deem its equality mere lip-service and feel de facto unequal: “How are we in Culture X obliged to consider those in Culture Y as ‘equal’ if our culture is not equal to theirs?

Image by MetsikGarden from Pixabay
Image by MetsikGarden from Pixabay

“How can we treat them as equals, much less be treated as equals, if our larger culture is not equal – that is, if Culture Y does not accept us on equal terms?” Culture Y might declare all individuals equal to begin with and counter that Culture X only perceives inequality. Yet this simply compounds the same injustice for Culture X, who will hardly waive their due consideration.

In any case, equality of cultures seems not the same thing and unable to play out to the same effect as equality of individuals – even more so since an individual who identifies with more than one culture might feel strewn across their own intersections. (Curiously, this assumes one’s identity to be chosen as much as bestowed, which echoes individualism as much as collectivism.) In fact, if equating cultures equates individuals, then equality rests further upon equity, a mantle of justice issuing from a superior authority.

Perhaps Culture Y lives by some unproblematic axiom, such as ‘might makes right’, ‘stay the course’, or even just ‘common sense’ while Culture X lives by ‘power to the people’, ‘diversity is strength’, or ‘revolution is no dinner party’. Can they bridge their divide? Is one culture responsible to reach across, as it were, halfway? We might define an obligation to come any distance according to power of authority. To be sure, imbalanced authority does seem a constant throughout history; for exactly this reason, though, would we expect the side with authority to yield?

I turn to Dr. King. In his time, a generation or two before mine, Dr. King sought and fought for equality and “the cause of peace and brotherhood,” there surely being little more equal than “a single garment of destiny” (King, 1963). As we are all, he claimed, paradoxically yet beautifully this makes us one. Standing upon the authority of centuries, of historical proclamation and practice, and there resting in long studied philosophy and lived experiences of spiritual belief, Dr. King challenged his brothers to bear witness upon themselves. Such authority remains as stable for those to come as for those preceding – that is, unless or until those to come decide to wrest authority someplace else.

Image by John Hain from Pixabay
Image by John Hain from Pixabay

In our time, justice supersedes civility, and restitution tinges redress. The zeitgeist these days is emotional, distinctly angry. Individuals possess rights, and cultures bear responsibilities. “The politics of identity,” Benson says, “multiply conflicts and divisions.” As we ostensibly advocate for the equality of all individuals, identity politics fights a culture war, a battle for equity across cultures-of-particular-individuals, which actually precludes a wider equity. Cultural equity has supplanted individual equality because, where there is axiomatic ‘strength in numbers’, multiculturalism can only ever be ‘us vs them’. If so, is it still defensible? Is multiculturalism a way to ensure that our outcomes match our aims? Or are the aims of those with authority forever destined to pre-empt the aims of those without it? Indeed, what is the way to ensure that no one of all will ever be marginalised?

For one final point I turn to Benson (2020), not in comparison to Dr. King but out of respect for all being one: “Only when we stop having identities in the group-defined sense can we return to being individuals” (original emphasis). We may discover too late the folly of burning a bridge-too-far while crossing it.

Washington, DC (March 2014) - Day 4 - 101

True North Strong… but Free?

True North Strong… but Free?

The Dog's Bollocks.jpg

post-modern

post-national

non-patriotic

These are all descriptors I’ve encountered for Canada, from one source or another. I can make of each one something contextual. Yet as each suggests a departure or break from something previous, that’s really just a subtle way of saying, “Here’s what we aren’t.”

Yet describing something with negative terminology is ultimately meaningless because it can end up becoming silly; for instance, “I am not a giant Godzilla-like dragon that breaths fire and enjoys sipping my iced coffee on Tuesdays.” We could literally imagine anything that isn’t the case and say as much, and we’re no further ahead knowing what actually is the case.

So when I see descriptors like these – for Canada but really for anything – I’m unclear and confused about what to think. It’s a concern for me, the citizen, because who I am and what I value have direct effect on you and everyone else, and me in return all over again.

In the vaunted year 2015, according to Canada’s newly elected PM, Trudeau the Lesser, “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.” True leadership, spoken with not a jot of intended irony.

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Canada’s Parliament Building

Ignoring the post-modern fallacy, i.e. nothing is true other than the statement that confirms nothing is true, this description of Canadian identity caresses its negative terminology. It’s an on-ramp to the freeway of silliness upon which no Godzillas sip their Tuesday coffee.

And where the link above was an American take on our Prime Minister’s interpretation of whom he leads, others have taken noted concern of his statement, too, among them some Canadians whom he leads…

On the other hand, and perhaps in response (?), the Government of Canada is now apparently reversing course, telling Canadians and would-be Canadians something awfully more specific about Canadian identity:

I admit, once more, to losing track as a “Canadian,” although at least this time the terminology is positive: “We are indeed ‘this’ and ‘that.’”

Some pretty specific stuff in the now-defunct Global Affairs guide – shame you missed it. For example…

“When lining up in a public place, the bank for instance, Canadians require at least 14 inches of space…”

Right down to the inch? Granted, I’m not the most social-media savvy citizen you could find, but I think a colloquial Canadian response to this – at least on-line – might be “WTF!!!”

Ottawa-Toronto 2015 (Day 7) - 02
… anybody here still know that guy, Al Waxman?

Still, please don’t let me speak on your behalf. That said, that guide seemed to have been compiled by one person in an interview format with a second person because it was written with a first-person perspective: uniquely Canadian, you might say.

Now, if your rejoinder is to excuse that guide as merely a helpful list of suggestions for what is “Canadian,” then allow me to counter with the challenge to separate, in its suggestions, what are quintessential as compared to what are stereotypical descriptions. After all, what Canadian does NOT love beer and hockey and The Hip, just as they detest the gesturing of hands and public displays of affection?

*HINT: you’ll note how I’ve been using negative terminology…

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Beautiful British Columbia

We’re approaching another freeway on-ramp, this one a sloped and slippery freeway that circles and loops and arrives at no particular destination because at its terminus interminably works a construction crew, who build it out just a little further than before, apparently with no idea who they are, or what they do, or – perhaps worst of all – why they might want to reflect, with no small concern, upon the work they consider to be of national significance.

Seriously, am I the only one who’s concerned by this?