The reading by David W. Orr, as adapted from Utne Magazine, July/August, 2000:
Today's language is being reduced to the level of utility, function and management. Evil begins not only with words used with malice, but also with words that diminish people and life. The prospects for evil grow as those for language decline. Our affinity for language makes us human. We are never better than when we use words clearly, eloquently, and civilly. Language can elevate thought and ennoble behavior. If we intend to protect and enhance humanity, we must first protect and enhance language and fight anything that undermines and cheapens it.What does this mean? We must restore the habit of talking directly to each other...whatever the loss in economic efficiency. I propose that we smash every communication device used in place of a real person, beginning with answering machines. I propose that adults turn off the television, unplug the computer, and read good books to children. I know of no better or more pleasurable way to stimulate thinking and encourage love of language. And, since language is the currency of truth, we should defend the integrity and clarity of language as the highest priority for schools, colleges and universities.
In terms of volume, this is surely an information age. But, in terms of understanding, wisdom, spiritual clarity, and civility, we have entered a darker age. We are committing what C. S. Lewis once called 'verbicide'. The volume of words is inversely related to our capacity to use them well, and to think clearly about what they mean.
As was stated in the reading, "our affinity for language makes us human. We are never better than when we use words clearly, eloquently and civilly. Language can elevate thought and ennoble behavior. In terms of volume, this is surely an information age, but in terms of understanding, wisdom, spiritual clarity, and civility, we have entered a darker age." This is exactly what the author, Deborah Tannen, means in her latest book, The Argument Culture, Moving From Debate To Dialogue. She writes, "In recent years the pervasive warlike atmosphere of unrelenting contention has corroded our spirits. The argument culture rests on the assumption that the best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as 'both sides;'' the best way to settle disputes is litigation that pits one party against the other; the best way to begin an essay is to attack someone, and the best way to show you're really thinking is to criticize." And, certainly, there are other indicators than just the way we speak to one another, of our living in an argument culture.
Let's look at the way some of us drive, especially in certain parts of the country. My three children learned to drive in Boston and when they visited me the first time in Chicago, where I was being ordained, they were astonished that Illinois drivers actually took turns at stop signs, courteously and patiently awaiting their time to go. In the most recent issue of "Yankee Magazine," there is an hysterical piece about Boston driving. It is called 'the rules of the road - a quiz and survival guide for would-be Boston drivers by James McLindon. This is one scenario: "You're heading to the Cape in the summer on a Friday afternoon. You're in the middle lane of Route 3 in Hingham, where the right lane abruptly ends between two exits. (Apparently the traffic engineers thought that one-third of the cars going to the Cape in the summer would evaporate by this point.) You and the car next to you ignore one another. I should explain that in Boston making eye contact equals weakness; you own the road and will take what you want. So, both of you stay side by side long after the lane markings have disappeared. You now are a few feet from the spot where two cars will no longer fit in this lane. Who has the right of way? Answer: Whoever's fender is in front."
Trying to figure out just why our American culture is so full of oppositions isn't simple, but Tannen believes "the most fundamental western assumption" propelling this is that we "think of the individual self as in ongoing opposition to society." This concept is not held by Asians or many "other world cultures, such as Africans, for whom the self exists only in relation to others --family members, clan members -- you are who you are because of your place in a social network." When Thomas Jefferson, in "The Declaration of Independence," wrote of the 'pursuit of happiness,' he meant that each of us, as individuals, deserves to be happy. Our American view is that we have personal rights which are more important than any group rights. We Unitarian Universalists struggle with this concept, as well. In this particular congregation, at least, most of us are willing to give up a personally held idea if a different direction appears to be for the good of the whole. Probably, if we were strictly for our personal pursuits, we would not choose to be a part of this religious community.
Another aspect of our Western culture - which brings us to be the argument culture - is the tendency to think in dualisms. We look at only two sides of an issue; we often don't look at the "many sides". One of the more dramatic results of this dualistic thinking, as Tannen points out, is that we accept only the male or female gender; whereas "Cheryl Chase, who founded the Intersex Society of North America, notes that all species - not just humans that have male and female forms - also have in-between forms." As many of you may know, we have been 'fixing' intersex babies at birth, pushing them into the mold of one sex or the other - or through actual genital surgery.
Working presently at the Unitarian Universalist headquarters in Boston is an intersexed person who is male in appearance, but insists upon keeping the name he grew up with, which is Barb. Barb was brought up as an adopted daughter in a Unitarian Universalist family who have helped him to begin living the life of the man he has always known he was. But, Barb wants us to learn to think of having a gender other than male or female and thinks, rightly so, that if we have to look at him and call him, Barb, we might begin to catch on a little. His life is quite uncomfortable - for instance, he says that there are no public bathrooms which he can use, because each sex accuses him of being in the wrong place and will often become violent with him, trying to make him leave the bathroom. Other cultures have a "third sex" and anthropologists have noted that some "North American native tribes believed these 'man-woman' individuals were divinely blessed and brought luck to their people." Why are we so rigid?
Another way to assess how a culture is doing is to look at how their children are behaving. In the March-April, 2000, Utne Magazine, there is an article called: "Rug Rat Rage, Why Adolescent Anger is Showing Up in Grade School Kids" by Miriam Karmel Feldman. She stresses our over-programmed life styles, our junk culture, our adult rude behavior and says "kids talk the way they do because they hear everybody talking that way, which reflects an overall decline in the level of civility in our culture." Have you ever listened to the television programs, which are on at 7:00, after the news? It is an assignment, because it will help you to understand that these programs model for children and adults how to talk to one another in the most derogatory terms. The Parents Television Council has written that the "lessons from last spring's CBS television smash hit, 'Survivor' were that money is more important than friendship, that old-fashioned values and decency need not apply and that the real slogan should have been: how to out-manipulate, out-fake and out-and-out lie." CBS will debut "Survivor II" in January 2001 and the advertisers and contestants are lining up.
Before I present a little dash of hope, I must take one more swipe at technology, specifically at e-mail. I am not saying it is all bad. Let's not think in dualities. But, I am in agreement with Lance Morrow, of "Time Magazine," who says: "the invention of the stirrup - enabling armored knights to fight on horseback -- changed history. The modem has done much the same thing. It has supplied millions with a weapon that allows them to fire instantaneous opinions through the air like tracer bullets and thus engage in daily cultural warfare on a scale never seen before in history." It seems that not being face to face with the person receiving your message makes it a lot easier to be rude. It is like honking your horn in stalled traffic and then realizing that you know the driver at whom you have just honked...there is that feeling of shame that you don't have when you aren't seen by the person you are abusing. I do not participate on the ministers' chat line, but I understand that the brawling done there by my colleagues is quite fierce.
So what to do? Tannen states in "Moving From Debate to Dialogue that there are some rules of engagement: 1. Don't demonize those with whom you disagree. 2. Don't affront their deepest moral commitments. 3. Talk less of rights, which are nonnegotiable, and more of needs, wants, and interests. 4. Leave some issues out. 5. However, do engage in a dialogue of convictions: don't be so reasonable and conciliatory that you lose touch with a core of belief you feel passionately about.
There is hope when a problem is verbalized and our 'argument culture' is getting a lot of publicity. Here in our church school, a group of parents approached the Religious Education Committee members with a concern that all of our children were not feeling included and safe here. As you may have noticed in this week's newsletter, we are having workshops for parents and teachers who are helping us to learn how to facilitate inclusive groups of children and youth. We are most fortunate to have Wendi Cross, a Clinical Psychologist specializing in child and family psychology, and Larry Sugarman, a Pediatrician - whose children are in the church school - to help us. We ask teachers to give real live church school classroom situations, such as handing out birthday party invitations to only some of the children in the class, or, what is a good response when an adolescent says "this class sucks."?
In these workshops, we center our concerns around helping children make friends without excluding others, responding to hurtful remarks, handling gender differences and being the adult in the room. By the way, we welcome any of you and our next one will be this coming Saturday morning, here at church from 9 to 11 - child care available.
Also, we are currently conducting two Adult Program Committee courses which are emphasizing a different way to be with one another. The "Circle of Simplicity" Class, facilitated by Juanita Ball and Brad Freeman, uses the book by that title, written by Cecile Andrews. The class is structured with "an approach to discussion that helps to avoid the tendency to turn conversations into contests.
Michael Kahn, author of the "Tao of Conversation," suggests that we learn to create 'I-Thou' relationships, relationships in which we accept other persons as they are, not trying to change them into what we want them to be. In an 'I-Thou' conversation, our goal is not to win but to improve our relationships, learn something new and have everyone leave the conversation feeling good about themselves." When we had our Simplicity Circle last spring, I was touched by the experience we had with one another as we "confessed" parts to our lives which we did not want to "simplify" - we truly were not trying to "one-up" one another or to be better than one another.
The course which Bill Fugate and I are facilitating this fall is called "Evensong" and is based upon a structure of listening. "The curriculum focuses on paying attention to people, because listening with undivided attention and without interruption moves us beyond differences and shows deep respect. Paying attention, and being paid attention, create a community wherein our Unitarian Universalist principle of affirming and promoting the worth and dignity of each person is embodied."
I have had a hard time just listening without responding, but I do find that my listening is more pure when I'm not concentrating on a response. We make the mistake, too often, here, of passing things around as someone is speaking; this, too, is distracting us from concentrated listening.
I would like to close with some thoughts from Paula Gunn Allen: "There is an enormous difference between the way Western people approach the use of language and the way tribal people approach it. Tribal people say the words are sacred. We don't mean that you are supposed to kneel down and worship them. We mean that you should, in your being, recognize that when you speak, your utterance has consequences. You can't just say anything that comes to your head and then get distressed if another person acts on it. Now that other person may have misunderstood you, which means that they have a responsibility to find out exactly what you meant before they act, but the principle is still there. Without linguistic honor there can be no community, there can be no ethic, there can be no love, there can be no creative vision, there can be no peace, and there can be no relationship."
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