Peace and Rhetoric

Several of my friends have observed lately that there is a disconnect between peace, peacemaking and rhetoric.  Perhaps the most egregious example is labeling.  In our postmodern politically correct climate labeling means naming a person or thing or behavior as bad or wrong; it includes sterotyping, pidgeon holing or otherwise assuming that a person can be fully described by a certain word or words.

I find myself in agreement with these concerns.  For example, is Obama wrong to shake hands with Chavez? Is Chavez a 'bad' person?' From the perspective of some, concerned with national security, the answer is obviously affirmative.  America has enemies and the President should be careful not to cow-tow to it's political enemies.  On the other hand is there not a certain hidden (gospel) wisdom in making peace with one's enemies? 

Was Bush a 'bad' President?  Is the Pope too 'conservative' for the modern world? Is Bernard Madoff to be despised? How about the killers of families or innocents in schools?  Are Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh loud mouthed jackasses?  Does it help the situation when we label anyone or anything so as to differentiate them?

I must confess to a certain confliction here.  I am reminded of Menninger's Whatever Happened to Sin?  In our post modern, post Christian, post everything world, where relativism reigns, where truth is in the eye of the teller, where language games mean that words no longer mean anything, words that offend or critique are eshewed.  We have learned that words create worlds, that the N word, for example is racist and indicitive of a racist attitude, that calling people of different sexual orientation the F word indicates a lack of tolerance, etc.  I agree.

So how then shall we discuss those things that are for us, improper, incorrect or 'wrong?'  How can we name another's behavior without assigning them to a box or worse to some kind of eternal punishment? How shall we use our words to indicate distinctions without our words becoming distractions? 

If I find myself in substantive disagreement with someone, how can I describe that disagreement without creating an unbridgeable chasm by labeling them as 'outside?' 

I have some thoughts on this.  First and foremost is that when I am in disagreement with someone, I must be aware that sometimes that disagreement is on the surface, in fact, it may just be linguistic. Probing deeper, I may find that we are on the same page, just having different ways of describing the same thing.  Sometimes this is not the case.  When I find myself in major disagreement with someone's behavior or intellectual framework, I am first of all reminded that the gospel calls me to love the Other.  This does not mean whitewashing or ignoring the difference.  It does mean saying what I mean without being mean.  Second, it also means means that I could be wrong and have something new to learn which suggests that humility in the face of the Other is essential to dialogue. Third, it presupposes that I respect the Other enough to leave them in their position no matter how much I disagree with them. I try to persuade but I stay away from cajoling.

Now a final thought that to some will seem completely incongruent with what I have just written. Labels (e.g., conservative or liberal) perform a shorthand function.  So if I say I disagree with the conservative doctrine of inspiration, this is shorthand for that particular way of describing the relationship of revelation to language that has a history from the 17th to the 20th centuries and includes many thinkers, nuances and debates. It is not a slight on 'conservatism', it does however, allow for a certain ecomony of thought and words.  To say President Obama is a centrist Democrat is the same.  Certain uses of words that appear to be labels are just linguistic short-hand.  Not all labeling is thus politically incorrect.  I think we must learn to distinguish our 'labels' from our 'name-calling.'  What do you think?

Michael

Comments

[nancy hitt]

It's an interesting dilemma, Michael. My daughter the linguistic student informs me cheerfully that all language is violent based on the observation (not her own!)that a single spoken word destroys the integrity of what it represents by separating that thing out of the whole of an otherwise unbroken state. Add to that the fact that language never represents completely the object it refers to (hence the many words for the same/similar object that convey different shades of meaning)and we have a puzzling process. I'm not sure an undifferentiated "wholeness" is desireable...to me that sounds like chaos and a lack of life. The biblical image of God speaking and ordering the chaos into creation comes to mind. Is creation an act of violence? Perhaps, but I think not necessarily. To unequivocally perceive creation as violence would be to allow no constructive place for change. Perhaps Paul's argument about planting seeds and how the death of the seed is required for new life to grow makes sense here. I need to make a distinction between violence and creation. Violence posits an integrity that is destroyed without any redeeming life/feature. Creation certainly causes change in the integrity of a pre-existing structure, but it also results in new life. All of which is a very abstract way of saying that no matter what words we use, we change things. The question becomes, do we violate people/etc. with our words? To use the shorthand you identify most definitely makes boundaries and separations (this, not that) very clear. I don't think that's necessarily violent, but it may be. An added dimension of meaning has to do with other aspects of communication, everything from intention to tone of voice and context. Those who jump to perceive verbal violence where there is none intended bear a responsibility for helping to create the very thing they are criticizing. I do think we each have a responsibility to be as deliberately non-offensive as possible, and to use language that lines up with people's self-identified acceptable terms for themselves. However, it seems like a unique sort of satanic trap for us to form an amorphous crowd that allows for no speech at all lest we violate one another- and that's where it sometimes seems we're headed. Made in the image of God, we need to speak the word that creates instead of violates, and recognize that not all change and not all death are equal. Some are creative and we pronounce those "good". I say we speak with care, knowing we may unintentionally violate so that we may intentionally create new connections and new understandings. Otherwise, I think we are being seduced into silence and no creation- no life at all. That's a very long winded way of saying that being silenced by the accusation of verbal violence leads to death. All of which presupposes that we are not being intentionally violent and that we are willing to learn what effective communication is for the other- and use it as an act of love. Language may not be perfect, but it's way ahead of undifferentiated chaos. I say, keep on speaking up and out- in love. And I'm sorry for being so longwinded...hit an abstract nerve here!

[John Mann]

Michael,

Sometimes in our effort
to make no offense
we just end up
removing the poetry.