Tapestries-34 | For and against
Breaking out of the cycle of negation and cynicism through making an affirmative statement.
It feels like we have a tendency to define ourselves by what we're against, instead of what we're positively for. In this piece, I want to discuss why that is, and to affirmatively state what I stand for. And in the process, I'll describe how I've arrived at "dignity" as my personal guiding principle.
As a piece that embodies the personal challenges of navigating a fractured ideological landscape, it will be contradictory and flawed, but hopefully also honest and productive. But first, some context.
A launching-off point
I just finished reading Martin Gurri’s The Revolt of the Public. It’s a powerful and revealing look at the breakdown of authority we are living through, and a book I highly recommend to those looking for models to understand the current moment. Chief among the insights that struck me was his emphasis on the primacy of “negation”—the position of being against something or negative towards it—in our public and private discourses, which themselves filter down into our personal modes of thinking.
Our moment is heavy with questions of institutional decay, splintering economics, pitched social justice battles and ideological warfare. I believe we live too much in these macro struggles and undervalue and neglect the micro, where we actually live. I believe we consequently fail to pay sufficient attention to the questions "who do I want to be, how should I conduct myself in the mundane but real moments of my life, and what do I hold true?"
I see my own tendency for negation in the way my reflexive response to issues in conversation is often framed in the negative or in opposition to the the sentiment being expressed (whether I verbalize my view or not). I also see it in the positions I take in my writing. Upon reflection, it's clear I'm quite at home critiquing things I see or hear (e.g. technology, language, politics). While I do try and write with a lightness and openness, the starting point is often one of negation in a similar manner to Gurri's description. Early in the book, he quips that "[p]essimism tends to be the province of the disillusioned idealist and the false sophisticate." I like to think that I'm an optimist, so the framing of pessimism in terms I see in myself stung a bit.
How to respond to the cycle of negation
According to Gurri, we are living in a time of "confusion of message and noise, utopian hopes and nihilistic rage, globalization and disintegration." I think the intellectual and emotional whiplash of the last few years attest to the truth of this statement. I am not interested (at least in this piece) in discussing the forces at play that are contributing to the shifting of the ground beneath our feet; I'm more interested in stating how I intend to conduct myself within these conditions. And in the spirit of simplicity, I have settled on one guiding principle for myself: dignity. I am for, and always will be for, the right of every person to individual dignity.
Why dignity? Our moment is full of worthy causes that can be distilled down to other specific goals or virtues, like freedom, equality or justice. The challenge I have is that there are lots of worthy causes to spread oneself across. And in a climate of heated whataboutism and the impossible demands of ideological purity, the act of being for one thing can often be interpreted as a lack of care for another thing. I choose dignity because it is simple, clear, malleable and practical.
I could give you a description of what "dignity" means, but the beauty of using dignity as a guide is that I don't have to. You know exactly what it is. The saying goes that if something looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck; I think the same is true with dignity. We know what it looks like when we see it, and know what its absence looks and feels like too. Using dignity as a guide provides a very simple prism through which to see the world, and a simple standard to be held accountable to. In comparison with freedom, equality, justice or other candidates, its application—at least for my purposes—is soothingly simple.
My personal guide
Dignity can stand alone by itself as a concept, but is supported by others too. I drafted the below with a friend to form part of a guiding document for his new business venture. On reflection, through stating what I thought was important for the venture, I was articulating what I personally held true. So with dignity as a guide, here are what I consider its supporting principles (adapted from that earlier project):
#1 Authenticity
We do what we say and we say what we do. Inauthenticity manifests in many ways in the modern world. Whether it's the hypocrisy of a company's socially-minded branding exercise, or an inner acknowledgment we are not living our own personal truths authentically, the outcome is the same: the erosion of respect, either in how we view ourselves or how others view us. We earn respect through our authenticity, for which we require real honesty.
#2 Honesty
We are honest because we respect every individual's capacity for understanding, irrespective of the complexity of an issue. Dishonesty can be borne of many causes, and one should have zero tolerance for dishonesty that originates with malicious intent. But often dishonesty is driven by fear or a lack of empathy; fear that the truth will not be received well, and a lack of confidence in the ability of the recipient to understand. With this approach in a complex world, we end up with fear and distrust. Instead, we should believe that no matter how hard a message is to convey, or how unpopular an opinion is, we owe ourselves and those around us complete honesty, and in turn seek to earn their respect and build our own self-respect. And sometimes, this requires courage.
#3 Courage
Courage has a place in our day-to-day lives, not just on the real and metaphorical battlefields. Speaking our truths is only the first part; living them requires courage. Adhering to our personal truths is often difficult, especially when they're unfashionable, unpopular or grind against modern temptations and artificial aspirations. Courage is to be praised, for the right thing is often the hard thing, and we must encourage one another. And to ensure our efforts are not misplaced, we require real awareness.
#4 Awareness
Attention is a superpower, and it begins with simple observation. Our world conditions us to perform, to opine, and to respond to every stimulus that comes our way. In response to a world of noise and one that clamors for our attention, we should condition our first reaction to be one of restraint; we should learn to lead with awareness. In doing so, we can quieten our minds, reduce the noise, and create the space for receiving the world around us. And with our clean lens, we can finally begin to approach our world with dignity as our guiding light.
If that read as somewhat spiritual or a little woo-woo, it's not by accident. The antidote to negation and cynicism is the re-discovery of some form of spirituality, whatever that means to you. My personal spirituality, distilled into the concept of dignity for the purposes of this discussion, encompasses the belief that everybody—especially those who hold a different worldview or occupy a different situation to ours—is worthy of our time and respect.
David Foster-Wallace made the following comment in the context of describing the value of a liberal arts education. I think it applies equally well here to describe why I've focused on dignity as my personal guiding principle in a world of cynicism and negation. For me, dignity represents a model for:
“How to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone, day in and day out.”
One of my biggest personal challenges (in a constructive sense) is determining how and what to think. It's a challenge because it's really hard! Our primitive brains are often overmatched by the volume and intensity of information flow. We are also living through a period of significant change where the institutions and structures we've taken for granted as stable guardrails are faltering and decaying. And amongst all this change, we have crafted a culture that rewards the performer and worships an audience.1 The desire for some sort of simple and humble spirituality is therefore a response to the moment, and an acknowledgement that our sphere of control in a meaningful sense is often very small, and limited to the human relationships we maintain.
In a world being stretched to its breaking point, dignity is a soothing balm, and gives us—or at least gives me—a guide for how to conduct myself in my different communities. This piece is not intended to preach, and dignity is simply one of many possible guiding principles. So if you take anything from this, I hope you take a moment. Think about what it is you want to stand for in a positive sense, and how that particular virtue can guide you through a noisy world.
As one of my favorite writers says: Clear Eyes. Full Heart. Can't Lose. Let's be great.
I’ve written a number of pieces on the topic. If interested, you can find them here:
The world is your stage—How we’ve created a culture that prioritizes the performative over the substantive
So many opinions—Understanding where opinions come from, and why we must qualify so much
A generational pain in the neck—Understanding why we’re so invested in our digital avatars
Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash
Really enjoyed this. Thought provoking.