My post this morning “Why Is Civil Discourse So Difficult?” generated a brilliant comment from Lindsay.
Lindsay’s comment is longer than the original post and well-worth reading. I am reposting it here in the hopes that more people might see it and feel encouraged to respond.
lindsay
“There are certain beliefs that are simply not compatible. In the end there will be a winner and a loser when our community decides to move one way or the other. How can a community move beyond “winners” and “losers” but still make difficult decisions?”
This is a big question, one which I’ve been wondering about for years … so far, it seems …
a. We have a tendency to automatically jump to conclusions and take a position on one side of the fence or the other … even at times when we aren’t personally affected by the issue under debate. It seems sometimes we are programmed to get excited and choose sides, and argue in favour of our position, without actually listening to all sides of the argument.
b. Which brings up my next observation … whatever the conflict, many issues can be resolved by simply giving all parties the opportunity to tell their story and be heard (not necessarily agreed), and their position, albeit it may be different or difficult to listen to, can be respected. A lot of heat is taken out of the conflict when people don’t have to fight so hard for the opportunity for their viewpoints to be heard. Once people feel their issues have been genuinely heard, they tend to refocus their energy on finding a solution to the actual problem.
c. When people focus on problems, rather than politics and ego / grandstanding, they tend to get a better idea of the actual issues and tend to find actual solutions, or at least come up with a process that has a reasonable chance of resolving the issue.
d. When people with different viewpoints are willing and allowed to be active participants in discussion, the eventual solution tends to be bigger, more widely encompassing and better than it would have been if it were simply reached by a group of like-minded people.
e. People who are included in the discussion are more likely to take responsibility for the outcome, which increases the likelihood of the outcome being more widely accepted, even if the outcome isn’t favourable.
f. Positions we feel passionate about now and argue about vehemently now, if not all-inclusive, will invariably backfire at some point in the future. It’s Murphy’s Law that the position we argue for now we will invariably argue against in the future.
g. Higher authorities and larger governing principles can be useful for resolving issues (like the United Nations Charters on Rights of People, like the Supreme court, like Mom or Dad taking a stand) when discussion is no longer possible.
h. A sort term fix which seems to work when issues get overheated, and when there are only 2 war-ing factions, is for a 3rd more powerful or impartial bystander (like a Mom) to draw the battlegrounds, to define the outcomes and limit the fallout of the conflict … as in you 2 guys are fighting and you are making it uncomfortable for the rest of us … go into your room and sort it out. Don’t come back until you have sorted it out.
If you don’t sort it out then … (insert any outcome here) … you will not be allowed out of your room to play, you will be disestablished and removed from the House of Lords … Invariably the 2 war-ing factions will reach an agreement quite quickly, or decide the issue isn’t important enough to warrant staying in a room and not being allowed outside to play …
i. An unfortunate but obvious side-effect of #h is that the 2 war-ing parties will invariably unite with each other against the 3rd more powerful, or impartial participant … changing or shifting the issue … which isn’t necessarily a bad thing … just takes a strong stomach to be the 3rd party … Hence #h should only be used as a short term fix … and the 3rd party better be prepared to handle the fallout … 
j. Compromise can work if it isn’t compromise for the sake of compromise, but when all the issues are laid out honestly on the table, and there is genuine give and take …
k. Breakdown of trust, once firmly entrenched, is the biggest problem … Once trust is broken, it takes massive leaps of faith to resolve, and any future act, albeit well-intentioned and favourable tends to be viewed with suspicion. I don’t know the answer to this one … but it does tend to cause lingering conflict, even if the conflict is suppressed, lack of trust tends to be expressed in other ways … I think the answer is to always try to act respectfully and with integrity … even if it means taking a few on the chin …
l. There is something to be said sometimes for taking people where they are at (culturally, background, religions view, gender, etc) and saying to oneself, you know this person is from (insert whatever label here) … Africa, female, a communist background, a large family, a teenager … etc, no matter how hard I try to explain, he/she is just not going to get it … and then letting it go …
In A Spacious Place 
9 comments
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November 30, 2012 at 4:52 pm
Tress
well thought out and expressed Lindsay
November 30, 2012 at 5:45 pm
Steve
British author Oz Guinness has written an excellent book entitled “The Case for Civility: And Why Our Future Depends on It”. Many of the thoughts expressed parallel Lindsay’s comments above and he goes on to provide a road map to civil discourse avoiding the pitfalls of both a left and a right dominated public square. It is written to an American audience but I think it has applicability for almost any western culture. Himself a Christian, he is especially critical of the Christian right in the U.S. and many of the thoughts I have expressed here are influenced by his thinking. I highly recommend this book and also his newest release, “A Free People’s Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future”.
December 1, 2012 at 11:47 am
lindsay
Hi Steve, thanks for this! …
I see Os Guiness is the primary drafter of “The Global Charter of Conscience,” published at the European Union Parliament in Brussels in June 2012.
I’m reading through the Charter right now and am still trying to figure out what it means in practical terms? Article 15 and Article 16 caught my eye.
I couldn’t cut-and-paste directly from the Charter so I hope I’ve transcribed these up correctly … http://charterofconscience.org/?page_id=42
ARTICLE 15 – DIFFERENCES IRREDUCIBLE
Freedom of thought, conscience and religion means there is a beneficial value but a definite limitation the approach that seeks resolution and unity through dialogue and co-operations between religions and worldviews. In the end the decisive differences between the worlds ultimate beliefs are ultimate and irreducible – and these differences are crucial for both individuals and for societies and civilizations. This realistic recognition of the limitations of dialogue is rooted in the constraints caused by deep commitments to truth claims. Religious freedom is the freedom to be faithful to the faith in which individuals and communities believe on the basis of the dictates of conscience.
ARTICLE 16 – CIVIL PUBLIC SQUARE
The public place of freedom of thought, conscience and religion in a world of deep diversity is best fulfilled through the vision of a cosmopolitan and civil public square – a public square in which people of all all faiths, religions and naturalistic, are free to enter and engage public life on the basis of their faith, but always within a double framework first, under the rule of law that respects all human rights, freedom of conscience in particular, and makes no distinction between peoples based on their beliefs, and second, according to a freely agreed covenant specifying what each person agrees to be just and free for everyone else too, and therefore of the duties involved in living with deep differences of others.
December 1, 2012 at 11:52 am
lindsay
I love this quote (in the summary document) from JFK’s commencement speech at American University in 1963 …
“So, let us not be blind to our differences–but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”
December 1, 2012 at 2:56 pm
Steve
Well, you found your way right to the heart of the matter in Article 15. It is a bit cryptic but this is what I make of it.
It is that all belief systems can be reduced down to two basic and conflicting visions that are not reconcilable. There is almost no point on which the two camps can find a common denominator except ultimately both seek the betterment of mankind and world peace. Each worldview leads to a belief system which is logically built upon premises and assumptions so that both sides cannot understand the viewpoint of the other because they have different underlying assumptions. Each is being true to his beliefs, each feels theirs is logical and correct thinking but they remain entirely at odds, neither understanding the other. Herein lies the root cause of the contentiousness that exists between liberal and conservative, the so called class warfare that exists in the U.S. and sadly it even exists within the Christian church.
Given two opposing belief systems makes finding common ground upon which to establish a means via covenant, social contract, or constitution precarious. Oz Guinness and others point to the genius of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as the best solution yet devised and as James Madison put it the “true remedy” to the predicament of religious conflict. Both sides have lost sight of the spirit of the first amendment and both have tried to hijack it for their own purposes. It is Oz Guinness’s contention that the only solution is in re-establishing a civil public square (this is where your original comments factor in) and this is what Article 16 addresses. I was not aware of the existence of The Global Charter of Conscience but it has a parallel in the Williamsburg Charter which addresses specifically the U.S. Both were drafted in large part by Oz Guinness.
There is an excellent and scholarly book called “A Conflict of Visions” by Thomas Sowell which goes into great detail explaining the two world views and their philosophical origins. In short, one vision represents an unconstrained view of mankind and the other a constrained view. One view (in my own inexact words) says we can through education, social engineering and various other means change human nature and the other says human nature can never be changed and the best we can accomplish is an imperfect society, that absolute equality is not attainable, and governments function best when accepting this limitation.
I am a U.S. citizen and I speak from that vantage point but I think all this applies universally throughout the western world.
December 2, 2012 at 9:45 am
lindsay
“Given two opposing belief systems makes finding common ground upon which to establish a means via covenant, social contract, or constitution precarious. Oz Guinness and others point to the genius of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as the best solution yet devised and as James Madison put it the “true remedy” to the predicament of religious conflict. Both sides have lost sight of the spirit of the first amendment and both have tried to hijack it for their own purposes.”
Steve, I’m interested in what you say about both sides losing sight of the spirit of the first amendment and trying to hi-jack it for it’s own purposes. I figure US has a long history of having a constitution based on the rights of all people. I’m wondering what strategies both sides have tried to use to hijack the constitution and whether or not you think they could succeed?
Speaking as a South African, having grown up in one of the most oppressive societies imaginable, I was astounded by the new South African constitution which went far beyond the original mandate (universal adult suffrage) making provision for the rights people of all people …
“Section 9: the right to equality before the law and freedom from discrimination. Prohibited grounds of discrimination include race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth.”
Coming out of where we were which was effectively a civil war, this new constitutional was like a breath of fresh air, quite amazing really, given everything about our past. It gave a renewed sense new hope when before the prognosis wasn’t hopeful. Don’t get me wrong, South Africa still has a lot of problems, for example massive crime rate, high unemployment, Aids, etc but having an all-inclusive constitution sets the baseline of how to treat each other … I think many lives were saved as a result of this constitution, it could have gone a very different way … retaliation seemed inevitable, but it didn’t really happen that way. Instead we got a vision of something else, of what could be possible. Perhaps for the US coming out of Civil War it was the same way … perhaps a crisis needs to reach a crisis point before such a constitution like the First Amendment can be accepted and welcomed by the vast majority of the people …
December 2, 2012 at 10:52 am
lindsay
Looking back now at how the South African constitution came to be drafted, it’s interesting to see the parallels between what happened is South Africa leading up to the drafting of the constitution when minorities were expressing concerns about being not having a voice and what’s happening now in the Church of England when minorities are expressing cpncerns about not being heard … seeing the similarities …
For fun I’ve taken out the references to South African in this wiki article on the South African constitution and inserted the Anglican Church / Church of England instead, to see what it looks like … Imagine if you will an article on the Anglican Church written in say, 15 years time … looking back at the crisis of 2012 when women bishops were vetoed by the Church of England …
_________________________________________________
The Constitution of the Anglican Church is the supreme law of the Anglican Church. It provides the legal foundation for the existence of the church, sets out the rights and duties of its members worldwide, and defines the structure of the governance. The current constitution was drawn up by the General Synod elected in (insert year) in the first (international, Anglican-wide) elections. It was promulgated by the Archbishop of Canterbury and her Majesty the Queen of England on (insert date) and came into effect on (insert date), replacing the existing Constitution of mother Church, the Church of England, on (insert year).
Negotiations
__________
An integral part of the negotiations to end the crisis around women bishops and same sex-marriage was the creation of a new, non-discriminatory constitution for the Church. One of the major disputed issues was the process by which such a constitution would be adopted. The governing body of the Church of England insisted that it should be drawn up by a democratically-elected constituent assembly, while traditionalists who favoured a literal translation of the Bible. feared that the rights of minorities would not be protected in such a process, and proposed instead that the constitution be negotiated by consensus between the parties and then put to a referendum.
Formal negotiations began in December 2012 at the Palace of Lambreth, the headquarters of the Church of England. The parties agreed on a process whereby a negotiated transitional constitution would provide for an elected constitutional assembly to draw up a permanent constitution. Negotiations broke down, however, after the second plenary session in May 2013. One of the major points of dispute was the size of the supermajority that would be required for the assembly to adopt the constitution: The traditionalists wanted a 75 per cent requirement, which would effectively have given it a veto.
In June 2013, the parties returned to negotiations, in what was known as the Multi-Party Negotiating Process (MPNP). A committee of the MPNP proposed the development of a collection of “constitutional principles” with which the final constitution would have to comply, so that basic freedoms would be ensured and minority rights protected, without overly limiting the role of the elected constitutional assembly.The parties to the MPNP adopted this idea and proceeded to draft the Interim Constitution of 2013, which was formally enacted by Parliament and came into force on (insert date).
Interim Constitution
_______________
The Constitutional Assembly consisted of all parties sitting together, and was responsible for drawing up a final constitution within 6 months. The adoption of a new constitutional text required a two-thirds supermajority in the Constitutional Assembly, as well as the support of two-thirds of each house (bishops, priests, laity) on matters relating to governance. If a two-thirds majority could not be obtained, a constitutional text could be adopted by a simple majority and then put to a national referendum in which sixty per cent support would be required for it to pass.
The Interim Constitution contained 34 constitutional principles with which the new constitution was required to comply.
Final text
________
The Constitutional Assembly engaged in a massive public participation programme to solicit views and suggestions from the public. As the deadline for the adoption of a constitutional text approached, however, many issues were hashed out in private meetings between the parties’ representatives. On (insert date), a new text was adopted with the support of 86 per cent of the members of the assembly, but in the First Certification judgment, delivered on (insert date), Archbishop of Canterbury and Her Majesty, the Queen of England, refused to certify this text, identifying a number of provisions that did not comply with the constitutional principles.
The Constitutional Assembly reconvened and, )insert date), adopted an amended constitutional text containing many changes relative to the previous text. Some dealt with the reasons for non-certification, while others tightened up the text. The amended text was returned to the Constitutional synod to be certified, which the court duly did in its Second Certification judgment, delivered on (insert date) The Constitution was signed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Her Majesty, the Queen of England on (insert date) and officially published in the (insert) on (insert date). It was brought into operation on (insert date), by a proclamation..
Chapter 1: Founding Provisions
_________________________
Main article: Chapter 1 of the Constitution of the Anglican Church
Chapter 2: Bill of Rights
___________________
Main article: Chapter 2 of the Constitution of the ANglican Churhc
Sections here, including …
Section 9: the right to equality before the law of the church and freedom from discrimination. Prohibited grounds of discrimination include race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth.
Section 10: the right to human dignity.
Amendments
___________
Since its adoption in 2013, the Constitution has been amended sixteen times.
Section 74 of the Constitution provides that a bill to amend the Constitution can only be passed if at least two-thirds of the members of the National Assembly (that is, at least 267 of the 400 members) vote in favour of it. If the amendment affects provincial powers or boundaries, or if it amends the Bill of Rights, at least six of the nine provinces in the National Council of Provinces must also vote for it.
To amend section 1 of the Constitution, which establishes the existence of Anglican Church as a democratic church internationally, and lays out the church’s founding values, would require the support of three-quarters of the members of the International Assembly.
______________________________________________________
Bearing in mind I don’t know much about Church governance or law making, if I were a member of the Anglican church, I reckon the Sections that would impact me directly and what I would really be interested in are
Sections 9 and 10 (The Golden Rule), and anything that would require me to vote …
December 8, 2012 at 11:49 am
Steve
Lindsay,.
From this comment and previous ones I can see your love and concern for your country. Your comments give me pause and it has taken some time to digest them and that with time constraints have made it hard to respond. I am embarrassingly ignorant of South African history and the vantage point from which you speak.
To answer your question as to” what strategies both sides have tried to use to hijack the constitution”, my original comment was a little off-the-cuff but I suppose what I was thinking was that one side has interpreted the freedom of religion clause in the First Amendment as meaning freedom from religion and has thus sought to have any and all representations of religion, especially Christianity, expunged from public view, from public schools and from the public square. On the other side, the religious right interprets freedom of religion to mean freedom to impose religious values on society. The public debate that has resulted has tended, in my opinion, to turn public opinion against the Christian right and tragically against Christianity and Christ Himself. Both sides are wrong but I fear those inspired by Christopher Hitchens et al. are winning out and many well intentioned but ill informed Christians are being all too helpful.
But your comments continue to intrigue me when I compare/contrast them with the typical American mindset which is so preoccupied with asserting their individual rights as to loose sight of the fact that freedom and liberty are not self sustaining. As Oz Guinness puts it, too much freedom is not a good thing.
December 8, 2012 at 6:11 pm
lindsay
Hey Steve, I’m seeing your comment now. Thank-you for this! Likewise, I am intrigued by your comment “mindset which is so preoccupied with asserting their individual rights as to loose sight of the fact that freedom and liberty are not self sustaining. As Oz Guinness puts it, too much freedom is not a good thing.” … I’m taking out the “American” part and want to ponder more about the implications of this for myself …. I’ve often told my kids that with increased freedom comes increased responsibility … which in our household generally translated means “increased consideration” … but I don’t think I’ve really thought enough about it with the shoe on the other foot …