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Helping Rowan Williams

In "Civil and Religious Law in England: a religious perspective," Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams fails to harmonize the British legal system with the religious/legal systems of other cultures because he mistakenly assumes culture and society are synonymous.

They are not. Society is the edge where two individuals -- or two cultures -- meet. Behavior at that edge determines whether one culture threatens another. This isn't academic. Civilization is at risk now that science has put enormous power in the hands of anyone who cares to learn enough to use it. Strongboxes no longer protect one's wealth nor do bolted doors protect one's family [Bronowski, "Magic, Science and Civilization."]. With natural boundaries failing, we are in a race with no guarantee civilization will win, and while Mother Nature may not care, we certainly do.

Fortunately, acceptable behavior at society's edge can be derived, independent of culture, from any individual's personal experience. Experience, though unique, invariably reduces to a common understanding that, while not universal, acts as if it were. Painful experiences result from an imperfect mental map of reality. We call it humility to recognize that sometimes we think we are right when we are mistaken.

Society with others is in our self-interest as an opportunity to improve the accuracy of our mental map, and, hence, our future. Others are no different than ourselves, and when they are similarly engaged, respect, or reciprocity, is their due. Humility and reciprocity are the cornerstones of society. Subsidiary principles we call moral codes are deduced from them.

Humility and reciprocity are not abstract. The advantage of democracy isn't that our culture practices it, but that it codifies the humility that one just might be wrong. In democracy, freedom of speech allows the smallest voice to try to convince others of a better way. Democracy isn't a guarantee of getting it right, but a never-ending commitment to a process of improvement. Similarly, individuals, journalism, and society are concentric circles that share the same interest in an accurate map of reality. In the innermost circle an individual works to plan one's best future. Journalism, in the middle, serves as a surrogate to help individuals improve the accuracy of what they understand. Society, the outermost circle, encompasses all who would understand better how to approach the future.

This is not how we are ordinarily taught to think. The teach/test educational model currently emphasizes facts, not process. Adversarial politics emphasizes winning, not understanding or partnership. The church, however good at encouraging inner harmony, does not transfer easily to the unconvinced. Nevertheless, our time has reached an important threshold because, although great minds over 2,500 years of written history have mastered this, the vocabulary now available makes the concepts more accessible. Socrates only had the single ancient Greek word "polis" to mean both society and culture. We have two words. We also have more illuminating examples to help us master that thinking about thinking is a process-oriented dynamic view more powerful than a traditional Newtonian static view. Such cataclysmic changes of thought do happen. In the 1300s, perspective -- or point of view -- powerfully affected art, literature, education and politics. Today, Edison's motion pictures and Alan Turing's recursive computers make looking at things, where people sight from the past, through the present, to the future, more accessible and useful projecting constructive ways to act.

Adam Smith understood the power of self-interest. People alone and adrift, buffeted by the stormy sea of life, can see that their self-interest lies in lashing together into society based on humility and respect, to establish a process of peaceful problem resolution, and to recognize and treat accordingly those who by their actions decide to give up their human potential and return to the law of the jungle.

Society stands independent of culture, religion, or tradition, as the creation of mankind aware enough to project what the future can be.

Regards,

Stephen B. Waters

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