Dialogue Under Occupation: October 2008 Archives

This post distills a series of thoughts from reading three different texts: The Heroic Model of Science (Chapter 1, Telling the Truth about History by Appleby, Hunt & Jacob, 1991); The Talmud and the Internet by Jonathan Rosen (2000), and an Interview with Ilan Stavans by Richard Birnbaum (@ 2003).

Three threads are primary: language, interaction, and science. "Language" is engaged theoretically and in practice, particularly the practices of interpretation. Although the references in the three selected texts refer mainly to written translations, I extrapolate 'down' to in-the-moment generation of understanding in everyday talking with each other, based on cooperation or agreement between people about meaning. I also extrapolate 'up' - or at least 'over' - to the interlinguistic skills that are most obviously evident in simultaneous interpretation. As to interaction, there are numerous levels from the microsocial to the macrosocial and the temporal to the ephemeral. The history of science is significant because of its influence on how people in western countries learn.

Why these three texts, beyond the coincidence of reading them more-or-less at the same time? Appleby, Hunt & Jacob (hereafter AH&J) investigate "what sorts of political circumstances foster critical inquiry" (p. 9). They write specifically in regard to the discipline of history by "examin[ing] critically the relevance of scientific models to the craft of history" (p. 9). I borrow their analysis as a way to explore the relevance of scientific models to other disciplines, particularly communication and the intersection of communication with political economy (especially governance), management (the organization of business), and culture (identity, ritual, and social relations).

AH&J challenge relativists and skeptics, sometimes lumping them together as postmodernists, arguing that in some ways they can "leav[e] the impression that the linguistic conventions of science have less to do with nature and more to do with the sociology of the scientists...in this way they have confused the social nature of all knowledge construction with the self-interest of the constructors, forgetting that all social beings participate in the search for knowledge and sometimes do so successfully" (emphasis added, p. 8-9). AH&J offer definitions for "skepticism" and "relativism," showing how these attitudes form the substance of conflict with another historical attitude, that of religious absolutism. Tensions among these attitudes form the roots of the culture wars we see in the U.S. today.

"We view skepticism," write AH&J, " as an approach to learning as well as a philosophical stance...skepticism can encourage people to learn more and remain open to the possibility of their own errors" (p. 6-7).

Relativism, a modern corollary to skepticism, is the belief that truth is relative to the position of the person making the statement" (p. 7). There is an important nuance to this definition: truth is not directly relative to the person, rather, it is relative to "the position of the person." (Note: "modern" means the idea of relativism wasn't around when the initial fight took place between the skeptics and the religious. "Relativism" is an outgrowth of that fight.)

Religious absolutism is "the conviction that transcendent and absolute truth can be known" (p. 15).

All of these stances can be overdone, hence AH&J propose a standard for knowledge, i.e., for what we believe to be true:


The last phrase, it seems to me, is most crucial. If we are interested in democracy and social justice - meaning a fairness for groups of people of varying types - then we must find ways of producing and valuing broad social, political, and economic structures that are acceptable to everyone, even those whose self-interests differ from our own.

Jonathan Rosen, in a section about the ways Judaism and Christianity have borrowed from and influenced each other through the ages, writes about "open fearlessness, that willingness to assimilate outside cultures into your own without worrying that they will corrupt your beliefs" (p. 83-84). One of the anchors he poses for the Jewish religion is the collective realization, a very, very long time ago "that only words were durable" (p. 79). The Talmud, he argues, "is a sort of cathedral built across the ages and spanning all the earth - or perhaps I should say it's a Temple, or at least a translation of one, built out of words and laws and stories" (p. 81).

I want to make three points simultaneously: language as a power with literal force; the "extraordinary religiosity" (according to AH&J, p. 50) of early (and at least some contemporary) scientists; and the inescapable fact that scientists today are the inheritors, intellectual descendants, and cultural products of the heroic science born of the Enlightenment. Certainly I am. I want to both rescue and continue the project of "truth with a purpose: the reform of existing institutions" (AH&J, p. 41), while seeking to escape or alter additional repeat performances of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century culture wars.

Power of Interpretation:

Language is key. Rosen's parallel between the Internet and the Talmud speaks to a proliferation of heterogeneous meanings that suggests an antidote to "the nature of books never to be quite right and of words always to elude our grasp" (p. 54). The refusal of words to mean one thing only, and to mean only that one thing always and forever, is precisely the juncture where understandings are forged or splattered. Words are durable while truth about what the words mean remains elusive. Rosen's desire "to embrace contradictory traditions" (p. i) seems similar to AH&J's focus on "the interplay between certainty and doubt" (p. 10). This enables Rosen to keep faith with "the business of life [which] is to learn, not to know" (p. 33). For AH&J that interplay "keeps faith with the expansive quality of democracy" (p. 10). Learning, democracy, science, and faith are inextricably intertwined: language is their confluent expression.

This is why Ilan Stavans can assert with conviction: "I find translators, in many ways, to be the real protagonists of culture . . . Translators are the underpaid heroes of culture." Translators - and interpreters - are always in between. Rosen explains how the Talmud "devised a culture intended to be a kind of middle term between extremes - between destruction and new creation, between the dead and the living, between God and man, between home and exile, between doubt and faith, between outward behavior and inner inclination" (p. 131).

Interpretation is a form of communication that has to work within and between "the chaotic contemporary forms of communication that," Rosen explains, "are so often accused of diverting us from what is true. The chaos and the incongruities, it turns out, are part of the truth" (p. 119). On that basis he compares the "interrupting, jumbled culture of the Internet" (p. 10) with "a page of the Talmud" (p. 19): "all those texts tucked intimately and intrusively onto the same page, like immigrant children sharing a single bed" (p. 10). "Those portions and their accompanying readings," he continues, "swim in a sea of commentary . . . so large that it seems at times to expand [like the Internet] to include everything" (p. 30).

Language in History:

Before elaborating on Stavan's thesis, let me summarize the discussion of language and its role in history provided by Appleby, Hunt & Jacob, because they present the discipline of linguistics in the creation of heroic science as an equal partner to the discipline of science. "The Enlightenment," said to begin in 1690, "set the terms of the modern cultural project: the individual's attempt to understand nature and humankind through scientific as well as linguistic means" (p. 39). Concurrent with the emergence of sciences and history as disciplines, "the European philosophes also developed new approaches toward old languages and texts. Reading old documents, indeed reading any document, is never as simple as it looks. Even picking up the local newspaper you ask, well, why did they run that story? Or, I wonder what party that journalist has joined?" (p. 37)

The discipline of linguistics began with criticism of written texts, called hermeneutics. It didn't take long before "the language in a text, the words on the page, became too important to be left to clerical interpreters" (AB&J, p. 38). The Christian Bible was, at the time, the standard of absolute knowledge; it came under particular scrutiny. Ironically, clergy had originally invented hermeneutics, using the Bible as the reference point for all kinds of statements of absolute truth concerning the world and time. Now, AB&J continue, "The words had to be enlisted in the enterprise of creating wholly secular and scientific learning, but with consequences for ... the present generation" (p. 38).

Stavans says, "Using language as a category is a way to say who we are in front of a mirror." He goes on to illustrate how words change meanings over time, illustrating how the evolution of meaningfulness is what goes on socially, among and between people. When you, or I, use language - when we talk or write - we are "saying who we are" to ourselves.

When I wrote earlier that I am cut in the vein of heroic science, it is because I recognize how I think and talk in those terms. AH&J present a range of descriptions:

"Diderot described the follower of the Enlightenment as an eclectic, a skeptic and investigator who 'trampling underfoot prejudice, tradition, venerability, universal assent, authority - in a word, everything that overawes the crowd - dares to think for himself, to ascend to the clearest general principles, to examine them, to discuss them, to admit nothing save on the testimony of his own reason and experience'" (citing Diderot's article on eclecticsm in the Encyclopedie (1751), p. 39).

I am not an ideal type, but there is certainly a resemblance. How about this: "a new kind of person...hard to govern, suspicious of authority, more interested in personal authenticity and material progress than in the preservation of traditions, a reader of new literature, novels, newspapers, clandestine manuscripts, even pornography, all especially produced for an urban market" (p. 40). This description hardly marks me special, rather it describes today's average western person. To wit, "a new cultural type who could be a pundit, prophet, fighter against tyranny and oppression, original thinker, elegant writer, sometimes pornographer, reader of science, host of salons, or occasional freemason" (p. 35).

The average western person today, as well as trained scientists and elites, however, is also subject to the culture wars that are the legacy of the original, historical figures of the Enlightenment who "battled with clergy and churches and at moments risked martyrdom" (p. 18). "In the culture wars of the present generation, language, with the many uses and abuses that can be attributed to it, has figured prominently in the arsenal of weapons" (p. 38). Today, continuing the trend of the Enlightenment when secular hermeneutics turned the scientific method on the Bible, all words are related to other words.

The quotes I pulled from this long NY Times magazine article show me some of what I think is Obama's deep wisdom - he is not playing divides against each other, but trying to find the places where opposite sides can connect. It is this ability to see through to the worth of values, and find ways to honor and respect the differences in values that make up all of American culture, that attracted me to him in the beginning. He understands "diversity" from the inside.

What are the "cultural issues" he's talking about?

There is a

...need to stop thinking that issues like religion or guns are somehow wrong . . .Because, in fact, if you've grown up and your dad went out and took you hunting, and that is part of your self-identity and provides you a sense of continuity and stability that is unavailable in your economic life, then that's going to be pretty important, and rightfully so. And if you're watching your community lose population and collapse but your church is still strong and the life of the community is centered around that, well then, you know, we'd better be paying attention to that.

The article (also published by the International Tribune), is interesting and informative). The reporter harks back to Obama's emergence on the national political scene at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. At that time and place, Obama spoke about a broad politics comfortable with "worshiping an awesome God in the blue states" and having "gay friends in the red states." He elaborated to the NY Times reporter (Matt Bai),

"...that Washington's us-versus-them divisions had made it impossible for any president to find solutions to a series of generational challenges, from Iraq to global climate change. 'If voters are similarly polarized and if they're seeing two different realities, a Sean Hannity reality and a Keith Olbermann reality, then we're not going to be able to get done the work we need to get done.'"

Some of the insights I appreciate from the reporter include describing George W. as "more of a uniter [of the American public] than he ever intended" because of the vast disapproval with his policies, and, although not naming Hillary, the evidence of how her protracted fight for the nomination has helped Obama's organizing in the long run. "In three states -- Texas, Indiana and North Carolina -- more people voted in Democratic primaries this year than voted for Kerry on Election Day in 2004."

Of course the economy is crucial - it always was, even before this crisis - but Obama recognizes and keeps talking about the fact that "cultural issues matter far more in the rural areas than they do in the exurbs, because voters see those issues as a test of whether politicians respect their values or mock them." (Emphasis added.)

This next is a longer quote, because it might be part of what unnerves some people about him - his lack of need for public adoration. Perhaps what is unsettling about this aspect of Obama's character (his "organized unconscious" as David Brooks recently described it) is that the absence of a need for acceptance reduces public leverage on his decisions, which subsequently ups the ante of trust. Obama will surround himself with the best and brightest of varying points of view, and then he will decide based on the calculations of his own wisdom. What will do with a President not subject to manipulation? What I hope is that this quality of self-determination applies equally to the elites.

"It is often said in politics that a candidate's strength is also his weakness. Obama's greatest asset as a candidate, the trait that has enabled him to overcome both a thin résumé and the resistance of his own party's establishment, is his placidity. Even more than through his ability to give a rousing speech (plenty of other candidates, from Ted Kennedy to Howard Dean, could do that), Obama has differentiated himself from recent Democrats by conveying a sense of inner security that is highly unusual in a business of people who have chosen to spend every day asking people to love them. He does not seem like a candidate who's going to switch to earth tones in his middle age or who's going to start dressing up in camouflage to rediscover his inner Rambo.

Obama is content to meet the world on his terms, and something about that inspires confidence.And yet that same lack of pathetic neediness may in fact be a detriment when it comes to persuading voters who, culturally or ideologically, just aren't predisposed to like him. I once heard a friend of Obama's compare him with Bill Clinton this way: if Clinton sees you walking down the other side of the street, he immediately crosses over to shake your hand; if Obama sees you coming, he nods and waits for you to cross. That image returned to me as I watched Obama campaign in Lebanon. Clinton wouldn't have wanted to leave that gym until every last voter had been converted, even if that meant he had to memorize the scheduled sewer installation for every home in Russell County. Mark Warner, a similarly tenacious glad-hander, went to rural Virginia again and again because, deep down, he needed to change people's perceptions of who he was. Obama doesn't connect to the world that way, which is probably why his campaign has always preferred big rallies to hand-to-hand venues. Obama gives the impression that he's going to show up and make his case, and if you don't fall in love with him, well, he'll just have to pick up the pieces and go on."

Then, there is the matter of race/racism and whether the latent prejudice of whites will adversely affect Obama's chances. I like the reporter's critique: "The more important question is not whether race is a factor in people's votes but whether it is a determinative factor -- that is, whether Obama's being black is the disqualifying fact for white voters that it might have been 20 years ago or whether it has now been reduced to one of those surmountable obstacles that any candidate has to overcome." This merely calls for scathing honesty: is Obama's mixed heritage the ONE reason to vote for/against him? Although there is, no doubt, a small subset of the population who would say this matters the most, this is obviously the wrong basis of evaluation. I am in agreement with the reporter's conclusion: "it may be possible for racial prejudice to exist, as all the polls suggest it does, but for it to be only one significant influence among many, including voters' views on the economy and on McCain as an alternative."

Finally, I appreciate Obama's candor.

"I'm not a familiar type." He laughed. "Which means it would be easier for me to deliver this message if I was from one of these places, right? I've got to deliver that message as a black guy from Hawaii named Barack Obama. So, admittedly, it's just unfamiliar . . . I'm different in all kinds of ways. I'm different even for black people." (Emphasis added.)

In the end, I think this is what it comes down to: can you vote for someone unfamiliar? Of course you will feel the riskiness of it, but the only rational explanation for that sense of risk is fear. Not necessarily deep dread or panic, but uneasiness with the inability to predict what will happen. We never can, of course, but the uncertainty of tomorrow (even of later today) seems more manageable when you are working with the familiar. This is change at its essence: from something known to something new. The big changes that Obama might generate will be possible because of the small changes in the hearts and minds of people like us.

The pressure to use English is intense.

There are so many reasons.

Ah yes. There is the idea (of multilingualism, of the right to speak/read/write in one's mother tongue - or at least their official national language), and then there is what people do regardless of the ideal (notion, concept, belief, commitment) that the words of "the idea" point toward.

July, 2006, I opened a Facebook Group (Interpretation: An Action Learning Set) to facilitate some of the logistics of this research project. I received an email in response to the invitation I sent friends:

"Hey, what's this "interpretation" group?

Tell me more before I commit."

"All I really need," I answered, "is a translation of my research invitation into your national language, so that I can send it to all the relevant MEPS." The conversation that ensued was informative, to say the least. The extent of the questions and doubt caught me by surprise: nearly everyone asked why, nearly everyone expressed a reason - or two or three reasons - against it. (Conform.) I have to keep explaining myself (it is like a political campaign). Most friends eventually come around to seeing the point, but doubt is nearly always held in reserve: " . . . there's the practical level." Another criteria is marshalled that supercedes (supposedly) the original logic, point, or value, discouraging and weakening implementation.

Most of my arguments with friends to date have been based in communication theory, but there is also EU law:

"Therefore each citizen of the Union has the right, "[to] write to any of the institutions or bodies referred to in this Article or in Article 7 in one of the languages mentioned in Article 314..."

There are some layers of irony here, no? I am not a citizen of any European Union country, yet I am trying to apply an ethic that has been believed so strongly - or understood to have such utilitarian value - that it has been institutionalized into law; and am being told (essentially, repeatedly) not to bother. (Conform!)

Here we are, in the European Union's Year of Intercultural Dialogue. Without neglecting the initiative's achievements . . . are there really only words in one language by which such "dialogue" can be accomplished? If only one language is being used, can whatever communication that happens even qualify, potentially, as dialogue? Di = two, logue = word. Two words, two different words (or more), are necessary.

Thankfully, and due to extraordinary efforts from friends, their families, friends of friends, and their families (!), I presently have seventeen translations (of twenty-three).

The gathering was splendid.

The U.S. Ambassador's Residence in Brussels is large, impressive, and immaculately tended. We arrived a few minutes early but were immediately ushered in to mingle in the hallways and anterooms, sipping wine, juice or water and munching delicious appetizers from trays replenished regularly by the constantly circulating staff. Conversation with the delightful company was light and entertaining; it was me being there that edged on the surreal. :-)

I did not get to shake hands with Ambassador Fox, although we had a prolonged moment of eye contact just as he was being summoned to introduce a short film on Belgian-U.S. relations. An Invisible Bridge is a well-crafted summary of a unique international relationship between two peoples - or, rather between the idea of two nationalities with a special bond. Susceptible as I am to musically-produced emotional tweakery, I teared up at the presentation of NATO's heroic mission "to secure the future of Europe", noticing that a Belgian acquaintance next to me was also surreptitiously wiping tears away. When I asked her, post-film, she confessed. Her emotion stemmed from grief at unity lost - the togetherness of a single nation being ripped at its seams along a language divide.

Ambassador Fox is quite proud of the film and the interest it has generated across Belgium. I understand why: the ethos of the film appeals to a human need to belong, to know one is connected with others, a part of something larger than ourselves. The desire for a group identification is, at core, tribal; its modern form is the nation.

I am not advocating an end to the nation (not necessarily, for sure not yet). We need better institutional structures and mechanisms for balancing out economic disparities, and the state is still the best tool for experimenting with various possibilities. My problem with the film is along the lines articulated by a friend who rejected its glorification of war. For me, I can't say that I saw "glorification" per se. War is a tragedy, and its effects are still viscerally and personally real for many people in Europe: both those who lived through WWII (while so many died) and the children of people who lived/died during or because of the war. The tragedy of war is also etched in the beings of the millions of immigrants to Europe from regions of the world still swamped under the reign of violence.

What I witnessed in the film was an acknowledgment of war's horrors, and gratitude to those who made attempts to alleviate suffering. The problematic implication for me was the implicit assumption that war is a human inevitability. The film makes no statement about ending war; indeed, by shoring up the borders of nationality the film cultivates the exclusive attitude of distinction that makes war possible.

Still, I appreciate what I learned:

• Peter Minuit "bought Manhattan from the Indians" circa 1626. (The history obliterated by the neutral statement of fact nonetheless remains.)


• Father Pierre-Jean De Smet helped negotiate "peace" (my quotation marks) with Sitting Bull


• the Red Star Line carried millions of Eastern Europeans to the U.S. at the end of the 19th century


• the WWI Belgian Relief program organized by President Herbert Hoover, Ernest Solvay, and other prominent Belgians.


• rebuilding of the Library at the University of Leuven after its destruction during WWI


• the organized escape routes, known as the Comet Line, created during WWII for Allied soldiers


• the Battle of the Bulge occurred here, in the Ardennes mountain range

Here's a testimonial of a US veteran of the Bulge returning in 1994:

The most memorable part of our tour to Belgium was the warmth and gratitude expressed to us by the people of Houffalize and Bastogne. As Ken Aran expressed it, "our localized reception was more like a family. It was an experience I shall always cherish." One of many examples of Belgian warmth for us veterans was the parade at Bastogne in which the not-so-young veterans marched the length of Bastogne's main street to the McAuliffe Square. As we march along down the Rue Savlon, many school children hurried out to grasp a veteran's hand and marched along before approving and politely applauding crowds that lined the sidewalks. There were not always enough veterans' hands to go around, but some children then clasped hands with kids who were already joined with veterans.

There is a huge emphasis on the sentiment of Belgians' appreciation for the US military's role in freeing Belgium from the occupation of the Nazi's. Obviously this is a triumph and a matter of pride for soldiers and civilians who fought and won that war. There is no doubt that the gratitude of the persons and families affected is genuine; nor is there doubt that that war had to be fought. Because humanity (as a sociobiological species) is still riding a plateau of violence (war is collective, cooperative behavior), no doubt there will continue to be some wars that remain necessary. But not as many as we have, and certainly not the wars predicated on a competitive economic fight over the planet's resources.

We can do better than that. So I am disappointed on an ideological level with An Invisible Bridge. The economic ties between Belgium and the US are substantive: 900 US companies in Belgium, 500 Belgian companies in the US.

Let not the ties between the peoples of these nations be based on pillars of war or greed, and neither motivated by fear.