Being Thoughtful: a philosophy of life

[To mark the 300th article to appear on Question the Powerful, our latest essay is devoted to setting out the core philosophy of life that runs through our critical reflections on politics and society.]

By whatever term we call it, each of us has a philosophy of life that shapes our judgement and behaviour. However, attempts to compare or improve on such philosophies are all too often hampered by overused labels which carry divisive connotations. Instead of clarifying what people mean, they convey contrasting ideas to different audiences. A nominal affiliation, a short-hand ‘left’/’right’ reference, or a loose association with certain groups – can all be invoked to declare someone a follower of this or that ‘ism’ and what that must imply.

Let us try to explore one particular philosophy of life without pigeon-holing it into some pre-conceived box. We’ll call it the Philosophy of Being Thoughtful. In essence, it prompts us to be thoughtful about:
[1] what we value, since none of us can ignore how the pursuit of our values can impact on others and vice versa, and we should recognise the mutual responsibility we have for our respective actions and their consequences;
[2] what we believe, since accepting dubious claims and rejecting sound assertions can lead us down erroneous paths, and we should engage in cooperative enquiry to ascertain what does or does not merit our assent;
[3] what we decide, since the implications of our decisions can’t be fully grasped without discovering the relevant views and concerns others may have, and we should ensure citizen participation is the norm in reaching collective decisions.

In practical terms, this means we should always try to be thoughtful empathically, cognitively, and volitionally – seeking information and understanding to appreciate how others may feel, what views should be revised, and which course of action ought to be chosen given the circumstances. It also means we must anticipate when we will have insufficient evidence, resources, or time to think everything through – we should be ready to act on the basis of what is available to us but prepared to revise our position if and when we can access more that is relevant; and just as importantly, we must constantly help expand inter-personal understanding, empirical knowledge, and collaborative arrangements as essential long-term development for our common wellbeing.

And what difference would it make? We can look at a few examples.

First, how do we view others? There are some who regard others as inconsequential when they go about getting what they want. There are some who look down on others just because of their skin tone, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, or economic background. But being thoughtful means we regard others as we would want them to regard us; we try to understand what it is like to be in their shoes; and we respect their preferences so long as they respect us and intend us no injury.

Secondly, how do we respond to ignorance? There are those who want to spread misconception and superstition, because they want to deceive others for their own ends, or they are lost in their own delusion. But being thoughtful means we are to learn from experience and experiment; apply objective tests and explorations to assess what deserves to be accepted as credible; and promote education that is grounded on science and critical scholarship.

Thirdly, how do we behave in society? There are those who are content to leave everyone to their own devices even though some will hurt and subjugate others. There are those who simply want to have the power to exploit and dominate others. But being thoughtful means we give our support to inclusive arrangements to give everyone a meaningful say; to collaborative structures for making decisions with wider social implications; and to forms of governance which protect us from harm by individuals, groups, or corporations.

Finally, how do we deal with threats? There are some who want to strike hard at whoever they deem a threat – severe punishment for alleged lawbreakers, torture for anyone accused of being a terrorist, military attacks on any foreign country designated an enemy – and do so regardless of whether or not the accused in question is guilty. But being thoughtful means we are to focus on establishing what poses the real threats; find the most effective and proportionate means of dealing with those who threaten us (deploying diplomacy, offensive action, rehabilitation, and incarceration where it is appropriate); and treat the threat from those who abuse the power to protect us as seriously as the threat they claim to protect us from.

While many will recognise the traits and dispositions characteristic of this philosophy of life, few will agree on a name for it. Elements of it can be found across diverse cultures since ancient times; they feature in the ideas of a number of Renaissance and 17th century thinkers; in the writings of many Enlightenment advocates; and in the advice put forward by numerous cooperative and progressive-minded reformists from the 19th century on. Being Thoughtful is perhaps the closest we can get to capturing the common strand in all of them that reflects what has been outlined here.

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A guide to further reading for ‘Being Thoughtful: a philosophy of life’ can be found at: https://hbtam.blogspot.com/2020/08/being-thoughtful-reading-guide.html

What Makes Better Communities: the communitarian case

There is no shortage of ideas for making communities better. To consider what communitarian thinking may have to offer, we need to retrace what the key formulations of that thinking involves.

The initial set of formulations appeared around the middle of the 19th century. It related to the ideas and practices of Robert Owen and people who wanted to apply these to the development of cooperative arrangements to facilitate better social and economic relations. ‘Communitarian’ emerged as a common term for describing Owenite efforts to set up new forms of enterprise, work communities, and associations of workers. While a common aspiration was to realise the age-old potential for collaboration and solidarity, the strategies that were tried out pointed, not to a return to some idealised past, but to new rules and structures to deal with the prevailing reality. This was exemplified by the Rochdale Pioneers, formed in 1844, this group of worker-owners pooled their resources to buy goods needed by local people and sell them at a reasonable price with any profit to be shared amongst members of the group. Customers and workers alike could become members and everyone had an equal vote in determining how the group was run.

The next set of formulations of ‘communitarian’ came in the 1980s via the commentary on the writings of Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel, Michael Walzer, and Charles Taylor, all of whom had penned critiques with a common target – the ideas of John Rawls. The four of them came to be considered as sharing a ‘communitarian’ stance in opposing a form of liberalism that is premised on what they deemed a deeply flawed conception of the self. They argued that a person conceptually stripped of all relational connections with others is not the ‘real’ person with the utmost clarity of thought, but an isolated entity with no sense of belonging, obligations, or concerns, without which there can be no meaningful moral reflections. Significantly, all four of these philosophers’ aversion towards the atomistic self is reflected in their objections to economic individualism and the consequent rise in inequality in society.

The third set of formulations appeared in the 1990s from a number of writers who drew on the cooperative ideals of solidarity and reciprocity in putting forward theories of communitarianism. David Miller argued for a communitarian form of market socialism that could avoid the pitfalls of top-down socialism and laissez faire capitalism. Jonathan Boswell set out a theory of ‘democratic communitarianism’, which explains why neither an over-reliance on the market nor the state can solve the problems facing society, and how mutually supportive human relations sustained by multiple communities at different levels should be cultivated through cooperative institutional practices and public policies. These views were echoed by Robert Bellah in The Good Society; while Charles Derber maintained that combining the Scandinavian model of state-citizen cooperation and the inclusive approaches of cooperative enterprises exemplified by the Mondragon Corporation and others, could hold the key to the development of what he called ‘left communitarianism’. And in her article, ‘A communitarian approach to local governance’, Elinor Ostrom noted that “appropriate institutional arrangements for cooperative housing and neighborhood governance are necessary to facilitate co-productive efforts for monitoring and exercising control over public spaces”.

The fourth set of formulations were put forward by a group of public intellectuals who wanted to use the ‘communitarian’ banner to champion a different approach to public policy development. Amitai Etzioni and William Galston were the main driving force behind the initiative, with Philip Selznick and Thomas Spragens amongst the key contributors to its scholarly exposition. The group launched its Responsive Communitarian Platform to set out its main concerns with the lack of balance between meeting demands for individual rights and promoting responsibility for the common good, and went on to issue policy recommendations on strengthening family support, improving schools in value education, engaging communities in crime reduction, focusing government intervention on where it is most needed, and a wide range of other subjects. Their underlying aim is to bolster liberal politics by empowering communities through moral dialogues, civic education, and policies that pursue public goals as defined by an informed public.

The fifth set of ideas emerged in the synthesis of philosophical and policy considerations I developed in my 1998 book, Communitarianism. In addition to drawing out the three key communitarian principles of cooperative enquiry, mutual responsibility, and citizen participation, it integrated theories and practices from a wide range of countries and sectors. These offered a comprehensive critique of both unrestrained market forces and arbitrary state actions, argued for inclusive community development as opposed to the revival of old dysfunctional community relations, and explained the need for more deliberative and participatory engagement to be advanced in government institutions, business organisations, and voluntary groups.

Taken together, these five sets of formulation of communitarian ideas provide a conceptual DNA profile that can help us trace their development through history, understand their significance in challenging prevailing assumptions, and recognise what they offer in reshaping the theory and practice of community improvement.

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You can find out more from The Evolution of Communitarian Ideas (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019): https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9783030265571

Communitarianism: a new agenda for politics and citizenship (Palgrave Macmillan, 1998): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Communitarianism-New-Agenda-Politics-Citizenship/dp/0814782361