The Conversation Continues: I write this on January 27 Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Thanks Brad for your thoughtful response to my initial blog post. Simply put the future of Utah’s children and the children of the world, provides that common moral purpose for our ability to listen deeply to each other. MIT professor at the Sloan School of Management, Otto Scharmer, describes this kind of listening as “leading from the future as it emerges.” This means that there is always the possibility for an innovative “how,” IF we listen with grace and in a place of non-attachment or snap judgments. When talking with Brad, I ask myself: “What next? How will I be surprised?” And, yes the surprises keep coming.
On this 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz I was surprised by our common admiration for two extraordinary people, both Lutheran pastors during the rise of Nazism: Martin Niemoeller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. So I pay homage to those two fearless leaders of resistance.
Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) is perhaps best remembered for the quotation: “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out…” His critical sermons led him to be incarcerated in Dachau, where he shared a barrack room with Catholic dissenters. After 7 years he was liberated by American troops and then in 1947 started a world tour preaching German collective guilt for Nazi persecution and crimes against humanity, especially German Christian churches who had signed a statement of unconditional loyalty to Hitler (Similar to Pop Pius XII signature on the 1933 Vatican Concordat).
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) wrote The Cost of Discipleship, in which he asserted “Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating.” His vocal opposition began with Hitler’s euthanasia program, starting with physically and mentally disabled children who were considered “useless to society.” Arrested and sent to Flossenburg concentration camp, he continued his resistance by plotting to assassinate Hitler. He was tried, along with other accused plotters, and then executed in April 1945 as the Nazi regime was disintegrating.
So what does this mean for our conversation about civil discourse? I definitely do not consider myself in any way a “liberal” in the enlightenment tradition of Locke (1632-1704), the father of liberalism. I won’t go into my reasons, other than my general suspicion of Locke’s scientific materialism and radical individualism, framing life as a competitive pursuit of self-interest. Rather I consider myself “a pragmatist” in the sense of Charles Peirce, Alfred North Whitehead and John Dewey. A pragmatism focuses on the practical application of ideas by actually acting on and testing them in human experience. I am a fan of Dewey’s anti-elitism and his approach to democracy as an expansive and relational experience united by common purpose. Being a spectator of life in the quest for certainty is “not my thing” or how I live my life. Constant learning with and from other people creates the possibility of “social self” that is both empathetic and innovative. Why take the risk of looking deeply into ideas that are not our own? It is just so much fun to be open to a really fundamental question: “Who am I becoming today?
Niemoeller and Bonhoeffer fearlessly acted on behalf of others, especially those disenfranchised and marginalized and NOT LIKE THEM, and that is who I want to become. To listen with open mind and open heart, as Scharmer suggests, challenges us to question who we really are and what is our purpose, so that together we can lead from the future as it emerges, creating a future our children will love living.
Across The Divide: A Dialogue 