'The truth testimony reminds me of the importance of respecting other people’s observations and hypotheses.' Photo: Helena Lopes / Unsplash.
Approaching membership: Engaging with the testimonies
How does a newcomer grow to understand the Quaker testimonies? Helen Addison, who became a member of Mid-Thames Area Meeting in January, offers some thoughts.
Peace
My commitment to peace begins with my thoughts and behaviour. I try to think empathetically towards others, especially those who might offend me. Why do they behave thus? What happened in their past? Tension dissipates through empathy. Instead of distance and opposition, I perceive overlap and sympathy.
Peace is not the opposite of conflict. Conflict is natural and normal. People have different interests and worldviews, and material resources are finite. How we manage conflict is where peace is relevant.
Society has built elaborate systems for managing conflicting interests and worldviews, and for distributing resources peacefully. I am a strong proponent of these systems, which obviously include political institutions and the policymaking process. Society fails, however, to manage all conflicts peacefully. Nations are trapped by decisions taken in the past: they cannot easily escape the deep ruts where wheels have long traversed. Newly-elected political leaders may wish to end an inherited war, but, part of an entrenched system, they cannot counter the powerful interests arguing for war, or the axiomatic logic that upholds violence as a tool of statecraft. There are also persuasive arguments that humanity is inherently warlike.
Here, the pacifism of Quakers is particularly valuable. The voices of war-accepting interests and conventional wisdom are plentiful, and persuasive. In this din, we need a countervailing message reminding us of alternative means of resolving conflicts – dialogue, understanding, compromise, negotiation, mutual respect – and of why these means are more effective.
The world also needs people who unilaterally renounce violence as a response to conflict. The consequences of pacifism could be devastating for those who practice it. But by maintaining this commitment nonetheless, pacifists draw attention to the equally devastating consequences of violently responding to conflicts. They show how the mutually destructive cycle of grievance, resentment and retribution can be broken: through self-sacrifice and forgiveness, unilateral if necessary.
When Quakers are challenged to explain how they would respond if physically attacked, the Quaker commitment to peace is not exposed as naive or dishonest. Like so much about the Quaker Way, adhering to dogma or extremes of principle is unnecessary. Following the Quaker Way is not about perfection, but about effort. If we cultivate peace in our thoughts, respond peacefully to others’ offensiveness, participate in and advocate society’s manifold systems for managing conflict, and give voice to nonviolent methods of resolving acute conflicts, Quakers are making an essential contribution.
Equality
Acknowledging that, as living creatures, we are all children of God and thus equal has implications. For me, the implication is that I am existentially equal with people who commit crimes, offend social morays or behave without conscience. The actions of people do not enhance or diminish their existential equality. This acknowledgement transforms any rage I might have felt at outrageous behaviour into sadness. Everyone, I believe, does what they do because of their biography.
So, equality derives from being alive, not from actions or group belonging. To me, it follows that all creatures are equal, as they too are alive, ‘children’ of God. This corollary requires us to treat all creatures humanely and venerate natural life. I can accept the exploitation of animals for nourishment, but not for purposes unessential to nourishment, such as scientific testing. I believe that, while meat-eating is not wrong, vegetarianism is morally better, where one has the choice.
Humanity might be existentially equal, but little about its circumstances is equal. Gender, class, nationality, income, location – countless aspects are unequal. The right response, in my mind, to these circumstantial inequalities is to acknowledge them, appreciate where one has been blessed with favourable circumstances, avoid thinking that one’s better circumstances make one superior to those less favoured, assist others to improve their circumstances, and be willing to give up some of one’s own advantages to achieve a better distribution.
The world’s dominant economic system fosters these circumstantial inequalities. A commitment to equality means being prepared to question all conventional wisdom and ideological taboos in the search for new systems of commerce that will bring about more circumstantial equality.
Simplicity
For me, the Quaker testimony of simplicity is a constant reminder of the reality of God. The reality of God implies what is essential: essential for peace, happiness, goodwill towards others, kindness to living creatures, honesty and integrity, treading lightly on the Earth. Simplicity means eschewing everything that distracts us from the essential.
Distractions are individual: stuffing our homes with objects, surrounding ourselves with people whose values disappoint, consuming too much food and drink, or overusing digital devices and social media. To me, being committed to what is essential requires continuously reflecting on the merits of my actions.
Truth
I think about ‘truth’ on several levels. The first is an individual’s inner subjective truth: what we believe and feel. The second is the truth about external events close to individual experience: what we did and witnessed. A third level is the truth about external, complex phenomena beyond a person’s direct experience, such as global climate change, the ‘imposition’ of EU legal rulemaking on member states, or the British economic performance since the Brexit referendum.
If we wish to, we can disclose our inner subjective truth. We can say what we believe to be true and what we feel. Our ability to make truth statements about external phenomena is limited to fairly trivial events directly witnessed.
But when it comes to external, complex phenomena, which is to say most phenomena in this universe, an individual’s ability to make truth statements is limited. A person perceives the world selectively. Those selected aspects pass through a subjective screen of interpretation. And if an aspect is directly experienced, it is only a tiny fraction of the phenomenon’s overall scope.
The ‘truth’ of phenomena on this level cannot be established by one individual. It requires a community. Science is a process that allows a community to approach the truth via established rules of observation and verification. Even making statements of fact about complex phenomena is not trivial. Consider: has the British economy slowed since June 2016? Moreover, much ‘truth’ that really matters is not the fact of a phenomenon occurring (though important), but its causes and consequences. Consider: is humanity contributing to climate change? Is EU legal rulemaking causing unnecessary burdens on member states? To what extent is any British economic slowdown due to Brexit? Science shows us how to make truth claims about complex phenomena. And science insists that these claims are always hypotheses, open to revision and refutation.
If not part of the small community researching a phenomenon, we stand upon its shoulders. We rely on its statements, trusting the robustness of the community process that verifies its reliability.
Therefore, the Quaker testimony to truth is, for me, not just a commitment to say what I believe, feel and have directly witnessed, when I do say something. It is also a commitment to modesty about my ability to individually know the truth about the important phenomena that affect our world. The truth testimony reminds me of the importance of respecting other people’s observations and hypotheses. I cannot establish the ‘truth’ of complex phenomena. I can only add my observations and hypotheses to a body of knowledge about the truth amassed by a community according to time-honed conventions, which always allow the possibility that the community might be mistaken.
