Intentions and meaning
Bob Lovett reflects on the nature of truth
How do we recognise true news from fake news? Some fake news is sensationally obvious, but could it be that some ‘fake news’ is ‘true news’ falsified, told in a different way, selectively edited and nuanced to present an event in a particular light? Who, then, is to say where, in a range of accounts, truth lies? As Quakers our history has been underpinned by a belief that the truth can be revealed to us by direct divine insight, and can be tested for its veracity through our processes of discernment. We record these truths in our minutes and in other documents, but, inevitably, we have to use language to do so.
Recent events have led me to think once again about how we use language, not only in how we describe our spiritual experiences and leadings, but how we record our understandings and communicate them to Friends who may not have witnessed the initial visionary event or the discernment processes that may have followed it.
Languages are organic. They evolve. They cast off words and embrace new ones. They borrow words from other languages and freely give their own away. They discard conventional usages and modify structures and forms in the light of social and other changes. Unique, illuminating metaphors become amorphous clichés. Attempts to anchor language in some historic straightjacket are doomed to failure.
This evolution of language makes understanding a tricky business. How well do we understand our own historical records? Is it time for us to consider whether ‘Quaker speak’ is a nostalgic feature that hinders rather than illuminates our understanding?
There are other matters to be considered. How carefully and objectively do we report to Friends nationally and locally on the proceedings of various Meetings? How do you, the reader, know what my particular prejudices are, and how can I, the writer, be sufficiently disciplined to acknowledge and constrain them? Do we have a responsibility to present to absent Friends the nature of a discernment discourse, or is it enough to present the agreed minute? How carefully do we compose our current records and minutes so that they actually mean what we intend them to mean, and specify the actions to which they may lead?
Yet this is not all. Before we begin the recording process, there are issues of understanding. I have a fridge magnet that reads: ‘I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you heard is not what I meant.’ It acts as a daily caution.
Today, there are environmental pressures on us to use modern technology to facilitate meetings and engage in virtual discernment processes. How well can such meetings replicate and capture the unspoken sense of a truly gathered Meeting? Communication goes well beyond the words used.
When I think about these things I wonder how we actually manage to communicate with one another in any meaningful way at all. And yet, somehow, we do. But how could we do it better? How could we improve the way we express the truths to which each of us has potential access, both between ourselves and with the wider world?
Well, firstly, we might do worse than follow the advice once given to children: ‘Think before you ink.’ Second, we might pause to consider the questions asked above, and reflect on the implications of our answers. Third, let’s give more support to our clerks and uphold them in their difficult task of formulating a minute that expresses with absolute clarity a perceived discernment, and any action that may be required.
Encourage clerks, also, to allow adequate time for drafts to be fully considered. There is always pressure to ‘get on with the agenda’, but this matter of clarity is so important. All too often I find myself still mulling over a minute long after it has been accepted, and by the time I have identified a point for possible clarification it is too late. The business has moved on. While the problem may be down to my own slow-wittedness, I sense others experiencing similar frustrations.
While good enough may be good enough, could we, like the underperforming school child, do better? I hope so.
