When our models can't change, behavior patterns become frozen, including abusive and unjust ones. Thus, our attitude about the evolution of models--the degree of inner freedom we feel toward allowing this process to unfold--has important consequences for attempts to make relationships and institutions dignitarian.
One reason it can be so hard for us to accept the notion of changing models is that they are composed of interlocking sets of fondly held beliefs--and nothing dies harder than a cherished opinion. Many people are so identified with their beliefs that they react to the idea of revising them as they would to the prospect of losing an arm or a leg. Institutions are less flexible still. Fighting to defend our ideas often feels tantamount to fighting for our lives.
Avoiding the violence this breeds requires that we learn to hold beliefs not as unvarying absolutes but rather as working assumptions that, taken together, function as a pragmatic model. As we've seen, this is how natural scientists hold their theories. The same is true of artists and their sketches, cooks and their recipes, or dancers and their movements.
Indeed, it is how people from every walk of life who are really good at what they do conduct themselves.What the public sees is the finished product. But typically, this has been arrived at through a great deal of improvisation and experimentation.
Creative people in every line of endeavor adopt beliefs provisionally for their usefulness and elegance and freely consider new ones as they present themselves to see if they are improvements over those currently held. As museum curator Kirk Varnedoe said: "Modern art writ large presents one cultural expression of a larger political gamble on the human possibility of living in change and without absolutes." In a dignitarian world we'll hold beliefs not unto death, but until we find more accurate, comprehensive, useful replacements that prove their worth by enabling us to make more precise predictions, better pies, or more beautiful dances or paintings. Welcome to the post-fundamentalist era!
Detachment from our beliefs does not imply indifference, let alone resignation. The instinct to defend our beliefs strenuously does serve a higher purpose. Usually disagreements have a legitimate basis and the only way to advance toward a better model is to advocate for our views as effectively as we can while others do the same for theirs. We fail to serve the search for an improved model if we don't mount the strongest possible defense of our ideas. Each of us helps discover the new model by holding out until our individual perspective can be absorbed into broader public synthesis stripped of personal idiosyncrasies.
This idea--the duty to advocate for our beliefs to the best of our ability--is one of the main themes in the Hindu holy book, the Bhagavad Gita. In a key passage, Lord Krishna counsels Prince Arjuna to fight his current foes, relatives, and those who were formerly allies--impersonally, dispassionately, and unreservedly.
The adversarial method, while intense, need not be personally antagonistic, even in those especially awkward situations in which we know our opponents intimately. That is the essence of dignitarianism. Once we accept the inherent inconstancy of beliefs, it's easier to entertain ones that differ from our own. From there, it's but a small step to recognizing the individuals who hold opposing views as worthy opponents and treating them with dignity. If it's our own case that crumbles in the end, we can simply admit our error and join in welcoming the discovery of something new and better. When our beliefs go to battle and lose, we ourselves live to argue another day, just as lawyers do when a judgment goes against one of their clients. Certain models turn out to be of limited validity, but this brings no shame upon their architects or advocates.
Not infrequently, we sense our own mistakes at about the same time others do. Why is it so difficult to admit such an awareness publicly? It's because we fear that admitting to imperfection or error will subject us to indignity, if not outright rejection. But this overlooks the fact that people ultimately love and respect each other not as perfect beings but as fallible human creatures whose very essence is the capacity for change. It's in our own interest to admit a mistake once discovered because our own creativity and development are crippled if we don't. It need not damage us to be wrong, but it's debilitating to compound things by trying to cover it up. The best model builders admit their errors freely and learn from them quickly.Niels Bohr, the father of atomic physics, ascribed his success to making his mistakes faster than others.He also held that the opposite of any deep truth is also a deep truth, and routinely invited people to imagine the opposite of their pet theories and beliefs.
Bohr was a true dignitarian. So was Einstein. The two men disagreed profoundly on the nature of physical models, but the dialogue they conducted with each other on the subject is as exemplary for its respectfulness as it is famous for delineating a divide in the road of human thought. People capable of handling social contradictions, artistic ambiguities, interpersonal disagreements, philosophical paradoxes, and identity crises--both their own and others'--are the opposite of ideologues. They cultivate equanimity and detachment and let go of self-righteousness and blaming. Should they forget, it is the nature of modeling to provide them with frequent lessons in humility. Mature model builders are problem solvers or artists in search of a synthesis that satisfies all parties.
Gandhi's truth-seeking strategy held that each person has a piece of the truth, but no one has the whole of it. The first step to a broader understanding is to take a strong stand for our piece, and then to engage in principled struggle with those who disagree. If we listen, more truth emerges from the process. As Philo of Alexandria, the Hellenized Jewish philosopher who died in the year 50 CE, remarked: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle."
Learning to see nature models as provisional has resulted in previously unimaginable technological and economic gains. A parallel transformation in which we open ourselves to changes in our social, political, and self models is our best hope for combating the rankism that now threatens to divide us hopelessly into a nation, and a world, of somebodies and nobodies.
Models have the extraordinary property of shielding individuals who espouse them from personal indignity. You can champion a model that turns out to be wrong, but that does not make you wrong. A model-building approach is inherently dignitarian, in stark contrast to the ideological posturing and put-downs that currently pervade politics and culture.
Moreover,models aim to reconcile all points of view, to account for everyone's perceptions, and to validate everyone's experience. In short, a good model is a synthesis (not a compromise) that makes everyone's perspective right in some respect.
There's no denying that we need beliefs, but we can get along quite nicely without absolutes. We cannot manage without working assumptions but we should resist elevating them into eternal verities. To know who we are does not mean we know who we'll become. Moral codes are prescriptive behavioral models and, like all models, they evolve. This is not to say they are arbitrary or that "anything goes." That morals lack universality and infallibility does not mean we are free to ignore them where they do apply--just as the breakdown of Newtonian mechanics in the atomic realm does not render Newton's laws inapplicable to planets and projectiles. On the contrary, in certain domains, any particular moral principle will remain as valid as ever. Making such distinctions is part of learning to live in a post-fundamentalist world.
Identity in a Dignitarian Culture:
A Self Model for the Twenty-First Century
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