dialogue

When I was a tidy and naive right-winger, I thought it was very important to read the press of the 'opposition', rather than to read journalists who viewed things in the same way as you did. So I bought the Guardian rather than the Daily Telegraph, studying the opposition's best arguments for their position, trying to understand how they could believe in anything as obviously outdated and absurd as 'socialism' (as it was still called, just).

I thought that we would only ever get a true discourse between different ideologies if each side really understood the other - and that meant living, breathing, feeling the arguments as expounded by the others' best exponents. Trying to understand how on earth they could believe in them.

It seemed quite clear - and still does - that one could never expect to do that, if one only ever looked at the newspapers and journals that most naturally appealed. But that is exactly what happens: one side reads one set of arguments, statistics and interpretations; political 'opponents' read another set, completely different. Each set has been carefully selected and selected out to back up an existing position and appeal to readers who agree with it already. Not surprisingly, ne'er the twain do meet.

Something must have met - fleetingly, momentarily - in me, on my journey to the left. The trouble is, I don't remember passing through the mid-point, even if I noticed it. The first few months of Guardian reading made only imperceptible, tidy little alterations to my outlook. By the time I saw that I was on the move, I was going at such a pace that I could barely see the passing scenery. Since then I only seem to keep accelerating.

If I were true to my word (and beliefs) I should be reading the Telegraph again by now. I persuade myself that I don't need to because I've been there, done that, know the arguments. The truth is that I can't bring myself to do it, and find nothing except emptiness and odious opinions when I open it. Even the Guardian would represent an 'other' to my current thinking (and reading). Even the Guardian is often odious (with honourable exceptions).

But the danger in not looking at the odious opinions is that we then can't find the way back to another point of view. That doesn't matter too much if you really know you never want to go back; but it does matter for other reasons. First of all it matters because there are people - nice people - who actually believe the odious things. That is very difficult to reconcile. Secondly, it matters because it becomes increasingly difficult to engage in any sort of useful dialogue with anyone outside a narrow circle. Thirdly, it matters if you want (and need) the help of those who are still 'back' there to bring the world forward - and there is no doubt that we do.

Theseus' Ship

Theseus sets off on a long voyage, and his ship encounters various maritime obstacles - sharks, barnacles, winds, lightening and lashing waves - all of which cause damage to the infrastructure. Being far from land, he can't throw out all the rotting and damaged timbers at once, because he would sink, so he has to replace the planks of the ship one by one while still at sea. After a number of lengthy and dangerous voyages, all the original planks and other parts of the ship have been replaced: the ship is now entirely made up from new components.

Philosophers love Theseus' ship, with its multifarious identities: the ship before it leaves the shore, composed of planks that later rot at sea and have to be discarded; the ship while under repair, still made up from a few of the original, rotting planks and some pristine healthy ones (fortuitously to be found at sea). And then the final product, a brand new ship, rebuilt from those fortuitous planks and containing none of the original rotten ones. A new ship, in fact? Or the same ship? (Or a stupid question?)

Otto Neurath and then W. V. Quine used the idea of repairing the ship at sea as an analogy for the way we use language and the way we build up theories about the world:

We cannot start from a tabula rasa as Descartes thought we could. We have to make do with words and concepts that we find when our reflections begin. ... every statement about any happening is saturated with hypotheses of all sorts and ... these in the end are derived from our whole worldview. We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood, the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.”¹

Political opposites appear to sail in different ships and then continuously rebuild them from construction manuals which those on other vessels never see, and which have been selected because they fit the type of ship that needs to be repaired. Not surprisingly, the ships - and their inhabitants - go on getting further and further apart; the chances of shouting from one to another, let alone of building a common ship become more and more remote.

At which point do we make the choice about which ship we want to sail on, and what are the things that influence that choice? Some people start on one ship (as I did), and make the transition to another one, but mostly people stay on the one they started out on when they first began to form political opinions. Even if we throw the manual for one ship over to a different one, the sailors mostly look at it with scorn: the manual for one ship impinges only very rarely, barely noticeably on the way that others think that their ship should be patched up.

I don't think it is a question of evidence: I think it is more to do with the type of world we want to believe in; and momentum. It is far easier to stay on the same ship, with old friends and colleagues, without changing your lifestyle, without having to question any of the planks you are currently sitting on. Changing ships is a precarious business, and you might easily sink in the transition.

All that is to say ... what?

1. That there is a lot of construction involved in our political viewpoints, a lot more deliberate selection and fitting facts to what we want to see, rather than - as we tend to think - drawing conclusions from facts.

2. That there is a lot of vested interest in staying on the same ship, and relatively few advantages to changing ship (at least, if you are the sort of person whose life or lifestyle is strongly influenced by political viewpoint).

3. That after a certain point, it is almost impossible to tempt someone onto your ship, however good the arguments supporting it may seem. I could not get Tony Blair or Boris Johnson (thank God) onto my vessel. And the last thing (I hope) that I would ever do is jump ship onto one of theirs.

4. (Maybe) that dialogue with certain people - people who are far enough away from your position - is pointless. I hate reaching that conclusion: so maybe we could just say that expecting to meet as a result of dialogue is futile; but perhaps you could bring the 2 boats into the same ocean - which could, after all, be an improvement.

5. If we want to make sure people catch the right ship (or build the right one) then we need to catch them early! Get into the primary schools, get whittling those planks, setting up the rigging, tuning the engine, handing out construction manuals.

Well after all - it's what the others do.