Measurability

The time that students rode through town in carriages is over, fortunately. True, in those days there always were a few of them that used the very same pool of money and time for thorough study of their subjects, in breadth and depth. Then quality could just spontaneously emerge: Bildung we can only dream of.

Because of the affluence on which that Bildung mostly rested, the latter had a decidedly elitist and exclusive character. I’m not sorry to see it gone, and I welcome the fact that large groups of other people now share in academic education.

So I also understand that a lot of public money goes to the universities. And that one wants to have some control over it. And that directors and managers should monitor that. And that inevitably some form of counting and measuring is always involved.

In the debate about the return on investment at the universities, I therefore disagree with the proposition that there is nothing to measure. Because immeasurability would make large-scale universities unmanageable. Then intellectual and cultural formation would again be accessible only to those of whom also the means are immeasurable.

In addition, there is another, more fundamental reason why I do not agree with the inmeasurability thesis. I think that measurability dóes exist in this field. However: not in the form of the brute performance indicators that managers and financials invent and apply nowadays. As if it were thém who provide the added value of education and research.

As to measurability in a realistic form, I rather think of the kind Ben Tiggelaar recently referred to in his NRC-column. People with serious ambitions, he wrote, also on the field of arts and sciences, often put themselves all sorts of standards – as countable and even rigid as imaginable. The architect Frank Lloyd Wright for example got up every day at four o’clock to work three hours in quiet. “Like the bureaucratic habit of many writers to count the number of words they daily produce and to impose themselves quotas. Hemingway: 500 words per day, Stephen King: 2000”.

The difference: these professionals know exactly what is needed for fruitful results. Tiggelaar’s advice to managers and financials would therefore be: go talk to the professionals and do not decide for thém what standards they must meet, but let them decide themselves. Let a professor describe his personal ideals and benchmark her own performance.

Because professors (and students) are no less keen on return than managers. But they have more sense of it.

Also see Grief

Numbers

Is it going to be a question of numbers?

I mean, are we witnessing a clash of civilizations à la Samuel Huntington? In the sense of a massive cultural conflict between Islam and the West, to be won by the largest and the strongest?

I don’t want to think along those lines. But sometimes – out of fear – I let myself be carried away by the idea. And for the duration of this piece I let that happen.

Because, what we experience, sometimes is quite similar to a battle of civilizations. Last week, in the News an imam was interviewed who made mention of the unbearable humiliations he and the entire Islamic community had to undergo. He was a gentle man, but he did not miss the opportunity to say that they together amount to 1.7 billion.

And Amsterdam Mayor Van der Laan repeated his legitimate message that we may well be afraid, but should not let ourselves be terrorized. There is no need for that, he added, because “we are with many more”, by which actually he was referring to a coalition of all those who are against terror.

But if numbers are that important, then prospectives for Jews are not so good. Because in that respect, we of course draw the short straw.

It’s true, we consider ourselves as part of the coalition against terror, and are usually considered by others to do so. You can even say that Israel - apart from the landgrabbing  Greater Israel supporters – is geographically in the frontline against barbarism.

However, It only takes something small to happen in the Middle East for the Western public opinion to believe that the Jews actually do nót belong in the partnership. For the Islamic public opinion this is already a foregone conclusion anyway, so then it’s going to be pretty cramped with those small Jewish numbers. You would be Greater Israel-fan because of it.

But that’s what I do not want to be.

Also see Incentives and Another Judaïsm?

Ubuntu

In several speculations following the death of Nelson Mandela there was talked about the African philosophy of Ubuntu by which the South African statesman was supposed to be inspired. Especially Mandela’s ideals of equality and reconciliation were to be traced back to it.

In the references to Ubuntu it is often said that the word is hardly translatable. In one of the attempts at explanation, I encountered the following statement : “The essence of man is that he is inextricably linked with other people. Westerners say: I think, so I am. Africans say: I am human, because I participate and share”. Hence follows the incentive to solve conflicts by  social harmony, endless consultation and dialogue.

Although this statement is attributed to Bishop Tutu, it seems to me just as well to reflect a romantic Western view of Africans. Up to the generalizations and inaccuracies associated with all romantisations.

Such an inaccuracy, in my view, is the assumption that the West would not know collectivity. On the contrary, I would say, what else were the patriotic movements in many European countries in the nineteenth century, up to the enthusiasm with which those countries attacked one another in the Great War of 1914? And to what extent citizens, even after that war, could be enraptured by a sense of togetherness can still be seen in films from Nazi Germany from the thirties. The problem is: we had our fill of it. Reasoning along these historic lines we may also settle with another assumption that is implied in the romantic image. Because the idea that collectivities, not only in Western Europe but also in Africa, are not beatific can become sufficiently clear from the terrible massacres that have occurred on the African continent over the past twenty-five years between African peoples. Often fought out not with Western armaments, but with authentic African machetes.

Finally, if Mandela made clear anything, it is the indispensability of individual conscience. In comparing Mandela with some other great contemporary minds like Havel and Sakharov, commentator Stevo Akkerman arrives at a feature they have in common. “Their greatness is inseparable from the efforts of the prevailing power to make them small – that these efforts  were not successful was due to a sense of personal autonomy which no executioner can compete with. The greatness resides here in the stubborn adherence to the ideals of equality and dignity, knowing – which applied very strong for both Havel and Mandela – that human rights are inalienable, for everyone, always. So even for evildoers”. It is hard so say this in a more abstract and less collectivist way.

My conclusion is that Ubuntu, at least in the popular romantic sense in which it is used a lot, cannot inspire me very much. For that to accomplish it too much extols the ‘collective’ and ‘participation’, and the concept does not help to discern between participating in a good and a bad way.

I do not mean to say that one does not need a social context. Indeed, I think humans need that very much. What I do say is that one should be careful with collectivities when it comes to distinctions between right and wrong. In spite of all it might be the individual which is the find-spot for hat kind of distinctions. In any case, a great deal of loneliness has indeed been characteristic of the life of Nelson Mandela.

Also see The Heroic Cosmopolitical Individual

Levinas and Habermas

An important feature that the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas and Levinas have in common is their love for reason, that is, for the human rational faculty. In Habermas, this is expressed because his book Theory of Communicative Action – which is often considered as his magnum opus – is about how people, guided by reason, can optimize their communication. In Levinas it is visible in his commitment to the achievements of the Western Enlightenment such as democratic institutions, fair jurisdiction and scientific institutes. The fact that, being a Lithuanian Jew, he was allowed to become citizen of such an enlighted society, namely the French, he during his whole life considered as a special privilege.

At the same time, both philosophers have their reserves with regard to that human rational faculty. Habermas sharply sees the hazards of reason-based economic and administrative systems in which humanity is compromised. And Levinas believes that human reason permanently produces illusions. This skepticism was fueled in both of them by their experience of the twentieth-century violence of Nazism and Holocaust in which they perceive the workings of modern thought. Both Habermas and Levinas had to work hard to to ultimately let prevail their love of reason over their great skepticism.

The skepticism with respect to reason was inculcated into Habermas by thinkers of the Frankfurt School like Horkheimer and Adorno, who he joined in the fifties. The Frankfurt School was very critical of the traditional idea of a rationality that can organize society in a good way, as it had been proposed from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century. Horkheimer and Adorno examined the reasonableness of reason itself and came to shocking conclusions. Reason has failed and rationality and its ideals have been reversed in their  opposite: in phenomena such as the Shoah the West shows its true face, which is that of oppression and violence.

Habermas endorsed many of the ideas of the Frankfurt duo, but at the same time struggled with the consequences. There was something self-destroying to their philosophy and it was inapplicable. They fought the status quo, but did not believe in change. Habermas did not want to see in Nazism the final collapse of a civilization based on reason. He gradually regained his confidence in human reason by formulating his own, this time applicable,  answer to the inky analysis of the Frankfurt School.

In his turn Levinas after the war – in which his entire Lithuanian family was massacred – looked for support in the Jewish tradition and found it there. Led by the brilliant Chouchani – a mysterious combination of clochard, wandering Jew and great scholar – he started to study the Talmud. Through him, Levinas said, he regained his confidence in the books.

The different ways in which the two philosophers have overcome their skepticism ultimately led to two rather different positions with respect to reason.

Habermas found a useful starting point in his humanistic belief that interpersonal dialogue provides an opportunity to bring about better understanding between people. This led him ia to the proposition that in addition to end-means rationality – thoroughly analyzed by the Frankfurt School – there is something like ‘communicative rationality’, which is essentially different in nature. The logic of end-means rationality proceeds instrumentally and considers everything it encounters, including human beings, as means for achieving its goal. The logic of communicative rationality is based on the uniqueness of human communication itself. When people enter into conversation with each other, they actually do more than merely use the other as a means or an instrument, because they assume that they are dealing with rational people, and these are goals in themselves.

Building on that premise, according to Habermas it is possible to design a methodology for good conversation, that is a conversation ethics. Habermas claims that a well-developed conversation ethics is useful for all people, and thus has universal validity .

As said, Levinas sought affiliation to the Jewish tradition. His interpretation thereof made him believe that the shortcomings of reason cannot fully be repaired by using reason. Because according to him all reason is blind and autistic in a way, and there is no special type of reason which would be an exception to that rule, as Habermas claims. So the answer to the deficiency of reason according to Levinas must be something outside of reason, something entirely different. By that he does not refer to music or romantics. No, he primarily sees that come from the experience that the other person with whom we deal at home or at work may regularly surprise us. He or she may at times appear to be quite different from what we could think of, and thus repairs our fabrications.

Levinas certainly also believes in the power of searching dialogue and the corrective effect  that may have. But not as much as Habermas does. Levinas does not believe that one can prevent miscommunication and injuring people in communication. For that the autistic and self-deceptive nature of reason simply is too great. So the large scale and detail of Habermas’ measures make a bit of a grotesque impression from Levinas’ perspective. You can achieve quite something with your own measures, says Levinas, but you will still keep being caught by the other person who shows you that, with all your good intentions, you’ve gone too far. Communication is not as malleable as Habermas believes. It remains a venture, says Levinas, and that sometimes strikes me as very true.

Also see Bristol

Kant avant la lettre

Only when someone knows what is happening inside – that is to say: what is going on within himself – he appears to be able to convey that to others. Only then he can use that for communication.

This thought occurs to me after my visit to the exhibition The Road to Van Eyck in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. The reason for this thought is the way in which Jan van Eyck in his paintings works with light and light reflection and through illusionary effects comes closer to reality than his predecessors did.

“As one of the first he succeeded in evoking tangible reality in a convincing way” the accompanying text tells us. And he succeeded, paradoxically, precisely because he abandons the tangible real stuff.

Take for example the way he renders gold. Until Jan van Eyck real gold was used for its rendering. What more do you want, you might say, to be able to convincingly display gold. Well, that real gold appears to be much less convincing than the light dots, patches, and smudges of paint that the artist puts on the canvas, for example to show gold brocade.

Apparently Van Eyck observed in himself what was going on within him. His brain made gold out of dots and patches and smudges in a way that he found more persuasive than leaf-gold. His brain judged the unreal to be more real than the real. So Van Eyck chose for the effect that his brain produced instead of for real gold.

The thought that arises is: this is Immanuel Kant, but four hundred years avant la lettre. Indeed, Kant thought the real world to be unknowable, so to be less relevant than the world we construct using the categories of our minds. That constructed world according to Kant is our reality.

The parallel between Van Eyck and Kant shows more than just the fact that we construct a great deal of our reality ourselves. The way in which the painter, primarily in himself, must have observed what the paint did to him indicates a form of introspection that in the West brought us revolutionary cultural and philosophical changes.

The most private subject appears to be a find-spot for insights that, once they are brought out, turn out to hold for more people. Once Jan realized what was happening to him he was able to evoke the same effect in other people. This is the kind of generalization I like: that’s universality that appears from what happens, not universality which a priori is postulated by abstract reason.

This remains the eternal truth of the focus on the subject, the human individual. Only if someone knows how things come to him he appears to be able to communicate them to others. And only then a beginning of shared experience is possible, starting from a rather solitary position.

Also see Dismantling

Out of place

It may have its charm sometimes, to be completely out of place. To use words and phrases which for the listener feel like not appropriate to the activity or the conversation that is going on. And not because you do not understand what that activity or conversation is about, but because you very consciously want to say different words and phrases. Levinas did so in his expositions with other philosophers, because he wanted to introduce new language into philosophy.

I myself try to do so in the workshop Thinking for someone else. One of the observations of that workshop is that the language spoken in organizations often ignores fundamental experiences of employees. In line with that observation I talk about the ‘violence’ that organizers thus do to their employees. And about the ‘injury’ being done that way and about the ‘sorrow’ of people who suffer from it.

Sometimes I note that for some participants of the workshop all this is too much. Come on man! We are talking about organizations and about labour relations to which reasonable people have committed themselves completely voluntarily! That requires another vocabulary, namely of professionalism, reasonableness, maturity. And if we really want to do something ethical or moral in organizations, we can do so through moral codes and procedures.

A problem is that the latter do not seem to have much effect. Procedures do not generate inspiration, however widespread the indignation is about bonus hunters and dirty tricks. “That should not be allowed” people say, and then take resort to procedural language, to standards of decency and legislation. They keep themselves out.

In earlier days there used to be a richer language to talk with each other about such things, says ethicist Theo Boer. For within the denominationally compartimentalized groups of those days there was a certain consensus about the good life. This offered a kind of shelter, and because of that words could be used that are adequate to morality. After the collapse of the compartimentalized society just a kind of hull morality is left, an almost technocratic minimum for all, in which even words like respect and tolerance may soon become empty slogans or sometimes commands.

I understand what Boer means: morality should be talked about, one should have the opportunity to come up with stories, and one should be able to collide with one another. But I don’t share his nostalgia for the past, because within the one time denominations a lot of stories appeared to be not welcome indeed, such as those of gays or divorced people. The minimum hull moral may still feel for many of them as a liberation.

What remains to be considered is that within the denominationally compartimentalized system words were used which, according to philosopher Edith Brugmans, you can not do without if you want to talk about morality: “Moral words like pain and sacrifice I do not often hear anymore”. In this domain there is in her view a big vocabular deficiency, because one does not manage with just procedural language.

Hence the idiosyncratic language of my workshops. I think there is no other option for us than to learn to use words like ‘violence', 'pain', 'sorrow', 'injury' in simple, everyday situations. So even within organizations, because they are full of violence, pain, sorrow and injuries.

Also see Levinas and Spinoza

Squabbling

It is rather noteworthy that many traditional, religion-related objections to Jews show a similarity to objections that, from several corners, are brought up against the democratic system of government as most Western countries know it today.

Traditional anti-Jewish objections for instance come from Christianity. In Christian circles, with reference to the vehemence with which Jews could carry on against one another, the phrase was coined: ‘It looks like a Jews-church here’ to indicate that somewhere there was much uproar. And besides Christians know the phrase ‘two Jews, three opinions’, a statement indeed that is not contradicted by Jews. On the contrary, all the major Jewish debates and disagreements have been extensively documented and preserved in the Talmud. With as much focus on the winning as on the losing parties.

Where the Qur'an comments negatively on Jews, according to the American Islamic scholar Frank Peters this is largely due to the Jewish culture of debate. Because of that, Judaism acquired the negative image of a religion that succumbed to schisms and sectarianism.

These objections against internal wrangling resemble the revulsion that one regularly can hear being voiced against democracy: that it is cumbersome and slow, that it encourages manipulation and squabbling and that it does not generate the unity needed to face the future. This kind of criticism on democracy comes from all sides. From less educated citizens up to well to do reactionary circles, attached to law and order.

To some extent I can understand that. If you're attached to a certain order - and I myself definitely am - then a lot of the political fuss indeed soon feels as disruptive. It often does not look very edifying. Just take the horse trading that apparently is needed to get Obama's health insurance system adopted by the U.S. Congress, and probably even in heavily battered form.

The endless game of give and take of democratic politics easily creates the image of being filthy and vulgar. It certainly is not something everybody likes to participate in. It is more suitable for the Churchill type of politician ( "Democracy is a bad system but it's the best we've got") than for the Van Agt type, a Dutch Prime Minister who after the formation of his third cabinet preferred to leave the scene to others.

But the point is: is there an alternative to democracy? And what should that alternative look like?

If inertia, squabbling and being unsufficiently prepared for the future mark democracy and make it rather worthless, then the answer must be sought in centralized administration that can proceed energetically through tight, swift decision-making. That is, in dictatorship.

But – no matter how great my desire for order – I do not believe in it. Not in the field of religion, because a strict hierarchy and thinking-discipline would have the upperhand. And to see how that turns out, it is sufficient to refer to the Roman Catholic church where silence had to be kept about the abuse of children by Irish priests. And apparently Rome could enforce that silence. That seems not good to me.

Nor do I believe in dictatorship in the field of politics. Indeed, as for the future, it is not entirely accidental that in dictatorially led countries the environment until recently was no issue. That we manage now to talk about it at all, we owe to the democracies. Even though, on the other hand, precisely because of democracy and the fear for their voters, politicians dare not go far enough.

Squabbling is all in the game, I just say to myself.

Ramadan

The Rotterdam municipality and the Erasmus University decided last month to dismiss Tariq Ramadan from his function as bridge-builder between immigrant (especially Islamic) and indigenous people. The reason for the dismissal was doubt whether Ramadan distantiated himself clearly enough from repressive Islamic regimes and practices, particularly in Iran. The fuss that subsequently arose over the dismissal of Ramadan, raised the question what should be considered the best approach if you want to build bridges in Rotterdam.

With regard to this question I heard MP Alexander Pechtold say that in Rotterdam from the beginning the wrong path was followed by appointing a religious person like Ramadan. According to Pechtold such a person can, because of all the dogmas to which he is tied, by definition not be a bridgebuilder.

But, with all respect to Pechtold (and I appreciate him greatly), I find this view very modernist at its narrowest. It testifies to the deep desire for reasonableness and nothing but reasonableness, but it completely ignores the fact that religious passions are strong and in many conflicts play a major role. And that religion itself wants to be taken seriously. So I think you miss opportunities if you leave religion out.

In his contribution to the debate college professor Yoessef Azghari indeed gives due honour to religion. He believes that, for the function of bridge-builder you need a liberal-minded Muslim. In any case, someone who takes religion seriously, but also has an open mind and strives for innovation. He must not engage in missionary work.

But I think this is a tricky advice. Implementation would mean that the government chooses position in religious matters. The state would determine what is the right content of a religion. I don't think that's going to work either.

Academics from the Erasmus University state in a letter to the editor of newspaper NRC hat we throw the academic tradition of freedom of thought and speech for a scramble by showing the door to an intellectual of Ramadan's calibre. I must say, that argument appeals to me. Academic debate and tolerance belong to the crown jewels of our culture, and besides: Ramadan is undeniably at home in the Western tradition. Nietzsche was the subject of his PhD, he speaks well articulated English and French and knows how to behave in academic circles. If, on top of all that, he also is familiar from within with Islam and can speak clearly about is, what more could you want? Whoever rejects that betrays the best of the Western academic tradition.

But one might wonder whether these academics rely perhaps too much on appearances. Indeed, how much discussion really takes place with Ramadan? How much discussion can take place at all, if he is the only real from-within-expert around? I'm afraid the indignant academics forget that in order to have the debate they have in mind, there have to be conflicting opinions. Indeed, they themselves do not always agree with Ramadan, but a truly academic reply to him is not to be found in this most learned company. Because in those circles only Ramadan knows what he is talking about.

Elaborating on this point I would say: stay within the realm of the religion, continue Ramadan's appointment, and appoint one more expert next to him, with as much knowledge of Islam, but with a totally different view on it. Or better yet, several of such persons. So, Muslims, for instance of the opinion of Azghari. Because then you can get the real debate which is so sorely missed at the moment. Namely, a discussion among Muslims themselves, if need held in Oxford English.

And we? We just listen.

Irritating

Why are Jews so annoying? That’s to say, according to the Romans and early Christians? And also according to Mohammed and the later Christians and Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau?

The Dutch columnist Afshin Ellian explains the phenomenon for Christianity and Islam. Both religions, he says, claim universal validity. Jesus came, according to Christian doctrine, for all people and Islam pretends to know the truth for everybody.

Obviously these two universalist claims collide, for because each of them claims totality, they exclude one another. But at least they have in common that they believe in a truth that applies to everyone. Therefore a more fundamental confrontation for both religions is the encounter with a movement that does not believe in one and the same truth for everyone. And which in any case refuses to give up its own particularist faith in favor of universality. Indeed, that is really offensive, because general validity of any color is supposed to offer guidance. Whoever questions that principle really goes too far.

But that is exactly what the Jews have done for centuries. They viewed the joyful message of the Gospel with skepticism and refused it as they saw little redemption in the world around them. For an ideology, like Christianity, which derives its strength precisely from the general validity of its message, this is an insult.

The same happened with the truth that Mohammed brought. Regarding that message the Jews said: this is not our truth. But you cannot say that just like that to an ideology that would apply to everyone, because then you're a game breaker. You will arouse aversion and annoyance.

The bad luck - or stupidity? - of the Jews is that they demanded for themselves the right to freedom of expression at times in history that you better would not do so yet. To say no to universalist pretensions is very dangerous if you are not protected by human rights. And that’s what was showed in history. You may as well admire the Jews for it.

The problem is that universalist pretensions did not become less as Christianity lost its influence. As mentioned above, also Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau were disturbed by the Jews’ cherishing of their own traditions. And this has everything to do with the universal values that Reason, as the successor of Christianity, propagated. They don’t leave space for deviant peoples, religions or cultures, because these disrupt the universalist party.

According to Ellian, Christianity and Islam could not do – because of their universal claims – without the invalidation and demonization of Jews and Judaism. With as a result a spiral of repression and fear, violence and counter violence of which one can only hope it will once come to an end.

The pathology, resulting from the violence and fear, has largely overgrown the commitment that was originally at stake. But - historically spoken - that commitment can be indicated indeed. It was the commitment to the freedom of expression, even without being protected for that. Maybe that’s still the issue.

See also Enthusiasm

The Same and the Other

The same and the other can not enter into a cognition that would encompass them.

And another one:
Metaphysics, transcendence, the welcoming of the other by the same, of the Other by me, is concretely produced as the calling into question of the same by the other, that is, as the ethics that accomplishes the critical essence of knowledge.

Could it be more abstract?
Yes, with Levinas it can sound much more abstract. But nicer is to point to a scientific report that all of a sudden concretizes what Levinas describes. On the basis of that report it appears that Levinas managed to use age-old concepts, stemming from Plato, for expressing an insight which a scientific experiment can elucidate now in understandable terms.

The experiment that was reported about was neurologic and it showed that the braincells with which we think about ourselves are the same as those we use to think about people who resemble us. About people who do not resemble us we think with another part of the brain.

So it becomes clear that refractory Platonic terms as The Same and The Other reappear in an acceptable way in neurological surveys. Even at the level of the grammatical forms that are being used. It can look like being unnecessarily abstract when Levinas speaks about The Same and The Other in stead of about the Self and the Other.

But with a better look, this is exactly what happens in the report of the experiment. The crucial distinction we can make here doesn’t lie primarily between my self and the other, but between me and the people who resemble me – so: the same – on the one hand, and the rest – the other – on the other hand. So it’s exactly the most abstract wording which connects with the neurological experiment.

This is interesting in itself. But apart from that it has consequences for the way in which we interpret Levinas. The findings offer support for an interpretation of the Other as referring certainly not to each other person. For to the group of all other persons belong people who feel as likes. Rather the Other refers to others who, at a certain moment, feel as truly different. So, they form a selection from within the group of all others.

I want to add that also the confrontation with those other others does not always produce the encounter with the Other that Levinas discusses. This remains unpredictable.