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17th September 2013, 00:11
#1
Possibility, Permission and Consequences: Fudged Issues
Some people here will know in some small way that I come from an unconventional family. In many ways, we are the paragon of an English family. Very British, very English. In many other ways, though, we're not. Many of our traits and positions seem very socially conservative, while others have been very radical in former times and only seem less so these days because societal assumptions and expectations have come to meet us.
We didn't hunt for sport even when such hunting was the hallmark of "civilised" life. Even when we hunted game for food, we didn't hunt for sport. To refer to my "personalising hypothesis", we considered and consider that we are not people who will kill for fun even when we will kill for food. It has never seemed like a small and pedantic distinction. We do not even need respect or compassion for animals to avoid wanting to be somebody who kills for enjoyment, but those three together are three very good reasons.
A century and more ago it was felt necessary that, when somebody unaccustomed to our ways married into the family, that person, male or female, should be rigorously instructed that nothing less than complete marital equality would be accepted; a wife was not her husband's chattel, and neither was he her keeper. Our women would not accept junior positions and neither would our men tolerate their wives to be subservient. It is very difficult today to believe just how backwards the view of the sexes was in former times but diaries from those times reveal much. I am lucky in having many such diaries written by family members of those times, and from their perspective the absurdities of society were all the more obvious and so they were not obfuscated by sheer assumption of universality.
And it's that assumption of universality about which I wish to talk.
One of the ways in which my family is socially conservative, though, is in language (which I think partly fuelled my interest). That is not to say that the common image of the linguistically conservative is true and that we dislike those who speak differently than we do, only that in our own speech at least we prefer to retain distinctions which are at risk of being lost, such as the subjunctive: I admit I cringe a little when I hear people say "if I was you" — if only for the loss of complexity in our language.
One of the features which is slipping out of modern English in some places is the distinction between two modal auxiliaries: "can" and "may". How often do we hear phrases such as "can I smoke in here?" — of course you can if you have a lighter, a cigarette and an ability to co-ordinate a very basic task; whether you may is an entirely different question. And what is may but a question of who minds?
I made mention in the previous incarnation of TOT that my grandmother says that it is the job of elders to teach their charges "to conquer impossibility". Having grown up with that attitude and in that environment, perhaps it is only natural that I find myself objecting to this confusion. Often, I think it is purposefully inculcated along the lines of Orwellian Newspeak. In any case, there are two problems as I see it. The first is the common confusion between "may" and "can" aforesaid and the other is the deletion of agency.
If you were out one day and you got a text message from somebody saying "your house has been left in a complete mess", you probably wouldn't respond with "oh, what an interesting and personally relevant little datum. Thank you for informing me" but rather something like "who left it so?" You see, the first sentence is what's called a passive conjugation ("has been left"). It promotes the object of an ordinary, active sentence into the subject and often deletes the former subject (the "agent", the person or thing responsible). This information can of course be included ("has been done by X", which offers the probably more likely response "by whom?")
Now in addition to pure grammatical agency, there are other, broader kinds of agency. This is the agency which is deleted and which deletion really irritates me. When somebody says that you "cannot" do something, they are not just saying that you may not, they are implying a kind of universality or objectivity to their order. But even when they say that you "may not", they are implying an authority which is never stated.
This same kind of agent-less construction can also be found with "can". How often do we here people say "it cannot be done" or, perhaps more annoying, "it just/simply cannot be done" as though the entire universe conspires to prevent something ever happening and how silly everybody is who even considers the possibility. They do not say "you cannot do it", because then you would be tempted to ask why not you specifically. And they do not say "nobody can do it" because that would sound absurd and oddly exhaustive, but it is the natural active form of the phrase "it cannot be done (by anybody)".
In a similar way, when people say "you may not do this", they are implying an authority which is never stated because any sentiment which declares what somebody may or may not do implies a superior authority which either permits or prohibits. The child's answer to this, often forgotten by adults, is "who says so?"
This is important, because an authority whose existence is not acknowledged cannot be made to justify or explain itself. When a parent tells a child "you may not do this" and the child responds with "who says so?", when the parent responds with "I say so" the child might then insist that their compliance with such a prohibition is dependent upon a good explanation. Certainly when I was a child such expectations of explanation, and particularly of explanations which were logically satisfying, were always to be found wherever authority was exercised.
Often people say that you cannot do something when what they mean is that you may not, and often what they mean in saying that you may not is that they do not wish you to. For all the people in the world happy to tell you what you can or cannot do, they are often telling you what they do or do not want you do and then leaping from that position to an assumption that because they do not want you to do it, you shouldn't do it or it's not possible.
This connects with the middle section of my post here about the assumption of values from facts. I do not believe people will be free while they continue to let the distinctions persist between what can be done, what may be done and in the case of the latter who permits and prohibits those actions and states. At the same time, I do not think people will be consciously respecting the free-will of others while they unconsciously make those assumptions on their own parts.
For me, part of personal or spiritual sovereignty is the freedom to do and be whatever I wish to do and be. It does not follow that freedom to do something includes freedom from the consequences of doing it. We do not have to involve a concept of authority in such a worldview. We do not need to make the assumption that one person has the right to govern the life of another. With such a concept, authority and permission become pretty much irrelevant ideas, and all that matters is who has the capacity to enforce consequences that do not automatically follow. That is not authority but power, and even if authority should be respected (I utterly deny it), power does not even have the veneer of credibility and respectability that authority has.
In my view, nobody has the ability to declare what I can and cannot do. When I was younger, somebody told me that nobody could live forever and I said "just because nobody has, do not assume nobody will". Of course, the idea of eternal life is about the most repugnant thing I can imagine; I firmly believe that death is the last, best consolation of life. I don't think that sounds morbid (though I am not blind to the possibility lol)
Also, in my view, nobody can tell me what I may or may not do. What I may and may not do is dependent upon authority, and I recognise no authority over my life and so the idea that I may not do something is irrelevant.
For me, humans should focus on neither, but rather look at the pragmatic issue of consequences. What consequences are there for my actions and, if those consequences do not follow by the force of natural law as we know it, like getting wet in water, but are imposed by somebody or something else, is that power to impose consequences fair? It is a much more pragmatic way of dealing with things than appealing (or yielding) to authority. What is authority but a fiction? Make sure that power is applied fairly and justly, and then who would care for authority?
I cannot remember the last time I asked somebody if I could do something. Can I share a PDF? That is not a request for permission, but the question of one who does not know how to upload an attachment. May I? I make a point of avoiding it. I do not seek permission. The closest I get is asking "do you mind if... ?" That is a courtesy, not a request for permission. It is saying "would your response be favourable if I did X? Please be informed that your answer will only inform and not dictate my decision to do or not to do X."
In many ways, power is the lesser problem; without the spectre of authority in the way, the problems human society has with power would be sorted in moments.
Last edited by Seikou-Kishi, 17th September 2013 at 08:22.
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17th September 2013, 01:13
#2