ETHICAL SPACE AS A ‘COMPLEX ECOLOGY’

In this section I discuss a number of important features of contemporary democracies within which ethics takes place, such as plurality, complexity, uncertainty, and moral ambivalence. These are features that we, including our learners, must inevitably navigate. Without suggesting that ethical issues are any more important or perplexing today than in the past, the discussion draws on two images of occupation to explore the ‘complex ecologies’ (A. Rorty, 2005) of contemporary ethical space and how societal change has presented new challenges for ethics and ethical decision-making. The argument presented in this section is important because it (a) suggests why a greater focus on matters ethical is both urgent and vital, and (b) establishes the societal context to which this thesis’ proposal responds.

something peculiar to the twenty-first century. Historically, the writings of ethicists, poets, theologians and politicians alike have responded to the perplexing and troubling societal dilemmas of their time. Consider, for example, Greece: if we examine the society of Plato’s upbringing, we see the direct influence of the Peloponnesian Wars on “a period of physical turbulence, social disarray, and changing values” (Barrow, 1978, p. 11). Plato witnessed a diversity of viewpoints and values, drawn variously from poets (chiefly Homer and Hesiod), tragedians, itinerant teachers, and prominent politicians and citizens (Adkins, 1989), formed against a backdrop of war, economic collapse, and tensions within Athenian democracy. Indeed, it was in part this very moral confusion that led Plato to offer an antidote, based in his vision of the Republic, that pursued a more satisfactory polis focussed on the “twin objectives of harmony and security” (Barrow, 1978, p. 11). Since then, we have seen an expansion of the morally

considerable in the history of ethics, to include slaves, women and more recently the environment. Well before the twenty-first century, the Lisbon earthquake and the Holocaust ruptured and transformed the philosophy of ethics (Neiman, 2004) and, at least in James Sterba’s (2001) view, environmentalism, feminism, and multiculturalism arose as significant and as yet unresolved ethical challenges.

Secondly, one needs to avoid the temptation to discuss ethics in a panicky ‘we’re all going to hell in a hand-cart’ tone, drawing on the type of arguments that proceed “from the claim that contemporary society is rapidly sinking in a rising tide of vandalism, violence and drug abuse to some pet theory of moral formation that might serve to stem this tide” (Carr, 1999, p. 26). Like other educationalists, I think we need to be wary of the language of moral crisis that permeates much of the media representation of contemporary society and, in particular, the continual and perhaps unwitting reprise of Hesiod’s despair over the reckless, arrogance and frivolousness of the young. This is not to deny the existence of a sense of moral crisis but to place it, as Carr urges, “in proper historical proportion” (p. 23). Similarly, Amanda Rohloff (Rohloff, 2011; Rohloff & Wright, 2010) uses the theories of Norbert Elias to argue that we must move beyond conceiving moral panics as inherently fleeting, misguided and therefore dismissible, and instead pay attention to longer-term societal processes and figurations. Rohloff would argue that the recent Roast Busters11 _{scandal, in which a group of young New Zealand}

men reportedly boasted about having sex with intoxicated young women on Facebook,

should be seen as a short-term episode, where de-civilising trends temporarily dominate over civilising trends. My point here is not necessarily an argument for an Eliasian approach to ethics, but to suggest that ethical issues are as much a matter of continuity as they are of change.

How, then, might one sensibly characterise the ethical landscape of our times? We should acknowledge the ever-increasing array of ethical choices that confront people in Western societies and issues that compete for our attention. Advances in technology and science have presented questions that never existed in modern and pre-modern societies and, in academia, have been responded to through a whole host of new areas of thought such as bioethics, communication ethics, and machine ethics. We should also note the multiplicity of ethical visions in everyday life, something philosophers refer to as the fact of pluralism, or the fact of diversity. Bernstein (1987) notes both the shifting meaning of pluralism and its relationship to an enduring theme of the one and the many, to be found “at the core of Greek philosophy, discernible already in the fragments of the pre-Socratics [and]… replayed in such abstract forms as the relation of the one to the many, the relation of sameness or identity and difference, the universal and the particular” (p. 520). In philosophy, there is considerable debate about whether pluralism exists at a foundational level, that is, whether there are distinct and perhaps incommensurable values – termed value pluralism – or whether, as monists claim, such values may be reducible to a super value albeit unknown at present (Mason, 2014). Jones (2006) notes an important distinction: “whereas the plurality noticed by value-pluralism is a plurality of different and conflicting goods, the plurality noticed in the fact of pluralism is a plurality of different and conflicting conceptions of the good” (p. 191). About the latter, few philosophers would disagree; ethical complexity, fragmentation and plurality are axiomatic of our everyday experience.

A whole host of concerns arise from the fact of pluralism. Just why ethical diversity is a social fact is one matter of contention. Lynch (2009) suggests that in political

philosophy, for example, there are at least two accounts for the reality and persistence of diversity. The first draws on the philosophic conception of value pluralism previously discussed whereas the second, reasonable pluralism, attributes moral and political diversity to the limitations of human reason in achieving consensus. Further debates coalesce around how one should proceed from the fact of ethical pluralism, and

whether it ought to be regarded as problematic. It is notable that pluralism both extends from democracy and is enshrined in the concept of democratic rights. I shall return to

curriculum’s (Ministry of Education, 2007) requirement to support learners’ ethical

decision making and action rests on an unelaborated concept of pluralism. The second is because this thesis argues for an ethically plural approach to better supporting social studies learners’ understanding of social issues and responses to moral conflict.

For now, the discussion concentrates on ethical pluralism at the descriptive level – the textures and dimensions of differing conceptions of the good life in what I refer to as ‘ethical space’ (Poole, 1972). The central point being made here is that as society has become increasingly complex, ethical space is marked by hybridity, interpenetration and intensification. Arguably, this has always been the case; what has shifted is the academic theorising. However, as Gray (2000) argues:

In pre-modern societies, hybrid identity was a marginal phenomenon; today it is common and signifies a vitally important aspect of human well-being. In late modern societies, many people practice variations on the several traditions in which they are situated. The interpenetration of divergent, sometimes rival ethical perspectives is one of the most distinctive features of ethical life today. In few late modern societies is it sensible to count forms of ethical life. (p. 330)

To see how this is so, Roger Poole’s (1972) concept of ethical space offers an initial anchor-point. His book, Towards deep subjectivity, opens by describing a photograph of three Russian soldiers being watched by Czech citizens in a public park. The scene is Prague, 1968. The USSR has occupied Czechoslovakia and deposed Dubček, the self- described developer of communism with a human face. Echoing the student uprisings in France, Dubček’s movement is supported by many young people challenging the grey conformity of European socialism. Conversely, the USSR is interested in re-imposing itself as the central, organising force of communism. About this scene in the park, Poole writes:

The space spread out before the protagonists of the drama is ethical space itself ... [t]here can be no flaccid action, no action which is not immediately imbued with an ethical ballast, filled in from our point of view in the world of perspectives. The meaning attributed to what goes on in the significant space before our eyes will vary according to our moral presuppositions, the partial vision we receive, the position we occupy in the perspectival world. (p. 6)

Poole uses the concept of ‘ethical space’ to draw attention to the underflows of this scene: its enfolded, unstated and embodied ethical dimensions. He observes two sorts of intentions, that of the Russians and the Czechs. But widening the frame would reveal,

perhaps, this ethical space as being a ‘complex ecology’ (A. Rorty, 2005), marked by multiplicity in morality’s demography and sociology, and variations in its tasks and purposes. The photograph does not show the popular, non-violent opposition to the invasion. Of course, not all Czechs saw the events of 1968 as an occupation nor, indeed, did all Russians soldiers view themselves as rescuing Czechoslovakia from the possibility of counter-revolution. Our attention might be, secondly, drawn to the intersections of identity – the Czech woman in the scene as perhaps also an employee, a partner, and a participant in non-violent resistance. As Amélie Rorty puts it, the ‘I’ and ‘we’ morality is speaking to has “distinctive needs, rights and obligations, different habits, priorities and virtues…[that] struggle with one another for control of our allegiances and virtues” (p. 9). Third, we could note the historicity of the park’s ethical space, the ways in which morality has been drawn from past and distant places; a “palimpsest history of conquest, trade and exile that has formed our practices and evaluation” (p. 11). Fourth, we might see the park scene as an intergenerational ethical space, borne of the incubating ‘moral proximity’ (Bauman, 1997) of the home: “the pivotal practices of the home [which are] co-constructed by family members in their everyday face-to-face encounters, over time, in a range of possible directions” (Payne, 2010, p. 228). Fifth, as Amélie Rorty (2005) argues, we should be alert to forms of power, the ways in which institutions structure morality, and to inequality: “morality is not always addressed equally to every citizen or intrapsychic persona, each deciding for all” (p. 10). Last, and though Poole uses ethical space to describe a stand-off, it is notable that more recent usages of the concept cognise a space of negotiation, particularly between indigenous and Western ethical worldviews (Ermine, 2007; Ermine, Sinclair, & Jeffrey, 2004; Longboat, 2010).

We shift ethical space to Occupy Wellington, a local expression of the international protest movement against the global financial system’s production of inequality, and the erosion and manipulation of democracy. It is January, 2012, and the site is Civic Square, opposite the New Zealand Stock Exchange. A reporter from TV3’s Campbell live12 _show

spends the night in the square after 104 days of occupation. In one respect the scene is a mirror-image of Prague; this time the protestors occupy the public space. Both scenes are of non-violent resistance to systems and concentrations of power. And, in writing about the Occupy movement, Judith Butler (2011) reminds us of the embodied nature of such protests:

When bodies gather as they do to express their indignation and to enact their plural existence in public space, they are also making broader demands. They are demanding to be recognized and to be valued; they are exercising a right to appear and to exercise freedom; they are calling for a liveable life. (p. 12)

There are, however, some important distinctions to be drawn, related to the quickening of globalisation and increased complexities of social systems. We see newer forms of activism, concurrently global and local, borne of technological possibility. Castells (2012) describes the occupiers as a multi-modal, networked movement, using “the autonomous space of flows of Internet networks to seize symbolic spaces of places” (p. 178). In the face of increasingly de-territorialised global financial and corporate systems, Occupy Wellington might be seen as an effort to re-territorialise and re-localise power. Arguably, the movement’s goals are diffuse, a matter of some public and journalistic scepticism. However, Butler (2012) argues that the accelerating inequalities resulting from contemporary forms of capitalism have required new ways of objecting that draw attention to the inter-connectedness between issues – a refusal to reduce problems to a set of demands. In one important sense, the process is the message. Behind these concerns lie ethical issues that mark our times: on what basis should we oppose the effects of current global economic structures and power relations? What constitutes responsible and democratic participation in an increasingly globalised world? The

Campbell live story also demonstrates how global and local ethical issues are

interpenetrated. What form should the rules and relationships with other take in this camp? How should one respond to the array of ethical challenges that co-habit with the wider issues? One protester, there when Occupy Wellington was established, reflects:

You start to realise how hard it is to bring everyone together and when conflict happens what do you do? We’re in a public space with people with mental disorders and

alcoholism. How do you deal with that when you’re trying to also build the cause? I submit that the fact of pluralism and increased societal complexity produces not only a clattering array of ethical choices, but profound ambivalence. In many instances this ambivalence is hard to resolve; we feel torn between seemingly opposed yet merit- worthy positions. What to do, for example, in the face of revelations about

SodaStream13_{: dispose of our fizzy-drink maker (and be wasteful of resources), continue}

to use it (thereby supporting the Israeli occupation of the West Bank), lobby the

company directly, or hope that the company relocates its production site? Though some may hope or believe that there exists somewhere in the ethical ether a definitive moral compass, the reality is that moral compasses clash, melt and remould, even as we reach for them. Even the most prescriptive of ethical codes we might ascribe to do not protect us from indeterminacy, ambiguity, and nuance. Bauman (1993), in characterising these times as one of ‘postmodern moral crisis’, observes that:

With the pluralism of rules (and our times are the times of pluralism) the moral choices (and the moral conscience left in their wake) appear to us intrinsically and irreparably ambivalent. Ours are the times of strongly felt moral ambiguity. These times offer us freedom of choice never before enjoyed, but also cast us into a state of uncertainty never before so agonizing … In the end, we trust no authority, at least, we trust none fully, and none for long: we cannot help being suspicious about any claim to infallibility. (pp. 20-21, emphases in original).

One does not have to accept Bauman’s full thesis to recognise these phenomena in our social world. But what now – a wearied cup of tea and a lie down? To acknowledge that we exist in an ethically plural and ambivalent social world is not to suggest that we give up on ethical thinking as a futile pursuit. By contrast, greater consideration of how we might proceed is perhaps no more necessary than in times of strongly felt moral ambiguity. To borrow a metaphor from Somerville (2006), when the ‘ethical canary’ sings of societal uncertainty and ambivalence, examining the ethical perspectives at the bottom of the mineshaft is both necessary and urgent.