NOV 9 — "Neither religious belief nor love is reasonable. Neither, in the end, are our political practices... In all of these cases, we are claimed in ways that cannot be contained by the reasonable." — Paul Kahn
I appreciate Greg Lopez’s series on the value of reason, rationality and dialogue. No doubt, for the country to move forward, the key players have gotta cut the crap, sit down and talk calmly.
But I’ll come right out and say it: Rational dialogue is helpful…but it can also be a bitch (see Note 1).
Reason, rationality, discussion, an "exchange of views", collaboration; I can’t decide if these are evolution’s best option for progress, necessary evils, just politically correct performances.
Look at young children at play. Some have never met each other before, but they take about three seconds to behave like lifelong best friends.
How many eight-year olds have you seen requiring "collaborative discussion" to come to a sincere agreement on what game to play next or which wall to climb?
Compare this with all those meetings and "conversations" that corporate and political players have.
Which group do you think bitches the most about the "other party" after the event is over? Which group is most distrusting and was scheming before, during and after the meeting? The ones wearing suits or the ones wearing Kiki Lala?
Which group feigns and deceives more, and is always one thing whilst implying another, drawing a strong distinction between "formal" and "informal" with the authenticity of friendships oscillating between the two domains? The corporate high-performers or the ones who don’t know what "corporate" means?
Whose starting-point?
Paul Kahn writes: “The belief that differences in values can be overcome through dis-course is itself only a restatement of the liberal faith in a dialogical model of reason as though talking together will inevitably move us toward a set of common propositions.” (see Note 2)
This approach proceeds as if all final outcomes conducted on such a basis are de facto just, right or good - as if tyrants and cheaters could not wield reason and logic for their own purposes. That’s the key problem: Reason is often merely an instrument which can be exploited by folks who come from an illegitimate-ass starting point.
All the norms and rational standards in the world will not take shape without an initial subjective decision, a "creative act", one motivated by a subject’s passions and commitments.
Assume that one ethnic group deserves the lion’s share of a country’s resources (and all other groups are just aliens) – you get Malaysian politics. Assume that profit-making is the engine of society – you get 99 per cent living hand to mouth and 1 per cent living in Elysium. Assume that life, success and money are just different names for the same thing – you get the emptiest and most superficial people on earth.
There is something non-rational at the core of the rational. Even Lopez’s piece on genuine dialogue spells out "conditions" for dialogue – but what if people reject these conditions? What if, say, an inadequate "degree of self-knowledge" is present or, worse, what if self-deception is at play? And how would we know?
The very first condition, "power neutrality", is itself highly ambiguous and, if I may add, practically non-existent. So should we just pretend we all have the same ability to influence each other’s well-being? Folks like me, Obama and Najib are "more or less" equal?
Point is, reason cannot fully capture the spirit of spiritual, ethical and political communities (see Note 3). Just check out a Chinese wedding dinner, an ISMA gathering, a football game, even dudes watching James Bond at 1Utama – what in the name of Tom Yam Koong does reason have anything to do with this?
Reason isn’t the reason people drive ten million miles to get the perfect asam laksa, neither does it completely explain why thousands of people get spiritual orgasms when a soccer ball finds its way into a net.
It certainly cannot encapsulate why hundreds of thousands of people wearing yellow flooded central KL in September, does it?
To insist on one and only one mode of understanding and processing – i.e. reason and reason ALONE! — may de facto blind us to deeper truths. C’mon, look me in the eye and tell me that you chose your life-partner based on a rational calculation of, uh, "Net Present Value"?
Alternatives to dialogue
This doesn’t mean we never dialogue at all, of course. Neither should we tell reason to take a hike. But logic and dialogue (as everybody knows?) are neither sufficient nor – in many cases – even necessary. Some options other than "reasonable talk" may be more helpful.
Gaming. Eating. Music. Sports. Praying. Dancing. Silence. Art. Building. Feet-washing. Cleaning. Cooking. Innovating. Reading. Poetry.
Could all or any of these be strong complements (even alternatives) to "reasonable discussion"? Notice that much of these pertain to matters of the body, something Reason & Rationality tend to ignore to a fault.
Recall the last time you were in a business meeting with someone extremely attractive. What? Do we imagine this person only happened to groom him/her-self extremely well that day and that day alone? Isn’t it obvious that this drop-dead pretty/handsome person understands the value of the flesh in a manner which goes completely against the tenets of ‘collaborative discussion based exclusively on reason’?
Again, behind the logical and the rational, there is the libidinal, the sexual, the bodily, the social, the world i.e. there is everything but reason. ‘Nuff said.
Note 1: Notice how the b-word conjures up certain "excitations" that cannot be fully explained via reason?
Note 2: If you think Reason is the Almighty, please do me a favour and read Kahn, P. (2004). Putting Liberalism in its Place. Princeton: Princeton University Press? Promise you’ll have a conversion experience.
Note 3: For criticism on the value of rational dialogue (in the context of religion in Malaysia), check out my paper Intimating the Unconscious: A Psychoanalytical Refraction of Christian Theo-Political Activism in Malaysia, published in Critical Research in Religion last year.
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
