The Present Crisis and Institutional Relevance of Dignity
In order to chart a course forward for a new exploration of the ontology of dignity, we must first be grounded in the particular crisis of the present moment, so that we can understand the psychology we aim to move past. A commonly understood origin of this particular shift in human relationships was the moment in the late 1990s where political polarization spiked, and a shift occurred from the politics of redistribution to a politics of recognition. In other words, the prior policy debate was centered around material equality of conditions, and to what degree governing institutions ought to control material outcomes in the interest of equality, versus the interest, say, of liberty, given the limits of government knowledge and institutional effectiveness, but the importance or ethics of fairness. A shift occurred with the incorporation of Hegelian recognition into critical theory, the focus was put more and more on fostering equal, multicultural recognition, rather than material conditions, assuming one would lead in part to the other. According to Charles Taylor, who activated this intellectual movement with his essay coining the Politics of Recognition in 1992, “the struggle for recognition can find only one satisfactory solution, and that is a regime of reciprocal recognition among equals.” In other words, institutions must formally recognize the authentic multicultural and human identities of each citizen equally.
This shift to a focus on multicultural respect came in the wake of the spread of western hegemony through media and culture as well as international power dominance. The influx of cell phones, origin of partisan cable news, birth of the internet, and soon after social media meant not only could western media quickly infiltrate a global audience, but generated echo-chambers which exacerbated existing rural-urban and Eastern-Western and partisan divides, among others. Over time, the consequences of this transition were seen in the tragic escalations of terrorism, domestic and abroad, as well as dehumanization found in daily objectifying political speech and lack of community relations. With social media cultivating smaller and smaller echo-chambers and focus on abstract identities, important conversations about multicultural respect in a new wave of “Politics of Recognition” have become overridden with polarization.
In his famous critique of this movement of politics of recognition, Patchen Markell offers a perspective similar to Hayek regarding the previously debated politics of redistribution, by pointing out the epistemological limitations of executing politics of recognition at scale through formal institutions. Markell suggests that while recognition is an ethically novel goal, it ultimately unfeasible en masse because to engage in a struggle for recognition is, in some degree, to attempt to gain sovereignty over one’s identity, and we cannot control the beliefs or actions of another person. Instead, he offers a move toward a “politics of acknowledgement,” which reshapes the way we look at recognition to suggest a lesser degree of recognition would be a more appropriate institutional or political standard. However, critiques of Markell, while seeing the value of his observation of the limits of politics of recognition, believe that his politics of acknowledgement do not seriously address the legitimate material concerns of oppressed populations advocating for recognition in contemporary multicultural political debates. They call for a fusion of Markell’s acknowledgement with recognition as understood through Fanon and other critical theorists who have taken the value of Hegel’s theory and integrated it with a serious attempt at collective action to address these material needs.
If we zoom out, however, we can see that this debate circles around the same question as the wider historical narrative of philosophical ontological inquiry into dignity. The true ethical concern under material equity and recognition of authentic identity is ultimately the preservation of a person’s agency and intrinsic value to society. This is most closely related to the conceptual realm associated with dignity. The question, in reality, is what degree of dignity can we realistically and preserve through institutions, in order to provide a path for the continued development of community identities and engagement, as opposed to polarized apathy? How should we understand dignity such that it guides more equitable institutional communication?
Toward a Dynamic Ontology of Dignity
Ultimately, the dilemma captured by the integration of recognition theory with critical theory and advocacy for multicultural inclusivity as a turn from material equity claims alone can be traced back to one important psychological factor- the epistemological shift that occurs in the experience of oppression. While equal opportunities for economic mobility or a balance of wealth might appear to protect the autonomy of individuals, and therefore place them in one fluid community which gives healthy incentive for participation, this metric does not take into account the lasting influence of past oppression on a person’s psychology, and therefore, identity formation insofar as it maintains their objectification as an outsider to the community, unable to gain equal respect, and therefore, engagement opportunities. There are a few examples in which material solutions to this problem have been proposed, such as reparations or the return of lands to native peoples by contemporary political institutions. However, as in the earlier critique of material equity as a solution to human division, the psychological hurt is still not healed.
With recognition, the equality becomes in respect for one’s complete and authentic identity, which assumes a sort of healing of past experiences which preclude the ability to receive said respect, or for authenticity to be communicated. However, this, as Markell points out, always hits a wall in which both the consciousness of and therefore the sharing of one’s authentic self is often not possible, as it would require sovereignty over a person’s worldview, and ultimately, we cannot ever achieve this. That wall is the epistemological divide between two people’s experiences, and most specifically, between people who have faced various intersectional forces of oppression, and those who have experienced more privilege. Feminist philosopher Susan Brison paints a stark reality of this in her recounting of her experience being raped in her memoir Aftermath. Survivors of assault are not only left with a traumatic experience, but a new consciousness of the danger which surrounds them every day, no matter what they’re wearing, doing, or where they are at any time day or night. Even if a party is acting in good faith to try to empathize with and understand the experience of someone who has experienced sexual violence, they can never access the weight and depth of the reality of survivors without sharing this consciousness. They may speak of the systemic problem, but the fear is not realized in the same way, and therefore, their understanding of what it takes to recover dignity after such an experience is distorted into an often too linear and discrete process. Her reflection is shared by feminist philosophers Cerrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua whose intersectional experiences of racial and gender-based oppression not only put them at an epistemological from those with more privilege, but within their own communities as racial oppression existed within feminist spaces, and authenticity in their ethnic community required submission to sexist traditions. While safe spaces for consciousness raising can help, thus, to some extent communicate these experiences to those outside them by creating a community identity amongst survivors of oppression capable of articulating their shared reflections, the intersectional barrier is still not met.
If we consider, therefore, this epistemological distance to be untraversable, then to preserve one’s dignity might necessitate a different course of action for each individual. In other words, we might need to adopt a dynamic ontological understanding of dignity, in which it is dependent on a person’s unique experience of oppression. While this might at first seem to thwart any kind of institutional scaling, it’s possible that such an understanding of dignity can help us to overcome the shortcomings of previous theoretical solutions to division, be they material or in favor of recognition, by moving policy and social structures away from binary understandings of public goods to something more fluid. Consider, for example, how a dynamic understanding of dignity, if taken seriously, could act as a new kind of standard for shaping a shift from binary criminal justice centered around crime and punishment, to a long-called for system of reconciliation and emotional growth. These new avenues are rhetorically advocated for, but without a view of ontology which can grasp the reality of identity formation occurring on a multitude of intersecting but alternate planes, we have little sense of direction for drafting structures which can facilitate their implementation.
Integrating Somatic Practices of Preserving Dynamic Dignity into Institutions
If it’s not possible for us to intellectually process a person’s dignity due to this knowledge barrier created by experiences of oppression, we must find a way to reconnect through emotions, which innately foster a space of more dynamism, or what we might think of as spontaneous recognition, as in the origin of communication example between two visible actors prior to historical associations of identity developed. While we drew out this theme in the noting of work across each iteration of philosophers from Burke to Hegel to Arendt to now advocates of a Tocquevillian civic engagement through connection to tangible sources of identity, such as nature or architecture in Kemmis’ Politics of Place, a response to contemporary political polarization, or the Quest for Community, in Nisbet’s famous work, an unmatched source of wisdom on reconnecting to our bodies and emotions remains the somatic spiritual, meditative practices of traditional eastern philosophies.
Confucianism, Hinduism and Buddhism all share a view of dignity that centers around mutual respect, much like Hegelian recognition. For Confucius, this was called benevolence, by which he meant the authentic of loving of others, which gives life meaning, and thus, should be preserved over biological life. Therefore, it was focused very much on preserving dignity to others in one’s community, as in Hinduism. Buddhism expands this notion by encouraging the practice of dignity towards oneself as well as other living beings, including both humans and animals. While Buddhism makes more explicit this focus on dignity being expressed towards oneself as a necessary step towards the preservation of dignity more generally, the somatic practices of all three philosophies ultimately start with self-reflection and regulation.
The same idea has been captured in historically successful movements for civil rights, which require the seeking of material recognition of oppressed populations by their oppressors and institutions. Martin Luther King’s principles of nonviolence began with a notion of dignity that started from the self, before it could scale into reciprocity from society. As his movement and others institutionalized the habituation of these behaviors in a way that created significant impact and some gains toward empathy, this suggests the Eastern practices which put this at the center of our communication hold much promise. This is especially relevant in the dilemma of the intersectionality of oppression, previously established. Beginning from the self allows the unpacking of contradictions in our identities that allow us to disentangle, for example, emotional responses to artificial emergencies and anxieties that influence identity formation, due to, perhaps, divisive rhetoric targeted towards vulnerable populations but in bad faith, as in the white fragility movement, from the legitimate emotions of fear, shame, and blame that allowed that fusion to occur. By getting back to the root emotions and removing false narratives, radical empathy can take place between actors of raw emotions, outside of politicized narratives, after much hard, introspective work.
In these practices of Eastern meditation, we are forced to abandon the realm of intellectualism and become reconnected with our physical bodies and emotions, exploring our innate natures, including our needs, fears, desires and individual identities. We can challenge our survival-instincts which drive the material conflict of concern for Marx and other conflict historical narrative constructions discussed above, and move into a space of communication where we instead notice the emotional instincts towards natural ethical obligations towards other humans. Here, spontaneous recognition can occur, without the pressure to engage in bad faith with the quest for authenticity, and thus, as Markell points out, often a return to aggression and division rather than an activation of a true dialectic. If we can scale these communication practices into institutions, there will be more opportunities for the achievement of recognition, as opposed to trying to legislate or force recognition into our social structures. If we see the preservation of dignity, in its dynamic truth, as bound to these practices, it can continue to serve as a framework for unity to push past our current communication division, and bring together the philosophical contributions we have made across history while also creating a pivot towards healthier human tendencies than the ones which sparked systemic dignity deprivation.
Conclusion
Ultimately, by reexamining the parallel history of philosophy and human relationships through the lens of the psychology of communication as its influenced by the evolution of technology, we can see that the existentially overwhelming state of division we now face is not a new one, but the latest iteration in a long-unfolding story. Thus, the solution to moving past it cannot be uncovered through political discourse alone. Rather, we need to more seriously commit to our inquiry into human nature which we have circled around with each new spike of crisis, and consider what non-divisive tendencies might help us regulate our world back in the direction of sustainability.
This means picking up where we most recently left off in the search for reconciliation, in the current deliberation over the pivot from a politics of material redistribution to a debate around the recognition of identity. Putting this into the context of this new historical interpretation points us to a distinct need for a more serious inquiry into a dynamic ontological understanding of dignity which takes into account the epistemological differences which occur across oppression vs. privilege gradients. Even Fukuyama, a famous advocate at one time for ideological and material conditions being the drivers of history, now sees dignity as the true path past our crisis. In practice, working within the dynamism of dignity to venture across this epistemological distance will be most effective in a tangible, emotional space, as previously suggested in the latest iteration of a philosophical reconciliation of abstracted relationships in the crisis of the mid twentieth century. Somatic practices from Buddhist spirituality, which can reconnect our hearts and minds and help us engage in emotional dialogue within ourselves and then with others are one way to begin this shift.
We have seen the success of this strategy in previous collective action movements, with a key example being the civil rights movement in the U.S. Martin Luther King Jr.’s principles of nonviolence encapsulate this kind of somatic, dynamic understanding of dignity, and successfully institutionalized a habituation of these practices. We can use this and other historical movements as a model to begin thinking about how to scale a new set of institutions which allow for the fluidity of recognition we need, while still being able to articulate a minimal standard, that being the preservation of this understanding of dignity, by which we can judge their success or failure, and therefore determine what reform steps are necessary. Logic models which allow for a clear understanding of this sort of quantum dynamism or systems analysis may be helpful in analyzing how to strategize the specific structure of institutions we wish to result form reform.