James, in your book called “An Imperfect Offering,” you defined humanitarianism as creating a moment of normalcy.  The context was your humanitarian experience in providing healthcare during the Rwandan genocide, where you had to face this incredibly powerful, incomprehensible escalation of intense violence.   How do you create a moment of normalcy in that kind of environment?

James described how Imperfect Offering focused on his experience in a wide range of countries, but none with more extreme humanitarian conditions than Rwanda.   He described creating informal spaces of normalcy and moments of interpersonal human connection where one person responds fully to the circumstances of another.   James distinguished formal humanitarianism as occurring in a political context by invitation under a rule of law.   Informal humanitarianism, by contrast, occurs without the protections of a rule of law almost paradoxically in a place of profound political failure.   Informal humanitarianism is deeply interpersonal at the most basic of levels.   It requires seeing the dignity of the other. 

Are we shooting for the same thing as we think about cultivating civility and leadership for the public good at Massey College?   I suppose what Im asking is whether civility rests on the same kind of mutual understanding – a hermeneutic of generosity.

The basic dignity of each individual is often not seen.  Profound polarization arises when this occurs.  Confrontation.   Absent consideration of a shared future.  An example of this now is around climate change.  

What can we do about this?  We can’t legislate civility, but we can declare principles that will guide our community.    And we have to recognize the potential of becoming conscious of each other’s dignity.   The skill of achieving this recognition can be cultivated and nurtured and grown.

How do we do this?  Stating our principles.   In Canada, our Constitution includes some basic guarantees on what’s acceptable vs. unacceptable.  For example, we do not tolerate hate speech or an incitement to violence.   We’re not afraid of energy, emotion, passion, or differences of opinion, but they must be civil.

This gets to a basic Socratic and Platonic principal that the art of rhetoric requires passion, legitimacy, and reasonableness.   We have to try to persuade each other of our views under this conceptualization.  And that means listening.  Debate and dialogue are effective when we listen to each other not to win but to common to a common understanding.   As Plato and Socrates describe, civil discourse arises from mutual recognition of the dignity of the other.

What is the public good?

It has a lot to do with rights and the actualization of the individual in relation to others.   In Canada, we each have certain rights that hold regardless of gender or religion.   If you live here, you have to abide by those as a matter of law.   This is what it means in part to be Canadian.  

James gets the final word.

We shouldn’t aspire to lead.  We should aspire to do the best we can given where we are and what we value as a community.  We should aspire to achieve civil discourse on matters of contemporary concern.  We must recognize that we are not perfect; that we make mistakes; that we sometimes should apologize; that we recognize each other’s strengths.  We aspire to be humble and to create a cushion for failure.   We aspire to learn by doing, trying, persevering, and forgiving.