It’s time to stop and think

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/11/2023 (677 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In a 1978 book, The Life of the Mind, Hannah Arendt advances the proposition that thinking is a moral activity. In part, she does so by lamenting the absence of thought prevalent in the politics of the day, adding that the consequences of not thinking are often disastrous. I have not found a better description of the current state of our political dispositions to help understand our devastating wars and the stark polarities and polemic oppositions we are being asked to accept today.

Has “stopping to think” become an endangered practice in our social media rich environment?

Thinking, according to the Oxford dictionary is “the process of using one’s mind to consider or reason about something.” In other words, thinking means to focus on and sort out facts, to acknowledge historical events and memories, and to choose appropriate responses and actions based on rationality and justification. The purpose is to help oneself and others to make sense of what’s going on around them for the sake of solving problems and challenges. Thinking as wisdom is making reasonable connections based on truth and reality. Several recent happenings in today’s world suggest we have a global crisis in non-thinking.

One of the most egregious examples is the regional war which currently occupies our consciousness — the Israel-Hamas conflict. Many media and political commentators uncritically frame the Israel-Hamas conflict as politico-cultural (Israelis vs. Palestinians) or religious (Jews vs. Muslims). In my view, neither ring true nor make sense.

What is more likely is that the Oct. 7 incursion and hostage-taking by Hamas was a terrorist attack meant to draw a violent response with the hope of gaining wider anti-Israeli support in the region and perhaps beyond. What is also more likely is that the response of the Israel’s government and the Israel Defense Force became more intense because of perceived unconditional Western support, and more to do with the prime minister’s and government’s reputations than with an imminent threat of repeated terrorist acts.

Western leaders and the United Nations were quick to announce that “Israel had a right to defend itself,” but the attacks have proven more offence than defence, without any regard for obvious violations of international humanitarianism.

No objective is reasonable justification for the wanton savagery of the Hamas attacks, for using innocent hostages as bargaining chips or their fellow Gazans as human shields. There is also no logical justification for the indiscriminate brutality of the Israeli attacks on civilians, including the seemingly arbitrary attacks on children, homes, and essential infrastructure.

Both are ignoring history’s lessons at their own long-term peril. Hamas cannot succeed in forming a Palestinian state through fear and intimidation, and Israel cannot escape the reputational damage they are inflicting on themselves by the actions of their leaders. Lasting peace and harmony are not achieved through war. History ignored or forgotten — neverending antisemitism and Islamophobia, for example — tends to repeat itself ad nauseam.

Meanwhile, the media, our political leaders and partisan protesters focus on a false opposition not reflective of the majority of those in the region, rather than the longings for, and associations, and models of, the empathy, mutuality, and reciprocity necessary for co-existence.

As in every other insistence where taking sides prevails, this war ignores the fact that there is something larger at stake than winning and losing — the world is losing its always tentative and already frail sense of humanity on which co-existence, and especially democracy, depend.

For example, as soon as a rally, vigil or protest calling for a ceasefire is labelled as pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli, we observers are presumed to choose sides, when a humanitarian pause or ceasefire can easily be framed as support for the families and friends of hostages, and as a welcome break in the hostilities for both Israelis and Palestinians, perhaps even opening the door to a better resolution. We might even call this stopping to think about what we’re doing, a chance to reconsider the effects of our non-thinking.

One of the unforeseen consequences of this conflict is the toll it’s taking on both my Jewish and Muslim friends in Winnipeg and the rest of Canada. Many have reported to me that they are being targeted on social media with hurtful, vitriolic racial insults and threats. Others report being reluctant to be seen in certain public places or attend public functions for fear of harm or abuse. To hold them somehow responsible, even associate them directly with the actions of Hamas or the Israel Defense Forces, is not only unfair but also totally unreasonable, displaying a complete absence of critical thought.

I believe at times like these we must adopt an attitude familiar to my Indigenous friends and serious thinkers in general. Some scholars call it a non-binary, non-oppositional consciousness. Along those lines, Karl Jaspers, a German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher introduced into his work the phrase sensus communis (what we call common sense) to characterize preferred human relationships and interactions. By common sense he emphasized our responsibility to apply reason and logic in our thinking, as well as informing our thinking that those of us who share the living world at the same time are all in this together.

Those of us who live in democracies who possess the privilege of unconstrained thought have a responsibility to think inclusively and engage respectfully with all others, sometimes on behalf of those who do not enjoy our freedoms. We also need to let our leaders know that we expect them to think and act accordingly.

Surely in the 21st century we should be thoughtful enough to know that wars don’t work for the creation of worlds worth living in, and wise enough to think of better ways of solving even deeply held differences.

It’s time to stop and think!

John R. Wiens is dean emeritus at the faculty of education, University of Manitoba.