04.02.05

the fine art of dissent (an ffm thought)

Posted in philosophy, life at 1:23 pm by

I should pre-empt this post with a comment; I am not the best dissenter the world has ever known. I’m not even on any top-ten lists of the world’s best dissenters. And, frankly, I’d be pretty lucky to be found in the top 50% of dissenters.

I’m a pretty reactionary individual. Especially, electronically. That probably has a lot to do with the emotional zeitgeist of this blog; The root emotion that I write with grows out of my displeasure, and, I’ll admit, anger with being oft treated as the ‘acceptably ostracizable’ type of Christian.

Dissent, though, is a vital part of what makes any community worthwhile. David Dark, in his keynote lectures at the FFM, has helped my thinking about the art of dissent this weekend. Dark has spoken about community as a school of sorts for learners of truth. Dissent is a part of that learning.

If a community ever hopes to grow, dissent is a necessary component of that growth. Dissent is so important because human beings are never right, at least not in the truest sense of the concept of correctness. We need to participate in the process of learning.

Dissent, though, is not something to do lightly. Electronic media sometimes can lend themselves to trite and thoughtless dissent–God knows I’m guilty of this type of dissent.

So then, in what situations can dissent be useful? I posit that dissent must be a few things: respectful, confessional, and thoughtful.

First, dissent must be respectful. What I mean by this is that when individuals seek to offer dissent they should be motivated by a sense of truth-seeking. That is, as they perceive truth, they’ve seen a spot of weakness in the truth you’ve presented. Disrespectful dissent cannot have the motivation of truth-seeking. Disrespectful dissent is motivated by self-glamour, selfishness, and pride. Rather, respectful dissent is dissent that wants the dissentee to arrive at truth. Dissent must be respectful in order to be helpful.

Dissent must also be confessional. Human beings are never right–as I said at least in the fullest sense of being correct. Thus, a dissenter–in order to dissent with integrity–must come from a place that acknowleges their own frailty and humility. Dissent must be treated as a gift. This is the thing about a gift, you give it graciously, you offer it. A gracious host should receive that gift. Along with being confessional then is the understanding on the part of the dissenter that they don’t have all the mysteries of the world wrapped up in their skulls. They merely feel that you might be missing something.

Dissent is, finally, thoughtful. A dissenter owes it to her audience to pour effort into her position. This must happen in order for dissent to be dissent of integrity.

In a Church that largely clings to modern thought, dissent is the enemy. To be a dissenter puts you in a position where you will likely be socially ostracised. Frankly, being a dissenter sucks ass. This is, of course, nothing new though. People have thrown rocks at prophets for thousands of years now.

Did I just use the term, ‘prophet?’ Yes, I did. And I meant it. For a modern, it’s freaky when some person calls themselves a prophet, or claims a prophetic voice. In terms of absolutes, this makes sense. You see, if a prophet calls out the truth, and a prophet critiques something you’re doing, saying, or thinking, and they’re right, well, that means your way of life has taken a trip up shit crick without a paddle. You have two choices as a modern: you can seek to radically alter your life in every way, or you can write the prophet off as a kook and a hypocrite, all you need is for that person to be fallible (and they always are.) I’ll let you guess which one happens more often.

Under a post-modern understanding, being a prophet (dissenter) takes on new meaning. The post-modern prophetess knows that she doesn’t have all the answers, and that’s okay. She understands that if a true community develops, she could even learn a few things from the targets of her prophesy. It’s neither prideful nor hypocritical for a post-modern to call herself a prophetess.

I suspect that if we were all a little more forward thinking about dissent, it wouldn’t cause quite the uproar that it does. I’d love to go on and on here, and eventually, I will. I think this has lots to do with the integrity of the ‘Christian’ Higher Educational experiment…but rather than further bogging this post down, I’ll save that discussion for another day.

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the fine art of dissent (an ffm thought)

Posted in philosophy, life at 1:23 pm by

I should pre-empt this post with a comment; I am not the best dissenter the world has ever known. I’m not even on any top-ten lists of the world’s best dissenters. And, frankly, I’d be pretty lucky to be found in the top 50% of dissenters.

I’m a pretty reactionary individual. Especially, electronically. That probably has a lot to do with the emotional zeitgeist of this blog; The root emotion that I write with grows out of my displeasure, and, I’ll admit, anger with being oft treated as the ‘acceptably ostracizable’ type of Christian.

Dissent, though, is a vital part of what makes any community worthwhile. David Dark, in his keynote lectures at the FFM, has helped my thinking about the art of dissent this weekend. Dark has spoken about community as a school of sorts for learners of truth. Dissent is a part of that learning.

If a community ever hopes to grow, dissent is a necessary component of that growth. Dissent is so important because human beings are never right, at least not in the truest sense of the concept of correctness. We need to participate in the process of learning.

Dissent, though, is not something to do lightly. Electronic media sometimes can lend themselves to trite and thoughtless dissent–God knows I’m guilty of this type of dissent.

So then, in what situations can dissent be useful? I posit that dissent must be a few things: respectful, confessional, and thoughtful.

First, dissent must be respectful. What I mean by this is that when individuals seek to offer dissent they should be motivated by a sense of truth-seeking. That is, as they perceive truth, they’ve seen a spot of weakness in the truth you’ve presented. Disrespectful dissent cannot have the motivation of truth-seeking. Disrespectful dissent is motivated by self-glamour, selfishness, and pride. Rather, respectful dissent is dissent that wants the dissentee to arrive at truth. Dissent must be respectful in order to be helpful.

Dissent must also be confessional. Human beings are never right–as I said at least in the fullest sense of being correct. Thus, a dissenter–in order to dissent with integrity–must come from a place that acknowleges their own frailty and humility. Dissent must be treated as a gift. This is the thing about a gift, you give it graciously, you offer it. A gracious host should receive that gift. Along with being confessional then is the understanding on the part of the dissenter that they don’t have all the mysteries of the world wrapped up in their skulls. They merely feel that you might be missing something.

Dissent is, finally, thoughtful. A dissenter owes it to her audience to pour effort into her position. This must happen in order for dissent to be dissent of integrity.

In a Church that largely clings to modern thought, dissent is the enemy. To be a dissenter puts you in a position where you will likely be socially ostracised. Frankly, being a dissenter sucks ass. This is, of course, nothing new though. People have thrown rocks at prophets for thousands of years now.

Did I just use the term, ‘prophet?’ Yes, I did. And I meant it. For a modern, it’s freaky when some person calls themselves a prophet, or claims a prophetic voice. In terms of absolutes, this makes sense. You see, if a prophet calls out the truth, and a prophet critiques something you’re doing, saying, or thinking, and they’re right, well, that means your way of life has taken a trip up shit crick without a paddle. You have two choices as a modern: you can seek to radically alter your life in every way, or you can write the prophet off as a kook and a hypocrite, all you need is for that person to be fallible (and they always are.) I’ll let you guess which one happens more often.

Under a post-modern understanding, being a prophet (dissenter) takes on new meaning. The post-modern prophetess knows that she doesn’t have all the answers, and that’s okay. She understands that if a true community develops, she could even learn a few things from the targets of her prophesy. It’s neither prideful nor hypocritical for a post-modern to call herself a prophetess.

I suspect that if we were all a little more forward thinking about dissent, it wouldn’t cause quite the uproar that it does. I’d love to go on and on here, and eventually, I will. I think this has lots to do with the integrity of the ‘Christian’ Higher Educational experiment…but rather than further bogging this post down, I’ll save that discussion for another day.

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Trackback URL »

http://www.badchristian.com/2005/04/02/the_fine_art_of_dissent_an_ffm_thought/trackback/