Conversation
Conversation is built on expression and respect.
"Sunomilic" is from Greek sunomilia (conversation).
Conversation is also called "dialog".
Animal societies involve gregarity, in which psyches form groups with fixed instinctive patterns, but not conversation, which involves sunomilic choices rooted in semiotic and timeic choices.
All conversation aims at what is known as communication, which is the basic form of accord (agreement).
Conversation is more than mere psychic interaction (such as "animal language") or pragmatic adjustments (which souls make when they express themselves in ways that superficially resemble conversation with the aim of manipulating other souls).
If we agree about nothing at all, even about the meanings of words, I can use my voice to arrange for you to know something but I cannot tell you anything.
Accord is built on communication and justice. When I converse with a self who disagrees with me, justice requires me to respect their opinion.
This is not the same as compromising or pretending. If I regard their opinion as wrong, there is nothing either unjust or ungenial in saying so. The question is, how then to continue the conversation.
There are two ways to do this.
(1) In intersectional conversation I aim to stay within the common ground (the "intersection"). This allows me to describe my own opinion, but not to assert it; for instance, rather than simply saying "X is true" I might say "I think that X is true", and the other mind may agree that you think that. (Hence "imho" for "in my humble opinion", though this is sometimes used as a cover for highly ungenial conversation.)
(2) In polemical conversation, with my interlocutor's consent (accord), I argue for my own opinion, without asserting it.
Heedlessly making statements contrary to the other's opinion is unjust, and therefore ungenial.
"But what if X is a fact? Can stating a fact be wrong?"
In practice there is no clear boundary between fact and opinion. What to treat as a fact depends on context. If my interlocutor denies it, I should not treat it as a fact. (The word "fact" comes from Latin "factus" in the sense of "given", and in a conversation it is not "given" until all concerned have "granted" it.)
If our diverse opinions lead us to conflicting actions, intersectional conversation asks, not "Should you or I hold a different opinion?" but "Is each of us acting as our opinion says we should?" What is ungenial is to think: "Their practice follows from their opinion, and I cannot change their opinion, so I will urge them to act against their opinion."
For every imperative realm there is need for accord as regards how to develop that realm. Thus, for every such realm there is a distinctive form of accord. But even within a realm accord may take many forms.
Concurrent roles. Two selves may, during the same period, cultivate multiple accords, in different forms. For instance, colleagues may also act as teachers. And, since school and college both pertain to knowledge, it is likely to be common for a self, during the same period, to act both as teacher and as colleague of the same other self. Similar comments could be made regarding many other pairs.
The table lists the forms of accord that have occurred to me.
If others come to my attention I shall add them to the list, unless they are just minor variants of the ones I have already mentioned.
| Realm | Form of Accord | Basic Principles | Principles for a Holy Nation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thought | Fellowship | * | * Creeds always need to evolve, but the creed of welldoers has especially needed to do so because the ekklesia has always been inflitrated by evildoers. * A heresy is a belief claimed to be godly but incompatible with real godliness. * Christian heresies are cases of what Paul of Tarsus called "a different gospel" ("heteron euaggelion"; Galatians 1:6), that is, a false one. * Why do heresies arise? I see two factors. * 1. From time to time wrongdoers have various motives for wanting to be associated with welldoers, and to feel united with them. * 2. The thinking of welldoers is always to some degree influenced by wicked attitudes, hence the ongoing need to "be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Rom 12:2). Such influences sometimes become far-reaching. * Since the gospel was revealed, the main heresiogenic attitudes have been Hellenism and Humanism, often via the Scholastic cogniframe. It would be good to elucidate these connections, and probably show them in a matrix. * A reformation is a rebuttal of a heresy, as part of a credal revision or otherwise. Such rebuttals help selves to reach a point where God's realigning grace can operate, and to work out the consequences of receiving that grace. * Where a heresy is an extreme, and the corresponding truth is the mean, an "equal and opposite" heresy, to the other extreme, often arises as a reaction. A reformation, however, is not the opposite extreme but a restatement of the mean. * A real friend of God may inadvertantly believe heresies, but he never persists in a heresy after confronting the corresponding reformation, that is, after someone has "explained God's way to him more accurately" (Acts 18:26). "Reject a heretical man after a few warnings, for he is warped and wicked." (Atttributed to Paul of Tarsus, Epistle to Titus 3:10-11. Greek hairetikon anthropon.) |
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| Thought | School | * A school is an accord between teachers and pupils for the former to convey knowledge to the latter. * Infants and adults can both be pupils. * A subject should be a pupil only in obedience to her king, and the latter may authorise the teachers to act in loco parentis, but these are irrelevant to the structure of the school as such. (Of course no other party has a right to interfere.) |
A godly school has a curriculum that reflects a godly attitude. | |
| Thought | College | * A college is an accord for a shared pursuit of knowledge. * Much of what occurs at "colleges" is really schooling. * A university is a college of unlimited scope. * A scientific collaboration, as expressed for instance in co-authorship, is a kind of college. |
The wider the scope of the knowledge whose pursuit is to be shared, the stronger the imperative to apply the separation principle. | |
| Action | Trade | * A trade is an accord whereby each of two parties achieves an aim not shared by the other. For details see Trade. | In forming business partnerships, the separation principle should have much weight. Trading accords, being looser and more evanescent, are generally safe, though even here separation is preferable in the rare cases where all else is equal. | |
| Expression | Nation | * A nation is primarily identified by shared language, and more broadly by sharing other forms of expression. I see no neeed for conflict between distinct nations and a single global nation. Expressive accord can occur at many levels, from the global (based on broad accord regarding what concerns all) to the local (based on particular, limited accords). The word "nation" is flexible, but it seems that at a certain level there is an optimal combination of scale and coherence, which ruling gangs have taken advantage of in evoking consent from their victims through the idea of "the nation state". | "You are ... a separate nation, God's own people." (1st Epistle of Peter 2:9. I see no reason to deny this its full sense.) | |
| Expression | Expressive Collaboration | * Song often arises from accord between lyricist and composer, and likewise for other hybrid forms. * Expressive accords between composers, or between poets, etc, seldom reach the heights. Such expression seems to be largely a matter for soliloquy. * Certain forms of expression benefit from interpretation by a group of performers, and their performance is itself expressive. But interpretation is more heavily embedded in the pragmatic than is composition, so it is more limited in expressive scope, and the conductor's customary homage to the score is more than mere modesty. |
(No additional comments.) | |
| Respect | Arbitration League | * Pragmatic friction should be moderated by mutual respect and resolved through arbitration leagues, in which participants agree to appoint arbitrators, whose decision all will accept. (When consensus is needed, the most convenient way to attain it is sometimes to appoint an arbitrator, even with everyone willing to give way.) The appointment is by consensus of all participants, albeit that consensus may take the form of agreeing a process (a constitution) under which arbitrators are elected. | * In a spoiled world there is aggression, which needs to be counteracted. So security leagues are needed, and it is generally convenient for these to incorporate arbitration leagues. For details see under "Defection". * Under restoration, arbitration and counteraction are still required. * In principle God always says to Pharaoh, "Let my people go .... Our cattle also must go with us .... For we must take of them to serve Yahweh" (Exodus 5.1, 10.26). God wants his folk to live and spend as he guides, not as gangsters see fit, and if expedient they should fight for the freedom to do so. In 1st Corinthians 6:1-6, Paul suggests that disputing welldoers should appoint their own arbitrators rather than appeal to wrongdoers, applying the principle of separation. He may have meant only ad hoc appointments, but I see no reason not to extend the proposal. It is true that the earliest Christian writers seem to have overlooked the need for these arbitration leagues to be security leagues, but this is understandable: Rome then generally allowed residents to go about their business unmolested, and occasionally protected welldoers from molestation by irate idolwrights, so the question never arose. |
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| Conversation | Clique | * A clique is an accord to converse on unspecified topics. It may be formalised as a social club. * There is nothing wrong with cliques as such. "Cliquiness" is excessive reliance on a clique. Abusus non tollit usum. |
While they did not then explictly distinguish the forms, the routine coming together of the ekklesia described in the New Covenant Book seems to have been mainly a hybrid of congregation and clique, though other forms were no doubt also part of the mix. | |
| Conversation | Neighbourhood | * Geographical proximity facilitates conversation, so it is useful to live near those with whom we happen to have reason to converse. | * In a spoiled world the separation principle urges us to avoid neighbourhood with God's foes. * In the ekklesia this becomes the formation of godly neighbourhoods. |
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| Altruism | Aid Agency | * Aid agencies are commonly called "charities", though that word is often applied instead to groups with a certain "legal status" in the eyes of the ruling gang, regardless of whether they truly give aid. | The separation principle pertains to the choice of fellow-donors, not to the choice of beneficiaries. We should do good to all selves, and if need arises nearby I should help without delay and without catechising. However, there is also a place for economic calculation, our more carefully planned aid should be directed where it will do most good, and in general God's friends are more likely to use aid well than are his foes. This is assumed in the epistles of Paul, who is heard organising relief for "the ekklesias", and advises his reader to "do good to all, but especially to the household of trust". | |
| Commitment | Family | * A family is an accord into which commitment refines the animal behaviour of mating bonding and parenting. | * Godly men should not take wicked brides. This is fairly widely held; indeed, outside the realm of reverence it is the only form of Christian Separation to be widely accepted. * But suppose a welldoer finds himself married with a wrongdoer? (Maybe when he took her she seemed godly, or he was realigned subsequently.) Even if she remains generally obedient, the best adaptation may be to divorce her and transfer her to a wrongdoer. (Paul of Tarsus suggests this in 1st Corinthians 7:15, though he expresses the point in terms of the prevailing Egalitarianism, either failing to notice the need to challenge it or seeking to avoid complications.) |
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| Commitment | Friendship | * Any accord of commitment other than family may be called a friendship. There are varieties of friendship, in accordance with various circumstances and aims. Like family, friendship is a refinement of an instinctive behaviour pattern. See Lorenz in the Book List. | (No additional comments.) | |
| Decoration | Decoration Group | * A decoration group is an accord to facilitate the practice of decoration. Decoration is often combined with expression, but here I refer to the pure form. I claim no familiarity with such groups, but I am sure they can be found. | (No additional comments.) | |
| Decoration | Game | * A game is an accord between players (or teams) to pursue mutually incompatible aims subject to restrictions designed to yield beauty. For a player to give that beauty priority over his (or his team's) assigned aim is called sportsmanship, for "when the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name, he marks, not that you won or lost, but how you played the game" (Grantland Rice, "Alumnus Football"). * In team games, a team is itself an accord, an accord to pursue, then to execute, games with other teams. * I reserve judgment on association football's claim to be, par excellence, "the beautiful game". But those formations and geometries sure are decorative. |
As in trade, so in sport: welldoers should generally prefer to form their own teams, but it will often be expedient to play against wrongdoers. | |
| Reverence | Congregation | * A congregation is an accord to facilitate the practice of reverence. (Etymologically the word could refer to any form of assembly, but I use it only for this form, with which it has come to be especially associated.) For details see Congregations. | * Every congregation should celebrate creation. * A congregation of restored humanity should also celebrate restoration. * A congregation of saved humanity should also celebrate salvation. |