Freethinking or Accountability?
A root of conflict in humanist and progressive religious communities
In our movements, we OFTEN struggle between a version of freethinking—that anything we say goes, that nobody can tell US/ME what to do — and the concept of relationships/interconnection as central.
Many of our communities are dealing with conflict. And too often we respond with some version of trying to make everyone happy. What that produces is a community or movement with a central purpose that is impossible: to make everyone happy. (That’s not the same as trying to find a resolution which meets many of the needs of those involved. "You can't always get what you want ...")
Instead, I think it’s helpful to think of conflict as energy, requiring us to check in with our basic vision, and see if we need to, as a community, grow and evolve with the insights of those who may not see it as we do. We may reaffirm our vision, and still ask questions: Are our actions consonant with our vision? Do we need to define more clearly what we think our vision requires of us?
And occasionally, we reaffirm the vision, and acknowledge that not everyone aligns with that vision. Trying to be what everyone wants is a dead end. It’s okay to acknowledge that some don’t share the vision and might find a different kind of community more to their taste, too. Including those who thought it was their community to define, and discovered that others, drawn by many of the values the community promoted, didn’t see the current community as truly living those values.
If EVERYONE in a conflict would stop making it about who is right and who is wrong ("more ethical than thou" or “more humanist than thou” or “more X than thou” — basic self-righteousness), then we could manage conflict in a constructive way: as an opportunity for everyone to learn. (And if your brain is saying some version of "Yeah, they should all stop and listen so they can learn that I have the answer," then you have not understood my point.) A conflict is an opportunity to grow and change. For individuals, for the community. AND handling it well is about learning skills and capacities that we also want to see in the wider world in which we live.
Here’s what I am observing: So many of our conflicts at the community or national level are, at core, about freedom from limits versus accountability to each other and the whole. If we stick with the mid-20th-century liberalism formulation that puts "my rights" and "my freedom" as paramount, and not an earlier and later understanding of the centrality of human responsibility and experience, and more recent centering of the intrinsic interconnectedness of each and all, we won’t acknowledge that EVERYONE's liberation and healing is at stake, we are done. Without that, we’re done. Finished. We are not a community, or not a movement. The local community, or any national federation or association, then is merely a legal convenience.
I would love it if we'd think not so much about resisting "limits" by communities on members or "limits" on member communities by the national federation/association or "limits" on the national federation/association by communities, but rather think about this: what do we owe each other? In what ways are we accountable to each other? What do each of our members in a local community owe to each other to “bring out the best in others and thereby in ourselves”? What do each of our member communities owe to each other in bringing out that best in all our communities? What role do boundaries place in “bringing out the best”?
What if we could see that without having accountability for how we treat each other, nobody really has freedom? If I challenge behavior that harms others, the absolute freedom of the person no longer trumps the freedom of those interconnected with them who have been harmed, and thus their freedoms limited. Freedom just for some is not freedom, it’s privilege.
This is also true of other movements that want to change the world. Too many get caught up in ethical self-righteousness, instead of recognizing the meaning of ethics as “acting to elicit the best in others.” Too many get caught up in me-freedom and my rights and lose sight of everyone-liberation and mutual responsibility.
For humanists, it’s worth it to recall that when John Dietrich brought the word “humanism” into Unitarian circles as we currently use it, in the early 20th century, HE said that he meant it in the “social sense.” He was quite aware of the individualistic sense of the Christian humanism and the Enlightenment. He defined humanism not as “freethinking about religion” but as “human responsibility for human problems.”
And he’s not alone. That’s the humanism I was raised in. Dietrich was a huge influence on my grandparents and parents who attended his Minneapolis congregation, and thus on what we practiced as humanism. My humanism, part of a tradition of humanism that in my family goes back two generations, nurtured by regular reexamination, is not one focused on individual above society. It would be more accurate to say it's about the relationship of individuals and community or society.
A narrow view of a freethinker is someone who is responsible to no one for their thoughts or actions. Free of accountability. But a broader view of freethinking is this: a freethinker is someone who forms beliefs and opinions not JUST because they’re handed to us as dogma or by some authority, or even JUST because they’re traditional, but rather by applying the human gifts of logic and reason and compassion. Including integrating the experience of others, not just our own. (The “social sense.”) It is not logical or reasonable or compassionate to deny that others exist and have something to offer to our learning and thinking. This broader view of freethinking is actually centered on responsibility and accountability. Freethinkers are accountable for our views and for the actions those views inspire, we can’t blame authority or dogma for them.
I am so tired of the "corpse-cold" representations of humanism or freethought by people who respect the freedom primarily of those who agree with them or are willing to keep quiet in their proper places.
I am moved right now and sitting with this longish quote from adrienne maree brown's short book on accountability in movements: We Will Not Cancel Us. I share it in hopes it resonates with you as well. It is worth some time to ponder it.
I can see it — in the short-term we generate small pockets of movement so irresistibly accountable that people who don’t even know what a movement is come running towards us, expecting that they will be welcomed, flawed and whole, by a community committed to growth; knowing that there is a place in this violent, punitive world that is already committed to, and practicing, a healing and transformative iteration of justice. As Maurice Moe Mitchell said, we have to have a low bar for entry and a high standard for conduct.
In my mid-term vision, movements prioritize building the capacity, skill and wide hearts to receive new comrades, while practicing daily and deeply what it means to sustain our relationships and collective visions, uphold our values, and adapt towards purpose. We find ways to bond that aren’t limited to pettiness, gossip, cliquishness, which can be so fun and then so destructive. We get skilled at critique that deepens us, conflict that generates new futures, and healing that changes material conditions.
In the longest term vision I can see, when we, made of the same miraculous material and temporary limitations as the systems we are born into, inevitably disagree, or cause harm, we will respond not with rejection, exile, or public shaming, but with clear naming of harm; education around intention, impact, and pattern breaking; satisfying apologies and consequences; new agreements and trustworthy boundaries; and lifelong healing resources for all involved.
I have a vision of movement as sanctuary. Not a tiny perfectionist utopia behind miles of barbed wire and walls and fences and tests and judgments and righteousness, but a vast sanctuary where our experiences, as humans who have experienced and caused harm, are met with centered, grounded invitations to grow.
In this sanctuary we feel our victory, where winning means a mass and intimate healing.
Where winning isn’t measured by anyone else’s loss, but by breaking cycles of abuse, harm, assault, and systemic oppression.Where winning is measured not just by the absence of patterns of harm, distrust, and isolation, but by the presence of healing and healthy interdependence.
Where we are skilled at being honest, setting and honoring boundaries, giving and receiving apologies, asking for help, and changing our behaviors.
Where, every day, we can access the feeling of ease in our guts and calm in our jaws and shoulders.
Where we have trust deep enough to grow from conflict, trust that good intentions can yield good practice and radically reduce, even eliminate, harm. Where we trust that we are in such regular practice that we no longer have to be vigilant, to police or punish within our communities.
Holding this vision inside of movements right now has meant feeling not just for what is punitive, but for where there is gleeful othering, revenge, or punishment of others, particularly when these things deepen our belonging to each other, usually briefly, until we too fuck up.It means paying attention to where we feel and/ or practice policing and surveillance outside of the state.
It has meant longing for more collective clarity on what we mean by conflict, what we mean by harm, and what we mean by abuse. We need to get more precise about the language we use collectively. It has meant listening for what healing is needed, and how we can become a generation that learns to be satisfied in our healing.
It has meant slowing down our initial collective reactions such that violence is not met with more violence, but with alternative and satisfying consequences that result in the reduction of harm. It has meant feeling for what is out of alignment with abolition, for what feels like transformative justice, for what feels like radical love in action.In order for our movements to be rooted in love, we need to be able to have conversations as survivors, thinkers, workers, and shapers of the future, where all of our experiences can feed our learning. Abolition is the idea that resonates the most to me, both as a survivor who wants to break cycles of harm and as a human who wants to belong to my species, to my planet, to my time in the journey of evolution. It is our time and responsibility to try something else.
brown, adrienne maree. We Will Not Cancel Us (Emergent Strategy Series) (pp. 8-10). AK Press. Kindle Edition.