No prof, reconciliation and cohesion are not dangerous and your views should be rejected

Last Saturday, Prof Gabrielle Lynch defended an unusual position, best summarised in the slogan “reconciliation is overrated”.

READ: Reconciliation requires trust

We dispute the main claims of the piece, the moral that she draws from her reflections and the political ideal she offers.

As she sees things, reconciliation consists in the restoration of good relations. What are good relations? We are told that they can be understood as trust and respect or perhaps both.

Problems with the piece come early. Prof Lynch gives a quick argument against reconciliation. She advises us not to insist on reconciliation because it requires trust and respect and these are subjective and conditional.

Her reasoning is faulty. That a good thing is subjective and conditional is no reason not to insist on it. Credibility in the conduct of elections is subjective and conditional. That is not a reason to give up hope of credible polls.

Honesty is also subjective and conditional but that is no reason to de-emphasise honesty in our leaders. The reader will be able to find many similar counter-examples.

Our point is simple. Prof Lynch’s argument against reconciliation falls at the first hurdle because her stated reason for de-emphasising it — that it has subjective and conditional elements — is not actually a reason for doing so.

DANGEROUS HARMONY

Prof Lynch’s next argument is that full reconciliation — which she defines as a state of social harmony and cohesion — is dangerous. She gives two reasons for this startling claim.

First, that good things conflict and that disagreement and debate are a normal part of politics. Therefore, an invocation of unity for the common good stifles debate and privileges some interests over others. Second, stifling debate in this way encourages alternative political activity.

Unfortunately, Prof Lynch’s reasons do not support the claim that social harmony is dangerous. Suppose we accept her view that good things conflict and that invoking the common good privileges some interests. The problem is that there is nothing wrong with this.

Some interests are intolerable. Consider discrimination, ethnic hatred or hate speech. These activities serve some interests. Nonetheless, it is clear — we hope — that eliminating them is a priority and indeed a cardinal part of our drive to nationhood.

Prof Lynch might reply that these things are bad and that what she meant was that only interests that aim at the good should be considered on a par.

First, notice that that is a substantial concession: We have established that some interests are privileged after all.

In any case, this fallback position is itself hopeless. Not all interests, even the ones that aim at the good, are on a par. One way to see the point is to consider the goods of friendship and justice. Typically, if the judge sentencing you is a friend, he should not let the interests of friendship influence his judgement. Here, the demands of justice take precedence over those of friendship even though friendship and justice are good.

Our diagnosis of the professor’s error is simple. From the premise that good things conflict, she draws the conclusion that we have no reason to privilege one of the goods over the other. The conclusion does not follow, because even if we accept that good things can conflict, we can still choose between conflicting goods.

ENDLESS DISAGREEMENTS

We close with something about Prof Lynch’s political ideal. She says that the best we can hope for is contentious co-existence, in which we take for granted the reality and importance of competition over ideas and conflict over values and goals, and drop the ideal of harmony and reconciliation.

We have two points in reply. First, her ideal contradicts the best-developed theory of an African ethic — the account in Theodore Metz’s Towards an African Moral Theory. Metz argues that the basic principle of African ethics is that an act is right insofar as it produces harmony and reduces discord, and wrong to the extent that it fails to develop community. Prof Lynch’s ideal violates the reflective ethical commitments of Africans. That is a good reason to reject it.

But the more important reason for rejecting her ideal is that it is self-undermining. She tells us that the best we can hope for is endless disagreement about values, ideas and goals.

Only then, we are told, would everybody be confident that their concerns have been heard.

Once again, Prof Lynch is logically inconsistent. The first part of the ideal clearly undermines the second.

If we are doomed to perpetual conflict about values and ideals, then — now that we are in conflict about everything — one of the conflicts we can expect will concern the value of giving everyone a hearing. In other words, accepting endless disagreement does not guarantee everyone a hearing.

We believe Prof Lynch offers a counsel of despair and recommend rejection.

Daniel Waweru is a PhD student in Philosophy. @danielwaweru. Dr Nyairo is a cultural analyst.  [email protected]