Sitting on the Fence, or Being An Expert in Not Knowing

Sitting on the Fence, or Being an Expert in Not Knowing

I’ve been thinking a lot about conflict, aggression and violence. And the etymology of words. Conflict comes from the Latin words of con “together” and fligere, to “strike” or “fight”. The noun is conflictus “a contest”. I am thinking of the binary nature of two opposing forces, as well as the loneliness and fear I have felt whilst in my own personal conflicts. This leads to my wish to be alongside individual clients when in conflict, and is behind my motive to accompany and acknowledge each party when they are in the therapy room with me. It is not possible for me to take sides whilst working with ruptured relationships, and I wonder if this innate ability to be open to difference allows me to work towards conflict resolution. Sometimes, when rupture threatens my own relationships with loved ones, it allows me to cross bridges and repair. It’s magic when it works. It’s a loss when it doesn’t. All that is to be done then is grieve. The etymology of care is from the old English word caru, cearu "sorrow, anxiety, grief".

The roots of the word consider are con “together” sidus “heavenly body, star, constellation”. In light of current world conflicts I do feel a bit as though I’ve been looking up to the heavens for answers. I don’t think I am alone in a desperate search for sense. The easiest way to find clarity seems to be to go with my immediate knee-jerk sympathies. Initially I note the urge to take sides. To make order by using my outrage as a tool to sweep up the mess and divide, sort and order. Believe me, I can easily feel more compassion for one party than another – instinctively often feeling for the ‘underdog’.

But taking sides won’t sweep the mess. It certainly won’t for this blog – I’ve called it “Reflections on Connection”; con “together”, nectere “to bind, tie”. Connection is a binding or tying together, or the action of bringing two things into contact. This leads to more con­­-templation; to “mark out a space for observation”: think of temple – though my mind hasn’t felt like a temple – like I said – it’s feeling messy.

I was only young when I noticed how I seem to “sit on the fence”. At the time I understood that “sitting on the fence” was a bad thing. I feared I could be perceived as lacking in decisiveness and having a lack of courage to disagree. I thought others saw me as unwilling to displease one of the parties, and that my indecision was cowardly. At worst, sitting on the fence could be perceived as apathy.

A man sits on the fence afraid to choose a field. Maybe this interpretation of the phrase is right (I’m on the fence).

To me, sitting on a fence allows for a view of the lay of the land. I don’t feel too scared, weak or disinterested to form my own opinion when sitting on that fence. I feel scared of compromising the truth. And the truth is that I see two fields, I see difference, I see the opposing forces each with a valid unique energy and right to exist. I certainly can abhor injustice and recoil from acts of violence and harm. And in making judgements about acts, perhaps I am clear about my own sympathies. To form conclusions on the basis of my own sympathies feels arrogant to me, which leaves me feeling both drawn to a particular ‘side’ yet incapable of coming to a conclusion. With this internal stand-off, alongside a perception of being judged as weak for “sitting on the fence”, I am left confused.

I came across this quote from the Yogi Sadhguru: “Confusion is better than stupid conclusions. In confusion, there is still a possibility. In stupid conclusion, there is no possibility.” The etymology of confusion is con “together” and fundere “to pour, mingle, or mix together”. The etymology of conclusion is con “together” and cludere “to shut up, enclose” (interesting!).

My default mode – to empathise – won’t allow me to judge or even condemn a person without trying to understand the experience of people who wrong, harm, or even commit atrocities. I have no problem in condemning ideologies or actions that are anathema to me, but I just can’t condemn people. I live in the grey land that empathy creates, and it’s messy, untidy and certainly not easy.

I can’t put humans in one field and monsters in the other. I don’t really believe in monsters. I refuse to categorise. I am an edge-dweller. I turn towards complexity, nuance and disparate ideas. I am finally beginning to understand what post-modernism is, and love the definition offered by www.britannica.com: “a general suspicion of reason; and an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power.”

My daughter has just started university and is enjoying her scholarly experiences. We have enjoyed our mutual delight in the verb to reify “to make into a thing”, and the problem of reification. When a concept is treated as if it is a real, tangible ‘thing’ then we can get into trouble through only considering a single dimension. Let’s imagine that we call a person “bad”. They are now objectively “bad”. We make no room for the nuanced and disparate forces within that person, the needs behind the behaviour that did not spring from a void. We make no room for the complexity of being human. We condemn them: con “together”, damn “blame, pronounce judgement against, harm, damage”. We now have an “I-it” relationship, where the I is contemplating a fixed and static object, rather than an “I-Thou” relationship, where the “Thou”, or the Other, is a complex and nuanced being. In referring to the concept of the “I-Thou” relationship I am drawing from the philosopher Martin Buber who believed that being human is about relationships.

To call a person ‘good, bad or evil’ is a choice. A choice that says so much more about the perceiver than the person they perceive. How can I really know what is the essence of another? Person-centred theory states that all organisms (including humans) are neither fundamentally good nor bad. That we just will grow to become more complex. However, if a person exists in a growth enhancing environment we tend towards being socially constructive – it serves us better to develop strong and benevolent ties and to connect within our communities. Rogers, during a time of real fear of nuclear war, took the presence of atrocities, violence and conflict very seriously. In 1981, in a letter to Rollo May, a fellow pioneer of the humanistic movement in psychotherapy, he wrote “The presence of terrorism, hostility and aggression are urgent in our day.” Not much has changed then.

I notice that so many of the words I have taken apart in this piece have the word “together” in them. Like Buber, I find that being human is about relationships. “Only Connect!” says E.M. Forster. I’ll take that mantra. In teaching Relational Depth this week we discussed a paper by Peter Schmid, enticingly called “All real life is encounter: On the sustainable relevance to be surprised and affected.” Other people are full of surprises, and their views, actions, choices, thinking styles and philosophies can be astonishing at times. To engage with another human, with the full range of empathic attunement, can be a profound existential challenge. It is no soft option. To “stand counter” (etymology of encounter) is to come up against difference and acknowledge the other’s, as well as your own, uniqueness. It is also to confront; con “together” and front “forehead”.

I’m good at sitting on the fence, and I’m good at being surprised and challenged by others, as I am good at seeing the other person’s view. I can only understand their point of view as I acknowledge their differences from me, and do not ‘diagnose’ and explain nor label another from a position of expertise in knowing, but rather from an expert position of not knowing. Schmid quotes the German philosopher Romano Guardini as saying that encounter means that one is touched by the essence of the opposite. For this to happen, I need to be open to this essence, and listen sensitively without an agenda or purpose other than to listen and understand.

I need to know where the other stops and where I start. I need to be aware of my own unique self too. Schmid goes as far as saying that, within encounter, there is also aggression. He also takes the etymology of the word “Real encounter means to ‘ag–gredi’, to make steps towards each other, approach each other.” At first this constructive interpretation of the word aggression baffled me, but I see that he means that we can almost create ourselves through relating and encountering others – it’s as though we differentiate from others as we identify who we are through encounter. Schmid uses the example of the teenager who says ‘no’ to their parents. In turning towards the other, both common ground and uncommon ground is established, and boundaries of self are negotiated. Aggression can be a regulating force that allows for closeness without losing identity. Two separate fields that are the same and different, with a clear boundary. In my mind, the word aggression is synonymous with violence, however Schmid makes the point that it is only when aggression is distorted or denied that it becomes destructive. When we don’t truly understand the other, and our understanding is distorted, then violence can enter the picture.

I don’t hold hope that the conflicts in this world will be resolved with encounter as I don’t imagine that real listening will happen. I understand that there are global conflicts with unfathomable depth and complexity. I can even empathise with a desire to close off from another and to dehumanise them. I wouldn’t want to openly encounter another that has violated and threatened my existence or that of my loved ones and community. I do, however believe true encounter is the only real answer for any forward movement.

In the therapy room I can offer an ability to sit and allow the Other to reveal themselves. I can bear conflict and sit openly with Schmid’s version of “aggression”. I heard somewhere that finding solutions to other’s problems usually makes the problem more problematic. In my work, in allowing and fully acknowledging the differences, ways forward reveal themselves as the lay of the land becomes apparent. Differences can be incorporated and catered for in relationships. All parties hop up on to the fence and have a good look at the view.

I know this isn’t exactly a fence, but it is one of my favourite views on one of my regular dog walks.

Schmid, P. F. (2019). “All real life is encounter” On the sustainable relevance to be surprised and affected. Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies, 18(3), 202–213. https://doi.org/10.1080/14779757.2019.1650812