IRISC

International Research Institute into Spirituality and Change

Our Green and Pleasant Land.

by John Reader

It is probably too early to start reflecting on the implications and meaning of the Foot and Mouth outbreak. It is now week four of what is billed as a rural crisis and this morning the news is that the government may be challenged over the proposed cull of thousands of healthy sheep in Cumbria. Locally the burning of stock in the middle of my four parishes is coming to an end although other fires are still burning in the immediate area and further cases are being investigated. There are obvious pastoral and practical issues facing our area: concern for the farming community; questions about whether to close down churches and village halls; the feelings of people not directly involved in farming yet deeply affected by what is happening around them. How are we to make sense of any of this, let alone know what we should be doing and on what basis?

I want to try to make a start on these questions as part of my own process of thinking this through and to offer some sort of framework within which the issues can be considered and discussed. At the risk of allowing theory to dominate practice I will refer to a number of ideas that may prove useful. First, a way of understanding how humans grow and develop in terms of consciousness and awareness. Second, a structure of how religious experience becomes codified and then challenged and reconstructed. Third, the notion that the role of churches in the consideration of moral questions is not to offer prescriptive answers but to create the spaces and opportunities for open deliberation. Fourth, an analysis of our culture that suggests that the orders of reason as equated with science, expert knowledge and calculability and of faith identified with feeling and intuition are too readily set apart and in opposition, leading to a sort of split personality or dualism which cuts through our attitudes and decisions on moral issues. What price our "Green and Pleasant Land" when our own understanding of ourselves is so damaged and diminished by what we do in our relations with others?

It seems to me that what is happening in this outbreak reveals a deep ambivalence in our sense of ourselves and of the value that we place on non-human life, in this case farm livestock. I offer a series of cameos or windows into what I see going on around me. A young mother living on a new estate backing onto the farm where stock were being slaughtered prior to burning and clearly in a state of distress refers to this as a holocaust. She is challenged by another young mother, herself a vegetarian, who points out that this is just the fate that awaits all animals being bred for human consumption and this is one of the reasons why she takes the stance she does. This seems to me a fair point. Is it just the scale and visibility of the current slaughter that is offensive and distressing, or should we be moved to change our eating patterns if we really mean what we say? Whichever way we decide to go as individuals there is a question here about what sort of creatures we are when we choose to treat other life in a particular manner. This cannot be reduced to economics or practical politics.

The newspapers in recent days have carried a series of stories about farmers themselves being in a state of distress as they face the destruction of their animals. Even though these animals may be heading eventually for the abattoir there is clearly an emotional investment in the animals and the relationship between farmer and animal is more than instrumental. It is hard to make sense of this unless you are in the situation. It does not seem to be a matter of sentimentality or some romantic view of the natural world, but the result of real encounter and relationship that again transcends the pragmatic and economic structures of commerce and farming. The potentially violent reaction of the Cumbrian farmers to the proposed cull of healthy animals, their flocks, is not just about the loss of livelihood but perhaps the loss of relationship, however that is to be described. By our nature we become attached to other lives with which or whom we spend our time and into which we put our energy, even though there may be a commercially based termination of those lives. If we deny those feelings, that part of what we are as humans, then we seem to demean and diminish ourselves. It is easy to mock the supposed sentimentality of the young mother taking her offspring round to see the lambs and calves, teaching the child to imitate the animal sounds and to recognize the different animals, but maybe this is part of the process of humanization, of sensitizing the child to the value of other life, as well as about the acquisition of language skills. It is that sensitization to other life that is lived directly by the farmers even though there are economic factors at work. If we reduce the animals to units of production and figures on a balance sheet it is a disturbingly short step to doing the same to human beings.

The images portrayed by the media of animals being piled onto the fires, or waiting in the fields to be incinerated are violent and powerful. When this is happening right in front of you, or you are driving past it every day, it has an even deeper emotional impact - or if it does not then I begin to wonder where your humanity lies. The words that we have been using to describe what is going on are themselves revealing. Holocaust may seem extreme, but so also are the parallels with Old Testament sacrifices and mention of a series of plagues. There is something about this crisis that is deeper than simply the economic. One could speculate that we are appeasing the gods - even though we don’t believe in them any longer - for some underlying guilt or dis-ease in our culture or collective psyche. We know at some other level that there is something wrong about intensive farming methods and the reduction of our relationship with other life to short-term profit, but we have no way of expressing or articulating this feeling because this is not legitimated by current discourses. So the funeral fires are the external symbol of our self-inflicted punishment, except that it is the animals that are being sacrificed - or is it? The scientific explanations of what we are doing are legitimate in their own way, but this reveals the limitations of this dominant discourse to describe the different levels of human experience. It feels as though there is more to it than this, but we lack the language to express this "more". The vivid images and violent symbols are the closest we can get to this.

So what are the explanations for the outbreak? Although the virus itself may not have been caused by current farming methods and trading practices, the way in which it has been spread is certainly a function of the way we now do things. Greater aggregation of stock as a result of intensification magnifies the effects of the virus. The transporting of livestock across the country and into Europe has created the networks around which the virus has been spreading. The loss of local abattoirs is down to government regulations that have forced them out of business, and so on. All of this is put at the door of consumer demand for cheap and accessible meat as encouraged and sustained by the supermarket chains. Such is the conventional wisdom on what lies at the heart of this outbreak. Is there the political will to change any of this? Probably not, but it will in any case only be consumer power that could change current commercial patterns. Either we will sink back into the same practices once the crisis is past or there will be a significant change of heart - for that is what is required - and a subsequent reconstruction of consumer habits. This is not just about economics, or even about economics, but more a reflection of what we believe to be important and a sense of our will to change things despite the opposed vested interests and power structures. If we only see ourselves as passive consumers to be manipulated by commercial interests then there will be no change.

Why has this particular story achieved such a dominance in the press and the media, when in fact agriculture is a relatively small part of the national economy and even the number of animals under threat is only a small proportion of the total livestock? We would appear to be back with the "Green and Pleasant Land" self-image of the British people. Even though it is not true, we think of ourselves as rooted in the rural and as having a traditionally close relationship with the countryside. Whether we refer to this as part of our identity or of a deeply-rooted pastoral spirituality, this is certainly a factor in the general and political response to the crisis. This dimension of who and what a considerable number of us feel ourselves to be cannot be ignored. Once again it cannot be reduced to statistics or objective scientific analysis as it operates at an unconscious level. It is part of our collective psyche - although it is tempting to exaggerate this and make false assumptions about town and city dwellers. Nevertheless, this does appear to be a factor in the collective response to Foot and Mouth.

What then about the role of the "experts", the government officials, the scientists and the politicians? There is increasing mistrust and scepticism surrounding their handling and grasp of the outbreak. This is not just based on the practicalities, but rests on fear and lack of confidence. It is as if the technical and supposedly rational and scientific approach to the problem is not enough, it is somehow missing the point. It is not simply the case that the experts only get called in when something goes wrong. The very systems that are already in place and that themselves carry considerable responsibility for the form of the crisis are the result of applying the same approaches and techniques that are the stock in trade of these experts. Can the approaches which have created the problem confidently be expected to provide the solutions to it? Perhaps an underlying suspicion that the experts cannot control and eradicate the disease in the way that they are claiming to is leading to the resistance to the drastic measures now being proposed. Once again, there is a dimension of feeling, intuition and an alternative reasoning that is not being taken into account by the officials trying to deal with the outbreak. The risks that we have manufactured through the application of technology in a global market economy where short-term profit dominates are beyond the control of the experts and the politicians and this is sensed rather than fully understood. (Beck, 1999). Nor will it do to reduce this to party political statements or arguments about Europe. There are more fundamental questions at stake about the way that we are and the ways that we should be.

Further developments may change certain elements of this scenario as the events unravel over the coming months. However, unless we take the opportunity to reflect on what may be learnt, most of what will have happened will have been in vain. A key question appears to be that of what we learn about ourselves. How are we to describe the range of responses of which we are capable, let alone to make judgements about appropriate courses of action? A clear message emerging from the crisis is that our responses cannot be limited to matters of finance or even of science. Though we may not allow our feelings to influence the official judgements they nevertheless remain a powerful component in our reactions to what is happening. Does this dimension of our human being simply have to be bracketed out because it is not susceptible to quantification or normal processes of objectification? In suggesting that this should not be the case I want to draw on some more theoretical ideas.

First, a framework for understanding levels of human consciousness and awareness that may illuminate some of the current responses to the crisis. (Reader 1994). I do not claim any scientific objectivity for this account, but suggest that it summarizes a way of thinking about ourselves. Briefly, humans operate at four levels: the unconscious; the practical consciousness; criticat consciousness and finally transrational consciousness. While the terms may be unfamiliar, they are simply a shorthand for recognizable levels of response. Thus in the case of the Foot and Mouth outbreak, a number of the responses noted appear to be at the level of the unconscious. We know that we have certain feelings about what is happening but we cannot explain where these come from or be clear about whether or not they should influence our judgements. We may call these "gut reactions" or "instincts" but find it difficult to express them in a culture that takes little notice of this level of human operating. The thought of thousands of animals being slaughtered disturbs and upsets us, yet most of us continue to demand cheap meat. So our practical responses are mostly determined at level two, the practical consciousness, itself just the way we normally go about things out of either habit or inertia, until something happens to disturb our equilibrium. We may feel uneasy, but continue to operate as before because the feelings cannot connect with any critical thinking. Thus level three is a further dimension within which the challenge or disturbance is such that we are forced to stand back and ask what is going on and if there are some things that need to be changed. So we may begin to analyse why this particular problem has arisen, what forces lie behind current practice and wonder whether something needs to be changed. I take it as a positive sign that many people are now engaging with these sort of questions, even if only for a time. To use other language with which I am familiar, we become reflexive, using what we know to help us think critically about our actions. However, there may still be no changes made, unless our feelings and our powers of thought are integrated into ourselves and our reflections. We could alter the way that animals are transported on what could be purely economic grounds, but our sense of who and what we are might remain the same. Level four is yet a further stage, one where there is greater integration of the different parts of ourselves and even a growing awareness that we are not separate and isolated beings, either as individuals or as a species. Thus how we are with all others, including non-humans, is the real test of what we are and could become as humans. Within a Christian spirituality this may have obvious resonances with particular views of Creation and of God, but similar themes can be identified within other religious traditions. It may be interesting to examine how many of the responses to the current crisis are moving towards levels three and four, as much at the moment appears to remain at levels one and two

A second and related framework refers to the process and processing of religious experience. (Baillie and Reader 2001). Once again there are four stages. The beginning of a person's spiritual journey may ( or may not) begin with a specific experience or encounter, an event or singularity the power of which resists description or articulation. What we call conversion is of this order, but we must not interpret this too narrowly. Once this has occurred - at stage one - the question arises of how this event is to be interpreted and communicated to others. Such singularities resist this process and it could be argued that any attempts to turn them into words are bound to distort or betray the depth of the experience. (Derrida 1995) However, if this process is not undertaken, the individual remains alone and outside any faith tradition. Faith traditions are formulated as people share their experiences and begin to articulate them and this forms the second stage or level of the process. The words are inadequate, but are the best we can do. Further, we know that these experiences are interpreted and described in the terminology of the tradition with which the individual is familiar. So there is a back-and-forth movement between experience and description. Some people may never have the experience that is referred to in the discourse but may yet belong to the particular tradition. The problem is that the formulations and practices of the tradition become more concrete and foundational over time. They take over from experience the central role within the faith tradition and are seen to be the criteria by which new developments must be judged. These formulations are challenged as and when events occur, or people have new thoughts that no longer fit neatly within the established interpretations. I would describe this as the inherent uncertainties and chaos of life undermining or deconstructing the supposed certainties and formulations of the tradition and this occurs at the third stage of the process. For some the shocks and challenges may be too much and the traditions so inflexible that they have to be abandoned completely. The authority of the Bible is undermined by theories of evolution etc. However, for others there may remain enough in the tradition that still speaks to their experience to encourage them to try to reformulate or reconstruct that tradition - stage four. (Reader 1997). This is always a tricky enterprise as the guardians of the tradition will see this as threatening and subversive. It may be easier just to walk away and relocate somewhere else. The question here is whether the current crisis, probably interpreted as an environmental issue, can draw upon any resources from within the Christian tradition that can guide practical and moral responses. This has to be an open question to which the answers are still being sought. As I said initially I happen to believe that the most important resource that the Christian tradition can offer in this crisis is the space or opportunity for a wide range of people to examine this as a moral issue, where questions of value, of life and death, of order and chaos can and must be addressed. (Goodall and Reader, 1992). Christians may well find themselves part of a wider movement that resists any moves to reduce the issues to cold economics or a detached technological debate.

My final reflection is a sense that our culture through the dominant discourses that we employ, those of an instrumental reason, a search for calculability and supposed objectivity, relegates matters that are seen to be "the other of reason", i.e. feelings and indeed faith to a minor and impotent role. (Reader 2001). There is a polarisation between this narrow view of reason and an equally narrow view of faith and feeling that does damage to our understanding of ourselves and suppresses elements that should rightly form part of the current debate about what to do in the face of this crisis. This is so deeply embedded in our culture and in our language as well as our discourses that it is very difficult to break out of it. We see the fires burning and the carcasses being piled high and we know something is disturbingly wrong, but we can get no further because of the limitations of our own self-understanding. Yet there must be hope, perhaps for a wider vision of reason that enables open debate, a wider vision of faith and feeling that sees their investment in language and the promise of something better, and the fact that our encounter with the "other" lives summons us to a more human response. Each of these may offer us ways of handling the inevitable indeterminacy that results from attempts to reconstruct our tradition in the light of current challenges. The only land that we can inhabit requires of us greater degrees of self-awareness and a willingness to travel more lightly.

References.

Caroline Baillie and John Reader, forthcoming Paper on levels of knowledge development and consciousness in religion and science, 2001.

Ulrich Beck, World Risk Society, (Polity Press, 1999), P78-9.

Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death, (The University of Chicago Press 1995), P71.

Margaret Goodall and John Reader, Paper on Creating Spaces in The Earth Beneath, (S.P.C.K. 1992).

John Reader, Local Theology: Church and Community in Dialogue, (S.P.C.K. 1994), Pp20-22.

John Reader, Beyond All Reason: The Limits of Post-Modern Theology (Aureus 1997), Ppl50-156.

John Reader, forthcoming Ph.D thesis with University of Wales, Bangor (2001). Faith and Reason with specific reference to Habermas and Derrida.

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