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MODEL OF NEUTRAL-INCLUSIVITY by Vinsent Nandi, 41 aSWW



BOOK OF FUNDAMENTALS, PART I [chapters 1-3]



1  THE NORM OF INCLUSIVITY


1.1  BASICS


1.1.1  FORMULA OF THE NORM


The norm of inclusivity is the ground-norm obtained by taking the universal
version of the non-metadoctrinal, nonpropositional principle of
discriminational, nondoxastic relevance and by interpreting it in a
catenically neutralistic way.

In short: it is the neutralistic interpretation of the principle of
relevance.



1.1.2  WHY A NON-METADOCTRINAL, NONPROPOSITIONAL PRINCIPLE?


The norms of our denominational doctrine are not 'norms' in some
(sub-)cultural or 'social' sense; they are norms in an independent
ontological sense. They can be obtained by interpreting a certain principle
or a certain version of a certain principle. This is why we also call them
"interpreted principles". The principles themselves are, again, independent
of the cultural or social circumstances of a special time or place. If they
are said to be eternal, then because they apply to all times or all eras; if
they are said to be nontemporal, then because their significance does not
depend on any time or era in particular. If they are said to be omnipresent
then because they apply everywhere, that is, in all places and communities;
if they are said to be nonspatial, noncultural or nonsocial, then because
their significance does not depend on any place or community in particular.

The first two 'eternal', 'omnipresent' principles which every normative
doctrine must recognize, explicitly or implicitly, are --as we have
ascertained in the Book of Instruments-- the principle of truth and the
principle of relevance. Neither principle, however, is metadoctrinal in that
it inherently belongs to a second-order normative doctrine dealing with the
relationship between persons and first-order normative doctrines. Both
principles are (non-meta-) doctrinal in that they can, and ought to be, part
of every first-order normative doctrine itself, altho this does not preclude
them from being part of every normative doctrine of a higher order as well.
Insofar as a metadoctrinal principle is concerned, our own ideology is in
the first instance a first-order normative doctrine with (non-metadoctrinal)
doctrinal principles. Later, after having discussed these doctrinal
principles and the interpretations which we shall give to them, we will turn
to the one metadoctrinal principle to be recognized in addition to those
doctrinal ones. It is the principle which underlies the right to personhood.

The prime concern of every ideology is the ground-world and, more
particularly, the way the ground-world should be. Being comprehensive, a
denominational doctrine will also cherish ideas about the relationships
between people`s utterances or theories and the ground-world and, perhaps,
about the formal aspects of thoughts about the ground-world. Nonetheless,
the ideas about these relationships and formal aspects are subsidiary to
ground-world questions. Even if they were not, they would not add as much
interest to the doctrine as ground-world ideas and principles, for in
general all people pay lip-service to non-ground-world principles like truth
(which governs the relationship between utterances and the ground-world) and
consistence or coherence (as a formal aspect of theorizing). It is
nonpropositional principles or, if interpreted, nonpropositional norms which
characterize a normative doctrine more than any propositional principle or
principle of correspondence.

It may now be rejoined that everyone will also say that `e is in favor of
relevance, when asked whether `e is. No-one is likely to admit that `e aims
at irrelevance or that `e does not care about relevance at all. This,
however, is precisely the reason why the recognition of a principle of
relevance does not mean much (if anything), that it is the interpretation of
such a principle which counts, and the version adhered to. Altho this holds
for truth, or a principle of truth, as well, the essential difference is
that truth concerns at most a correspondence between nonpropositional and
propositional reality, whereas (discriminational) relevancy concerns actions
and attitudes in the ground-world itself. But then, we must admit too that
the role of relevancy is only of fundamental significance for us in the
ground-world. Consequently, it is the role of a nonpropositional principle
of relevance which is of fundamental significance in a denominational
doctrine like ours.



1.1.3  WHY DISCRIMINATIONAL, NONDOXASTIC RELEVANCE?


Strictly speaking, 'doxastic relevance' is no relevance, and amongst
ourselves it is, indeed, superfluous to speak of "nondoxastic relevance".
Yet, in a wider or introductory context this addition stresses our
ontological and epistemological position that something is not relevant
merely because it is believed to be relevant. We have seen in the Book of
Instruments how the use of the notion of relevance (especially the
phenomenological one) sometimes tends to be excessive and doxastic, and we
rather take a certainty for an uncertainty. This is not to suggest, of
course, that we ourselves can be sure about what is relevant; actually
no-one can. It does mean tho that we think it very important to apply at
least the criterion of inconsistence, which does away with partial
relevancy, the criterion of the fake focus, which does away with fake
focuses of relevancy and the criterion of mere correlation, which does away
with pseudofactual relevancy. Even if we, or other people, believe something
to be relevant, it is not relevant if, for example, the focus of relevance
is fake. The doxastic relevance is, then, irrelevance all the same.
Nondoxastic relevance and irrelevance, however, are there, whether believed
in or not.

The question of why the nondoxastic relevance we are concerned about must be
discriminational relevance, has only to be answered for the role of
relevance in the ground-world as our principle of relevance is a
nonpropositional one. Hence, it need not be explained why
relevance-relatedness or semantic relevance are not interesting here. The
fact that we are dealing with a principle of relevance which, when
interpreted, yields a norm, makes it definitely impossible, too, that the
relevance concerned is statistical or causal, for statistical and causal
relevance are modal conditions, not factual ones. If something ever should
be statistically or causally relevant, then only as a means to something
else. The relevance is, then, merely instrumental, not a perfective (or
perfectively instrumental) value, which it is supposed to be on the
normative principle of relevance.

The relevance of a nonpropositional principle of relevance must be
value-dependent relevance, and must be classified on the basis of the type
of fundament involved. To classify it on the basis of the type of terminus
involved would either leave the principle of relevance without content, or
would establish a different value for which the relevance would merely be a
means. 'Moral' or 'motivational relevance', for instance, leave a principle
of relevance devoid of any practical meaning even when the fundament is
given, because the question which remains then is with respect to what moral
value or with respect to what kind of motivation should something be
relevant?. On the other hand, when the terminus is defined in denotative
terms, it is the value of the terminus which is given its normative
significance by the 'principle of relevance', not relevance itself. For
example, when something has to be socially relevant (or 'of practical
relevance to the interests of society at large'), and the social goal is
simultaneously defined as the greatest happiness of the greatest number of
citizens, it is this particular happiness value which is made the subject of
the relevance principle. The relevance principle tho, holds independently of
the kind of terminus involved, that is, independently of the focus of
relevancy. Setting aside forms of relevancy which are gradations of
value-dependent relevancy on a decision-theoretical level, such as 'topical'
or 'primary' and 'marginal' or 'minor relevance', the object of the
relevance principle is therefore nothing else than pragmatic or
discriminational relevance.

Pragmatic relevance in the ground-world is itself merely a type of
discriminational relevance, namely the relevance of distinctions made by the
speaker or writer between words, phrases, statements, and so on. It is the
relevance of a speech act done where an alternative act could have been
done, that is, where a decision between different acts has been taken. It is
in this decision that one or more distinctions are, or have been drawn. The
very need of a principle of relevance was demonstrated in this field in the
first place. When we concluded --in the Book of Instruments-- that even
'purely descriptive theories' ought to be true and relevant, this true and
this relevant referred to statements made as part of a theory. But making a
statement is a speech act in which a person distinguishes one class of
things from another, and in which `e decides to mention some things and not
to mention other things. Since the pragmatic relevance involved in speaking
and writing is only a special kind of discriminational relevance, and since
discriminational relevance is the most extensive form of relevance which can
be the subject of a nonpropositional relevance principle which does not fix
a focal determinant, it is this form we must be dealing with when talking of
such a principle.



1.1.4  WHY TAKING THE UNIVERSAL VERSION?


Those who agree that one should adopt a (non-meta-)doctrinal,
nonpropositional principle of discriminational, nondoxastic relevance, might
still disagree about the adoption of a personal or a universal version of
this principle. The personal version only puts an end to the dependence on
internal nonrelevance. The relevance of the distinction they make does,
then, not depend on a causal connection between this distinction and an
attitude or practise of making another nonrelevant distinction by
themselves. The universal version goes further. If possible, this version
puts an end to the dependence on external nonrelevance, when a distinction
made by others is nonrelevant.

The difference between the personal and the universal version of the
relevance principle has no bearing on a moral agent`s right of personhood to
choose for the one or the other version. In both cases `e exercises `er own
personal freedom to make a normative decision, albeit a more demanding one
when espousing the universal version. What is also the same in both cases,
is that either version has an active and a nonactive component. The
nonactive component may also be called "restrictive" or "proscriptive". For
P (the personal version) it reads, "one should not make a distinction which
is not relevant", while the addition for U (the universal version) is, "or
the relevance of which depends on a nonrelevant distinction made or on the
not making of a relevant distinction". The active component may also be
called "prescriptive", and reads for P, "one should make a distinction which
is relevant", while the addition for U is, "unless this relevance depends on
a nonrelevant distinction made, or on the not making of a relevant
distinction".

As noted in section I.7.4.2 --that is, 7.4.2 of the Book of Instruments--
the choice whether to assume that other people act from the same normative
theory (as in the universal version) or not (as in the personal version)
cannot be determined by a mathematical or logical calculus. The question of
action versus nonaction is more complicated tho, because many
consequentialists argue that there is no difference between an action and a
nonaction when the effects are the same. But usually the effects are taken
to be something like the amount of pleasure or suffering the act or omission
or abstention brings about, and not a quality inherent in the action or
nonaction itself. When a quality in an action or nonaction itself is a value
or disvalue as well, the matter is not so simple anymore, and that is why we
have to postpone the discussion of the proscriptive and prescriptive
readings of our normative principles until a later chapter. The question of
the difference in versions themselves we must tackle now, however, for a
personal version of the principle of relevance would practically exhaust all
its normative vigor.

Those who suggest that people need or can only adopt the personal version of
the relevance principle, do not only accept that people would show less
strength in matters of relevance in practise, they must also hold that it is
not the case that people ought to display more strength in such matters,
even tho they had every ability and opportunity of doing so. On the other
hand, those adopting the universal version of the relevance principle do
hold that one should display as much strength in such matters as one can. If
one cannot possibly do anything more than what is required according to the
personal version, this is also what is required according to the universal
version. Yet, the underlying attitude is quite different. Those pleading for
the personal version tend to reconcile themselves to what they but too
easily assume cannot be avoided. Thus, where the majority in a community
discriminates against a minority, they have this discrimination determine
the 'relevance' of their own distinctions, as tho submitting to the will of
a monolithic Exclusionist. All these people embracing the personal version
of the relevance principle are therefore themselves part of, or constitute,
the very majority which --they claim-- is beyond their control.

To illustrate what it means to accept the universal version of the principle
of relevance, or the criterions doing away with assigning relevance to both
internal and external nonrelevance, we will give some time and attention to
a concrete example at the end of this division.



1.1.5  WHY A CATENICALLY NEUTRALISTIC INTERPRETATION?


The fundament of relevancy is a distinction: a distinction which should not
be made if it is irrelevant, but which may --both on the proscriptive and on
the prescriptive account-- be made if it is relevant. The distinction is
drawn on the basis of a factor which divides the world, or a domain of
discourse, into two or more parts. Examples of such divisions are a 'world'
consisting, or said to consist, of human and nonhuman beings; or a 'world'
said to consist of men and women; or a predicative 'world' with mental
health as distinct from mental disability. Sometimes, what is presented as
'one' division of the world may involve several factors of distinction, like
when the world is said to consist of human beings, (nonhuman) animal beings,
nonanimal living beings (or plants) and nonliving beings. All these
differences in themselves, however, are not relevant or irrelevant: humans
are there just being human, whereas nonhumans are there just being nonhuman;
mental health is there just being mental health, whereas mental disability
is there just being mental disability. It is the way in which a difference
is taken up in a speech act, or in a nonlingual act, which is pertinent or
impertinent. A distinction is not made until a difference is taken up (or,
if imaginary, created) and members on one side of the divide are somehow
treated differently from members on the other side of the divide. The
difference in treatment may, then, be a difference between being mentioned
and not being mentioned, between being allowed to enter a certain place and
not being allowed to enter that place, between being worshiped and not being
worshiped, and so on. Now, if the distinction made, or the difference in
treatment, is irrelevant, the relevance principle requires that either all
members be mentioned, or that no-one be; that either everyone be allowed to
enter a certain place, or that no-one be; that either everyone be worshiped,
or that no-one be.

Predicates like being-mentioned and being-allowed-to-enter are noncatenical.
Being-worshiped, however, is a special kind of being-honored, and
being-honored, being-dishonored and the neutral
being-neither-honored-nor-dishonored are concatenated. Let us assume that a
situation in which everyone would be worshiped (if possible at all) needs no
explanation, but what does a situation in which no-one is worshiped look
like from the honor-catenary point of view? We assume then, too, that to
worship means to honor greatly, and that all beings which are catenal with
respect to the honor-catena are also catenal with respect to the catena of
being-honored, and vice versa. In the situation in which no-one is worshiped
some honor-catenals might be dishonored, some might be honored, nor
dishonored, and others might be honored but not so greatly that it would
amount to worship. This implies, however, that in a situation in which
no-one is worshiped, honor-catenals could still be treated in very different
ways, but also these dissimilarities have to be relevant on the relevance
principle. In other words: for catenated predicates it does not suffice to
say that all things concerned should either have them or not have them, if
any difference in treatment is irrelevant. For catenated predicates the
precise formulation is that all things concerned should in such a case have
the same catenated proper predicate. Hence, all of them should be worshiped
or otherwise honored to the same degree, all of them should be dishonored to
the same degree or all of them should be neither honored, nor dishonored.

It is plain, then, that the relevance principle does by no means prescribe
that all honor-catenals should be worshiped, honored, dishonored or neither
honored, nor dishonored; that is, it does not prescribe any particular
predicate of the honor catena (or of the catena of being-honored). Yet, it
apparently does prescribe a predicate of the original catena`s
difference-catena, namely the neutrality of the honor-difference catena. In
the event that a difference in honor-catenary treatment between two
honor-catenals is irrelevant, both should have the neutral predicate of the
honor-difference catena.

This leaves us with the question of what to think about noncatenical
predicates. They do not admit of degrees and an entity either has them, or
does not have them. If, and insofar as, these predicates are really
noncatenical and do not have any bearing on predicates which are catenated,
we need not bother about them from the standpoint of the relevance
principle. But --as noted in the Book of Instruments-- all noncatenical
predicates do appear to indirectly admit of degrees somehow, or to cause
something which does admit of degrees. Even if a predicate being mentioned
once would not be catenical in any way whatsoever in a domain in which
everything is and can be mentioned only once or not at all, it may be
construed as a catenated predicate as soon as there is one thing which is or
can be mentioned twice. And again, the relevance principle will then not
prescribe that something be mentioned not at all, or once, or twice or more
times, but only that all things will be mentioned the same number of times
when a difference in treatment is irrelevant.

A living being can be mentioned twice or many more times, but it can be
killed only once and therefore, so it seems, we cannot in the same way
devise a catena on the basis of the number of times that something can be
killed. Killing and being-killed are therefore purely noncatenical --one
would say. What the principle of relevance teaches on the intentional level
is only that if one living being is killed on purpose and another one not,
there should be a relevant difference between the two living beings. It does
in no way teach, for example, that living beings must be killed, or for that
matter, must not be killed; to conclude this, at least one other principle
is needed. Altho killing itself is not catenical, it can have, of course, an
enormous impact on the happiness-catenary state of sentient beings thru the
suffering and anxiety it causes in the being (possibly) killed and those
living with it. There ought to be a relevant difference between two (kinds
of) living beings if one is made to suffer more than the other. The
relevance principle thus requires in the first instance also neutralness
with respect to the happiness-difference catena. (Note that in questions of
killing the right to personhood plays a great part, but that there is no
likeness between this metadoctrinal consideration and the doctrinal
considerations we are involved in here. It is in the chapter on life and
nonlife that we will deal with the subject of killing from both a doctrinal
and a metadoctrinal perspective.)

In "Equal, unless .." (I.5.1.3) it has been argued that the only two
systematic approaches to the burden-of-proof issue in matters of relevancy
rest on an equal,unless- or on a different, unless-tenet. It has been
demonstrated there that almost all theorists on issues like equality,
justice and nondiscrimination speak of "departures from equality" and of
"differences having to be justified". Hence, where the relevance principle
implies that there should be difference-catenary neutralness when a
distinction is irrelevant, and that there may be difference-catenary
unneutralness where it is relevant, all these theorists maintain,
catenically speaking, that it is the unneutrality in question which has to
be justified, not the neutrality. If people were omniscient, it would not
matter whether they opted for the equal, unless- or the different,
unless-approach, just like equal, unless different and different, unless
equal are tautologies which merely signify the same from a purely
truth-conditional standpoint. Since people are not omniscient, however, the
equal, unless tenet favors neutralness in general and difference-catenary
neutralness in particular. A possible exception is the case of purely
noncatenical predicates which do not have any bearing on a catenical one,
but in such a case the relevance principle does not favor unneutralness
either, whether interpreted with equal, unless or different, unless.

The equal, unless tenet favors neutralness, because only when we can be
'sure' that a distinction is relevant may we make it with the ensuing
difference-catenary unneutralness. When we are in doubt, however, that a
distinction is relevant, we are not allowed to make it. Yet, it could still
be that the distinction is relevant nevertheless, and that we maintain
neutralness where unneutralness would be allowed (on the proscriptive view)
or even prescribed (on the prescriptive view). The equal, unless tenet is
therefore neutralistic in a catenical sense in that it normatively puts
neutralness above any degree of unneutralness.

When we choose the equal, unless tenet and reject the different, unless one,
we do not take this decision because most people adhering to a systematic
code have traditionally also implicitly or explicitly preferred the former
to the latter one. This fact will only make it easier for us to pursue on
our course without having to lose ourselves in an endless dialectic of
arguments and counterarguments. Later it will turn out that we actually
choose the equal, unless tenet as the basis of our interpretation of the
principle of discriminational relevance because it is neutralistic to do so.



1.1.6  THE NORM [OF INCLUSIVITY] INFORMALLY


An ideology, attitude, practise or action shall be inclusive, that is, it
shall include, take into consideration and respect all matters of the field
it covers, without arbitrarily and exclusively choosing, or being appealed
by, matters of one kind and not choosing, or not being appealed by, those of
another kind. It shall not stimulate alienation from specific things due to
a tendency of excluding or exclusivity, or due to ignorance. It shall not
arbitrarily endow certain things with highness, while attributing lowness to
other ones. It shall be as broad in orientation as possible while
simultaneously refraining from inadmissible generalizations. This is
inclusive theory and practise as governed by the norm of inclusivity. (The
words matter and thing are to be understood in their widest sense here. They
do not only refer to material things but also to events and phenomena; not
only to systems of primary predicates but also to systems of secondary
predicates and other predicative systems; not only to nonpersonal matters or
things but also to persons or groups of persons.)

When saying that all matters of a field covered by an ideology, attitude or
practise should be included, taken into consideration and 'respected', we
certainly do not use respect in the sense of thinking high of, treating with
high regard or honoring. The principle of relevance --in other words: the
norm of inclusivity-- does not as such prescribe any particular predicate of
the honor-catena, let alone the, or a, positivity of this catena. It is a
practical corollary of the principle tho, that where it is impossible to
treat literally everyone with high or with low regard everyone should be
treated with neutral regard. Regard is, then, used in the same sense as
respect when it means concern (and what is someone`s 'concern' is, again, a
'matter for consideration'). The norm of inclusivity does not require that
we honor, but that we show concern --in the first instance-- for everything
and all matters we meet on our way. Every inclusive ideology, attitude or
practise shall concern, and show concern for, all matters of the field it
covers. It shall not result from arbitrarily and exclusively thinking high
of things, such as particular sorts of sentient beings, of bodily qualities
or of personal characteristics; and it shall not result from arbitrarily
eliminating or ignoring other things of a different sort.

It may seem paradoxical but inclusiveness does need a certain type of
exclusion, namely the exclusion of exclusiveness. (Compare freedom which
needs a certain type of control, namely the control over attempts to
interfere with other people`s freedom.) Without the exclusion of
exclusiveness, inclusiveness would lose every meaning. Exclusivist
ideologies, and exclusive or exclusionist attitudes and practises, are the
only matters an inclusive body can never include, take into consideration or
respect.

In general we employ, and will continue to employ, the phrases
exclusive(ness), exclusivity, exclusion and to exclude in such a way that
the irrelevance of the exclusion or the act of making something exclusive is
already part of the meaning of the phrase. This usage is not different from
that of discrimination when it does not just mean making a distinction but
making an irrelevant distinction. In informal parlance this nonrelevance is,
or can be, part of the meaning of phrases like respect, regard and concern
too, and it definitely is part of the meaning of arbitrariness. Arbitrary is
that which is selected without reason, while that which is selected for a
reason (even a random distribution) has relevance at least as an implicit
criterion. An arbitrary decision is not just a decision made on the basis of
one`s own opinion, rather than on the basis of a general rule or law; it is
a decision on the basis of one`s own opinion to do something with respect to
which one`s own opinion is not unique, that is, a decision which concerns
other people as well. When an action solely concerns oneself in every
respect, it need not be arbitrary at all to decide by one`s own opinion. But
a ruler who uses `er power without thinking of other people`s opinions and
feelings is, indeed, 'an arbitrary ruler' as `e rules over others, not just
over `imself.

It is easy to speak of "arbitrariness", "respect" and suchlike when it is
agreed on already what correct or incorrect behavior would be in the first
place. It is when people disagree that a guideline is needed most, and the
norm of inclusivity is then not the sole one but an important one. Each
question of inclusivity, however --and with it each question of what is
'arbitrary', or of what is 'respect'--, boils down to a question of
relevance. This does or did not only apply to rulers of whole countries, but
equally, for example, to the person or persons who take the decisions in an
office or company, whether private, worker-owned or government-owned. These
decisions do also concern the relationship between the manager or management
and the workers employed by them, or by whom they are employed themselves.
One such decision might be that the employees or workers must dress and/or
adorn themselves in a particular way, perhaps even dependent on their
gender, if not gender and age, or gender, age and class. Talking of
"arbitrariness" and "respect" will then not carry anyone much further, and
it might be illustrative to see what role the universal version of the
principle of relevance can play in such situations. We will analyze this
role in an imaginary example. For the sake of clarity we must leave out
other normative considerations than those of inclusivity (or relevance) and
truth in this example.



1.1.7  'THE MANAGER AND THE APPEARANCE OF `ER WORKERS'


The focus of relevancy is getting and keeping as many clients as possible.
We will accept this determinant as it is, for it is only relevance and
inclusivity which interest us at this place. (As an ultimate value we would
definitely condemn such a determinant.) The factor of distinction is the
appearance of the workers who have to personally deal with those clients. We
assume that in a strict sense all people considered are or would be doing
their work equally well, whatever they are wearing or not wearing, so long
as they have the job. It is essential to this example that the quality of
work is defined in terms independent of the number of customers that
actually are attracted or will be attracted. We also assume that a number of
clients will not do business with the firm in question if the workers of
this firm they have to deal with, dress or adorn themselves in a way these
clients find objectionable for reasons which are false or irrelevant to the
quality of the service rendered to these clients. (Also this requirement is
inherent in this kind of example. The fact that the client dislikes the
clothes or adornments is by itself no sufficient reason not to do business
with the persons, the men or the women concerned. For the sake of argument,
the falsity or irrelevance of the client`s reasons must be recognized by the
manager at least vis-à-vis `er own workers.)

The question is now whether the employer can morally --so far as the
relevance principle is concerned-- require a worker, a female worker or a
male worker to dress or adorn `imself so that no customer will stay away
(granting that there is such a fashion). The manager might give the
following justification for not employing a person of 'undesirable'
appearance: (a1) the object of business is to make money and to get as many
clients as possible --note that if this were really the only objective, `e
would have to do business with any customer, also a fascist regime, for
instance--; (a2) the worker`s appearance repels clients or potential
clients; (a3) hence, appearance is relevant in respect of the person`s
position in the firm, and firing or not hiring a person with an appearance
which keeps clients away is not to be denounced as discrimination. (b) If
there are also people who would not like to deal with members of, for
example, racial or ethnic minorities (easily recognizable by their skin
color, accent, and so on), this is a different case --the manager might
argue-- because people cannot alter their color or other ethnic
characteristics, whereas they should be able to dress or adorn themselves in
an adequate way, that is, a way all clients find 'normal' for human beings,
or for men or for women. (c) To hire or refuse to hire somebody on the
grounds of `er race, ethnicity or sex is illegal --the employer might
finally argue-- but to do this on the basis of somebody`s personal
appearance is not.

From the standpoint of the universal version of the relevance principle the
employer`s 'relevance' is circular because: (a) --given our basic
assumptions-- the customers stay away for false or irrelevant reasons. These
'reasons', or rather the attitudes underlying them, are themselves morally
objectionable. The relevance with respect to the focus therefore depends on
external nonrelevance (or nonrelevance and/or falsity). (b) The workers may
be able to adjust their personal appearance (whereas nobody can sufficiently
change, say, `er skin color or female gender) but this 'freedom' is not to
the point, as the question is precisely whether the worker should do so from
a normative point of view. (Negative) freedom is then already presupposed,
that is, both the freedom of the worker to dress and adorn in widely
divergent ways, and the freedom of the company (private or governmental) to
discriminate or not to discriminate on the basis of appearance, ethnicity,
gender, marital status, sexual orientation, political or denominational
ideology adhered to, or what have you. Such 'freedom' merely refers to an
absence of practical constraints, not to any normative justification (or it
must be on the grounds of some principle of liberty). And, it has to be
stressed again that the question of whether an action is right or wrong
should not be confused with the question of whether it should be forbidden
or not. (c) While freedom to change is not an argument for or against, the
legality of an action is in itself not an argument for or against its being
normatively justifiable either. (Something is not immoral because the law
disallows it, nor is something moral because the law does not disallow it.)
If clients have prejudices concerning personal appearance as they have
prejudices concerning race and sex, it is not any better to base a judgment
of relevance on the occurrence of the former prejudices than to base it on
the latter, altho the former thing may be legal and the latter not.

As the causal connection between the worker`s personal appearance and the
number of customers attracted depends on a case of external nonrelevance,
the employer may, according to the universal version of the relevance
principle, not require `er employees to change their appearance just to make
sure that no (biased) customer will be repelled by this appearance. This
conclusion holds when the argument is taken at face value. However, if the
very existence or continuation of the firm or job itself is at stake, the
worker`s appearance does matter in a different way. Under this condition,
the company at issue would have to keep or hire a person for a job which
would be lost if `e were indeed kept there or hired for this job. Not being
able, then, to do `er work well in the strict sense (because not at all) in
the near future, even the worker `imself could recognize this as a reason
not to keep or employ `im. The relevant factor is, then, not personal
appearance, but the quality of work to be done and remaining to be done in
the strict sense.

The implications of this proviso are not necessarily as far-reaching as one
might suspect. Firstly, it must be a particular job which will be lost if a
particular person of 'unwanted' appearance stays with this firm or is put on
this job. If only the total number of jobs of the same kind would diminish,
the work left could still be done just as well by people of the (formerly)
disputed appearance. Secondly, a general decrease in employment and business
will only result if the client does not go to anyone else to get the service
`e wants. It will not result if the client is going to get it anyhow. Sure,
no business person would like to see `er clients go to a competitor (but a
business person endorsing the relevance principle would like to see `er
discriminating clients go elsewhere). This presupposes, however, that the
client can go to a firm which complies with `er every wish, however
discriminatory. And this presupposes that there is such a firm which can do
that legally and/or without being controlled morally by the rest of the
community. Thirdly, the question is not really whether one or more jobs
would be lost if a company were to employ bodies of 'unwanted' appearance,
but rather whether more jobs would be lost than if the company refused to
employ people discriminated against by a certain category of clients or
potential clients. The number of clients lost would only be more in the
former case, if the number of (potential) clients who stay away if the firm
gives in to people who discriminate against some of its workers, were less.
Hence, the proviso will or will not have far-reaching implications dependent
on the situation. All those endorsing the relevance principle can try to
make sure that the conditions of the proviso clearly do not hold. Their
moral strategy should be to make it as difficult as possible for
discriminating clients to go to a different firm. Furthermore, they
themselves would not deal with firms giving in to that sort of customers.

When looking at this matter it is absolutely necessary to keep sight of the
fact that the above example would remain of the same kind if people`s biases
with respect to ethnicity, nationality or denominational convictions, for
instance, were substituted for those with respect to dress and adornment. If
someone would let business prevail over a conscientious interpretation of
the universal version of the relevance principle in the latter case, `e had
no reason not to let it prevail in the former case, judging from the
normative standpoint. And when `er doxastic or purported 'relevance' does
objectively speaking not hold, a distinction made by `im on the grounds of
any of these factors is discriminatory. Thus, in the event that the client
is a country which requires the employees of a company to belong to a
monotheist religion, it is the task of all people espousing the universal
version of the principle of discriminational relevance to ensure that the
proviso does not hold, and that this distinction is not relevant for the
company in question. This entails in the first place that they themselves
refuse to deal with such a country and with people doing business with such
a country under those conditions.


1.1.7.0

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

FROM   IRRELEVANCE   SET   FREE

You shall know when an utterance is likely to be false,
and the presence of the truth shall bind everyone.
You shall know when a distinction is likely to be irrelevant,
and the absence of irrelevance shall free everyone.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------



1.2  DISCRIMINATION AND ATTITUDINAL CONSISTENCY


1.2.1  CONDEMNATORY MEANINGS OF DISCRIMINATION


When we define discrimination as (act or instance of) making a nonrelevant
distinction or as practise of making nonrelevant distinctions, we will be
talking about something else than someone who fights racism (or
ethnocentrism), but who calls it "racism and discrimination". The statement
of such a person saying that 'e opposes 'racism and discrimination' is
terminologically as bizarre as that of someone saying that 'e loves 'women
and (also) human beings' or, for that matter, 'men and (also) human beings'.
If racism denotes the belief, attitude, practise or act in which one or more
nonrelevant distinctions are made between human beings on the basis of race,
ethnicity or skin color, then racial discrimination is simply part of it.
Perhaps some confine the meaning of racism strictly to the belief or
attitude, but then the corresponding form of discrimination is racial
discrimination and not discrimination in general. Conversely, what
corresponds to discrimination is not racism but exclusivism. (This term,
however, we will use ourselves to refer to discriminatory practises and acts
as well.) By speaking of "racism and discrimination" it is suggested that
discrimination is nothing else than racial discrimination (and that
exclusivism is nothing else than racism), and that it would be wrong because
it has something to do with race. This is about the narrowest conception of
discrimination possible. The practical implicature of this (seemingly
exclusive) antiracism, when recognized and mentioned as an ideal in
isolation, is that people might be allowed to make nonrelevant distinctions
on all other grounds than race. (This also applies to the exclusive emphasis
on a right to freedom from racial discrimination.)

Altho we all denounce discrimination, and are talking about discrimination
in a condemnatory sense, it is not race or any other particular factor which
is at issue here, but the principle of relevance itself which is violated
regardless of the kind of factor concerned. Our own definition of
discrimination is therefore etymologically entirely justifiable. Yet, we
must admit that etymology is never a sufficient argument in itself. (Thus,
(to) live derives from caelebs which means unmarried, but no etymologist,
celibate or not, can seriously maintain that 'to live is to be unmarried'.)
Another fact -- and a more important one -- which favors our definition, is
that it does seem to agree with what many ethical theorists have always
understood by discrimination in general, or by racism, sexism and so on, in
particular. Sexism, for instance, has been described as counting sex as
relevant in contexts where it is not. (See I.5.1.2.) As regards the grounds
for discrimination between human beings of different races which racists
sometimes offer, it has been said that they are 'not relevant to the
question of the capacity for bearing acute pain' and that they 'therefore
should be disregarded'. It has been pointed out, in turn, that if this
argument is valid against discrimination on the basis of race, it is valid
in an analogous way for discrimination on the basis of species.

Taken literally our definition might still be considered too broad compared
with the traditional usage of the word (not so much by those who speak of
"racism and discrimination", but by many others). For lots of people
'discrimination' seems to be confined to irrelevant (or nonrelevant)
distinctions which are disadvantageous to people (sometimes sentient beings)
in a social environment. This typically moral (rather than generally
normative) use of discrimination also explains why quite a few theorists
tend to speak of "a discriminatory action or practise based on a morally
irrelevant property" or "factor". Hence, they do not only qualify the
fundament of the relevance relation (a distinction) but also its terminus (a
moral goal or other moral entity) and even the effects of something that is
not part of the terminus proper. Not only would making an irrelevant
distinction when alone on a deserted island not count as 'discrimination',
making an irrelevant distinction to someone's advantage would not either.
Yet, if one wants to regard the happiness, well-being or interests of
personal, human or sentient beings as an end in itself, this requires an
extra principle of happiness or another maxim of that nature (besides,
possibly, the right to personhood). All these additional terminological and
normative considerations do not concern the principle of relevance as such,
and from the point of view of this principle they do not justify a narrower
sense of discrimination than we started out with.

Sometimes theorists do not explicitly refer to the nonrelevance of the
distinction drawn, or to the 'making of distinctions' (leaving irrelevant as
superfluous). Instead, they speak of a difference in treatment or favor on a
basis other than individual merit. In this formulation it is implied that
such a difference made is never relevant. Also when the reference is just to
favor (instead of difference in favor), it carries implicitly with it that
the favor itself is not justified, as it is founded upon -- again -- a
nonrelevant distinction. (If the distinction actually is relevant, the term
favor would not be employed to imply partiality.) Finally, discrimination is
sometimes also defined as making an unjustified distinction, but the only
thing this definition is good for, is that it tells us that there are 'just'
and 'unjust' distinctions. Just and unjust themselves are normative or
evaluative concepts which do not describe any factual(-modal) state of
affairs. According to the relevance principle, a distinction is unjustified
because it is not relevant, and not the other way around. It is only with
this principle in mind that unjustified can be substituted for nonrelevant.

All the above definitions are 'objective' in that discrimination can even
occur when the group or person concerned does not notice it, or feel it that
way. The normative question on the performatory level is what is
discrimination? and not what do people discrimination believe to be? or when
do people feel discriminated against?. The latter, doxastic notion is
primarily interesting from the empirical point of view of the social
sciences. Thus, one phenomenological sociologist attempted to define
discrimination by means of a discrepancy between the (doxastic) relevances
prevailing in different groups. This discrepancy was said to be one between
an 'objective' and a 'subjective' definition of a concrete group situation.
The 'subjective definition' is the one of the afflicted member of the group
and the 'objective definition' the one of those 'imposing a typification' on
this individual and the group 'e belongs to. At the same time the
sociologist in question wrote that others create the 'group' and invest it
'with a fictitious scheme of relevances which can be manipulated at will'.
Somehow, 'e had to intuitively admit that discrimination involves more than
a mere difference in relevancy judgments, and that some people are indeed
discriminated against by others 'imposing fictitious schemes' on them.



1.2.2  DISTINGUISHING NONRELEVANT DISTINCTIONS


The ideas on typification and the relevance of descriptions are interesting
from quite another standpoint, especially when it is argued that any name
'includes a typification' and that to 'find a thing or event relevant enough
to bestow a separate name upon it, is the outcome of the prevailing system
of relevance'. When talking of "types" the traditional theorist may think of
plants and animals, of human beings of various races, of men and women, of
people of various religions, and so on, but on a different level attitudes
and practises drawing on these typifications can themselves be subjected to
a typification as well. Traditional language has only believed a few of
these attitudes and practises to be 'relevant enough to bestow a separate
name upon them', namely rac(ial)ism, ethnocentrism, tribalism, sexism,
ag(e)ism, nationalism, plutocracy in a sense, and a few more. A more recent
introduction has been speciesism but traditional language has no separate
name for types of discrimination which -- one would say -- have abounded in
most (or all?) parts of the world, such as the making of nonrelevant
distinctions on the grounds of class ('classism'), political or
denominational ideology adhered to ('religionism' if on the basis of
religion), language spoken or written, educational or marital status, sexual
propensity, mental or physical disablement, and so on and so forth. The
question whether these forms of discrimination are not as bad, as bad, or
worse than, say, racism and sexism, is itself an empirical question (given
the right normative postulates, or if defining bad in purely eudaimonistic
terms). When suggesting, tho, that only certain types of discrimination have
been identified by name because they have been (believed to be) more
important, this must be understood as 'more important in a certain respect'.
If this is in respect of people's happiness or well-being or freedom, then
one introduces a certain kind of determinant which is not essential to a
systematic typology of discrimination itself.

Central to the whole question of discrimination is that a nonrelevant
distinction can be drawn on the basis of any factor or cluster of factors,
real or imaginary. When saying "cluster of factors", one should think of
something like race and gender, if it is maintained that they encompass
several characteristics combined, rather than a single one. We definitely
must object to what some people do, when they mix up various entirely
dissimilar types of discrimination based on different factors or clusters of
factors. One theorist has argued, for example, that racists would identify
people by 'national, religious or physical characteristics (such as skin
color)'. And certainly, if a group of people identified by physical
characteristics like skin color is looked upon as innately inferior, or
superior for that matter, to others, this is racism (or ethnocentrism). But
if they are identified by national characteristics, this is nationalism (or
some cultural variety of ethnocentrism). And if they are identified by
religious characteristics, this is religionism, whether abnegational (if
treated as inferior and excluded) or aggrandizemental (if treated as
superior and made exclusive).

It cannot be denied, of course, that in practise the diverse forms of
discrimination often go together. They may even be anchored to each other by
homonyms in the language. Several terms in traditional parlance can either
denote a member of an ethnic group or an adherent of a particular religion.
Now, a person who is hostile to or discriminates against people defined by
one of these terms probably does not care at all whether the victims of 'er
hostility are the members of an ethnic group or the adherents of a
particular religion. If this is the case, an expression of the form
anti-...ism may suffice to denote these types of exclusionism. But the same
applies, or would apply, to the aggrandizemental, 'pro-...ist' forms of
discrimination in which an exclusive or favored status is or would be given
to one of these 'ethno-religious' groups. For a systematic classification it
is essential to keep all these categories apart as their combination is
often (or always?) itself the result of the prejudice that all people of one
ethnic group or nation would or should all adhere to (the same) religion or
to the same political ideology. Those who have the effrontery, for example,
to call other human beings "members of a particular religion" or "religious
community", altho those human beings do not believe in the tenets, nor in
the god(s) and/or demon(s) of that religion, often invoke the faith by
birthdogma. This dogma is -- as we know already -- nothing else than the
materialist invention of those who only hold relevance, and especially
truth, in contempt.

Until now we have merely looked at distinctions made on the basis of a
single factor or a real, or purported, cluster of factors, that is,
infrafactorial distinctions. But the act of singling out a limited number of
types of discrimination, bestowing a separate name on them with a negative
connotation, and not mentioning and not caring about all other forms of
discrimination, is itself an instance of exclusivism from the point of view
of the relevance principle proper. In place of being infrafactorial however,
it is interfactorial, that is, made between the factors (or clusters)
themselves. One or more factors are, then, overvalued with respect to (all)
other factors which are undervalued, or vice versa. This is what one
theorist is concerned with when saying that it is 'a challenge to every
human to recognize his attitudes to nonhumans as a form of prejudice no less
objectionable than racism or sexism'. And this is also what another theorist
has in mind when saying that 'sexual equality is only part of justice in
general and not a priori more important to establish than other forms of
justice'. ('E calls this itself a 'sort of sex discrimination', but such use
of discrimination is wider than ours as we will reserve this term in accord
with everyday language for infrafactorial nonrelevant distinctions, made in
this case between females and males.) Thus, it would itself be a
manifestation of making a nonrelevant distinction to be exclusively
concerned with nonrelevant distinctions drawn on the basis of race, of
gender, of sexual orientation, of class, of political or religious ideology
adhered to, and so on, and not with discrimination per se. Of course, it is
not possible for one person to fight all discriminatory attitudes in
practise, but it is possible to take them all into consideration, and not to
indulge in any kind of discrimination oneself. As a matter of fact, not
treating all types of discrimination alike (or the factors on the basis of
which discrimination takes place) requires a material distinction to be
drawn, whereas treating them alike requires nothing in this respect.

Each type of discrimination may be manifested in different ways, for
example, in an 'intermediary' or 'nonintermediary' way, and in an
'affirmative' or 'exemplary' way. In an intermediary manifestation the
object concerned is not directly excluded or made exclusive, but the
nonrelevant distinction is found in an intermediary system such as the
language spoken or written, the symbolism of a denominational doctrine
(religious or not) or in that of a political doctrine endorsed by a
government. An example of its antithesis, an (affirmative) nonintermediary
manifestation, is that people are bodily excluded from entering certain
places. The following instances of intermediary manifestations are not less
discriminatory, however:
  *  the existence and use of derogatory expressions to denote members of
     certain groups
  *  the belief that the (only) supreme being and its/'er incarnation(s) (if
     believed in) are exclusively male or exclusively female, or are a
     member of only one particular race or people
  *  the display of religious or party-political symbols by the state or
     another nondenominational (or interdenominational), nonparty
     institution or person representing such an institution.

In the case of an exemplary manifestation of discrimination it is the
frequency distribution of examples given, or used to illustrate a particular
point, which is unequal or disproportional. Its antithesis, an affirmative
manifestation concerns distinctions which are nonrelevant even when made
only one time. Discrimination in the use of someone's examples is much more
difficult to prove, as people often maintain that each example separately is
'completely arbitrary'. Thus, if a commercial or a primary school book shows
a married couple of which the man works outdoors and earns the money,
whereas the woman keeps house for her husband and the children, this one
commercial and this one example in a children's book does not yet prove
anything: 'it could have been the other way around'. However, if all
commercials and school books in a certain country or subculture fit this
same pattern, there can be no doubt about the occurrence of an exemplary
form of discrimination (on the basis of gender, marital status, having a
job, children, and so on). This is not to suggest that exemplary
discrimination is easy to prevent. Maybe, we, too, can be blamed for a
choice of examples of determinants of relevancy and types of discrimination
which is also (too) one-sided. But then, we are clearly less partial in the
choices we make than any traditional theorist usually has been or still is;
that is, any traditional theorist on discrimination, justice and human or
natural rights.

To eventually reach a state of impartiality in which even in our choice of
examples no type of distinction is under- or overvalued, a classification of
all forms of violating the relevance principle as systematic as that of
plants and animals might be very helpful. The basics of such a
classification system we will discuss in the next chapter.



1.2.3  THE CLUSTERING OF ATTITUDES AND PRACTISES


The proposition that racial discrimination is to racism as discrimination is
to exclusivism, needs a refinement, because it is not exclusivism in general
but infrafactorial exclusivism which corresponds to racism. Exclusivism in
general is every belief, attitude, practise or act which violates the norm
of inclusivity, that is, in which a nonrelevant distinction is made on the
basis of a certain factor, not only between nonfactors like people but also
between factors themselves. Two differences between exclusivism and
discrimination are therefore that exclusivism may be interfactorial, and
that it may also be a belief or attitude. Moreover, exclusivism does not
only denote acts of exclusion (like exclusionism, or discrimination in a
traditional, narrow sense), but also acts of making oneself or others
exclusive. As such it also concerns sentiments and opinions. Altho
discrimination itself does not refer to beliefs and attitudes, strictly
speaking, we will speak of "discriminatory beliefs and attitudes" too, since
it is a belief or attitude which often occasions a practise or instance of
discrimination.

When we talk of "beliefs and attitudes", the meaning of belief is relatively
clear: it is an opinion or a system of (disciplinary) thought. The meaning
of attitude needs further clarification tho, and the role of attitudes with
respect to people's conduct is much more complex as well, particularly in
questions of discrimination. 'Attitudes' may be considered as hypothetical
constructs in which a person's diverse thoughts, feelings and tendencies to
act are arranged into a more or less coherent pattern. The cognitive aspect
of someone's attitude concerns 'er thoughts and beliefs; the affective
aspect the feelings, such as emotions or volitions, 'e has with respect to
an issue or a thing; and the conative aspect the person's behavioral
intentions. Some social theorists say that an 'attitude' is constituted by a
number of 'opinions' about one subject or with respect to one kind of
object, and that, then, an 'ideology' is in turn constituted by a number of
attitudes of one and the same person. This, however, does not agree with our
terminology according to which an 'ideology' is, first of all, a system of
disciplinary thought, and a person-independent or suprapersonal system.
Moreover, it would only be applicable to the cognitive aspect of the
relationship between 'opinion' and 'attitude', and also between 'attitude'
and 'ideology', unless an 'ideology' would, indeed, be one person's more or
less coherent set of attitudes.

It is a rule that the more coherent the pattern is into which someone's
thoughts, feelings and tendencies are arranged, the better 'e is able to
operate without the tension caused by dissonance. Imbalance between
attitudinal elements, such as between cognitions, or between the cognitive
and affective aspects of an attitude, motivates an individual to change,
except when the inconsistence exists below a level of awareness and does not
implicate the individual's self-conception. The most influential theory on
the positive relationship between attitudinal elements has been the
so-called 'theory of cognitive dissonance'. According to this theory
dissonance causes tension, and this tension motivates a person to change 'er
attitude until internal balance is restored. What is important is that so
long as intra-attitudinal inconsistence exists, the attitude remains
unstable.

The ways subjects react towards different kinds of thing are similar in that
they all reflect negative, in that they all reflect neutral or in that they
all reflect positive feelings. The consistence underlying these feelings is
psychosocial and not necessarily logical; the strategies individuals employ
to attain 'consistence' are often little rational. Observed are not so much
the rules of strict deductive logic, but rather those of a sort of
'psycho-logic'. Psychological consistence must therefore be distinguished
from a higher-plane logical consistence (higher-plane because it has to
fulfil more conditions).

Not only are the cognitions, affects, conations and actions pertaining to
one attitude related, also attitudes themselves do not exist in isolation
and tend to covary. With the help of certain scales and factor analysis it
is, then, possible to assess different attitude clusters. One social
scientist thus elicited what 'e considered to be the fundamental dimensions
of political attitudes: tender-mindedness / tough-mindedness and radicalism
/ conservatism. Other investigations have extracted different patterns of
attitude dimensions. The attitude clusters have been linked to personality
and (sub)cultural norms. Thus one group of researchers found that of the
people they interviewed those who made negative statements about one
minority group (distinguished on the basis of race, ethnicity or
denominational ideology adhered to) also made them about other minority
groups (distinguished on the basis of the same or other factors). They
discovered a coherent cluster of statements reflecting an -- what they
called -- 'authoritarian' attitude and personality. Those who have such a
personality tend to be nationalistic, (mono)theistic, antifeministic and
aggressive according to the study in question.

When considering the view of one person, this person's overall belief is
consistent if 'er convictions and views cohere, that is, show a systematic
connection. This connection may be purely theoretical, but it may exist in
practise as well. In the latter case beliefs cohere if they are somehow
correlated in psychic and/or social reality. Such factual-modal connections
are not only found in the studies already mentioned, but also found or
suggested by several others. One theorist speaks of a close relationship
between contempt of women (by men), sexual inhibition, discrimination of
homosexuals and an antidemocratic ideology in which great emphasis is being
laid on authority. This complex of attitudes 'e calls "patristic". Its
antithesis is the so-called 'matrist(ic)' complex in which psychic and
social phenomena tend to go together, like joyful appreciation of sexuality,
the belief in the equality of men and women, and a democratic attitude.
According to 'im the 'patrist' attitudinal complex is associated with
orthodox religion, with fascism and with social systems in which the leader
or a number of individuals with some special, exclusive status are
glorified. (This complex corresponds to what is called "the authoritarian
personality" in the previous study.) 'Matrism', on the other hand, would be
associated with the open society. Unfortunately, the employment of the terms
matrism and patrism is as deplorable as feminism when used to denote
'antisexism' (or still worse: 'antimasculinism'). This kind of terminology
is itself an intermediary manifestation of sexual exclusivism, firstly,
because both attitudinal complexes do not depend on somebody's gender nor on
some pater or mater rearing a child, and secondly, because the terms refer
to a sexual distinction, whereas they are applied to a person's whole
attitude and total behavior, of which sexuality is not more than one aspect.
However, roughly speaking, one may read for "matrist(ic)": "open",
"nondiscriminatory"; and for "patrist(ic)": "closed", "discriminatory" or
"exclusivist(ic)". When doing so, such a theory may be regarded as another
valuable contribution to a better understanding of the correlations between
human beliefs and actions, even tho the suggestion of 'patrist' and
'matrist' eras succeeding each other in the course of history (as made by
the same theorist) does not deserve our further attention.

A correlation between the attitude towards other human beings and the
attitude towards other animate beings (animals) has also been mentioned
already. The exploitation of slaves, women and animals is attributable to
one and the same mechanism -- it has been argued -- which systematically
favors a person's own group to the prejudice and detriment of others. The
former group is often labeled "the ingroup" and the latter one "the
outgroup".

While all these studies and theories deal explicitly with particular forms
of discrimination, like sexism and speciesism, it has also been said that
one should not so much look at the content of belief systems but at their
structure. Thus, a continuum from open to closed belief systems has been
proposed. An individual's responses would, then, be defined by 'er position
on this continuum. Yet, if attitudinal systems have such a structure it is
only because of the interrelatedness of attitudes, and because of some form
of interattitudinal consistence. (Later it has been said by the same
theorist that social and political behavior can be better understood and
explained by means of the concept value than by means of attitude. It would,
then, be especially important to know the order of someone's doxastic
values. However, 'everyone' believes in values like peace, freedom and
security, and it is not these doxastic values as such which count but their
interpretations and the conditioning of people by their own and other
people's beliefs, opinions, feelings, tendencies and actions.)



1.2.4  INCLUSIVITY AS A CRITERION OF ATTITUDINAL CONSISTENCE


The question of whether all the correlations suggested between cognitions,
affections and conations, and between whole attitudes, really exist; and if
so, whether they are causal connections; and if so, which one of both relata
is the cause and which one the effect, is itself a problem of empirical
science. From a normative standpoint it is not necessary to postulate that
all attitudes, and also practises, do indeed lend each other support, that
when a person displays, for example, one kind of discriminatory attitude 'e
will probably display the other kind as well. Yet, not postulating such
correlations is something else than postulating that they do not exist. Even
a utilitarian, or other person exclusively interested in the harmfulness or
harmlessness of kinds and acts of discrimination must, strictly speaking,
consider clusters of kinds and acts of discrimination which are correlated.
Whether these 'clusters' are so small that they solely comprise one kind or
act of discrimination, or whether one cluster comprises literally all kinds
and acts of discrimination is, then, an empirical problem again.

Social scientists have admitted that the concepts of 'consonance' and
'attitudinal' or 'psychological consistence' are vague. A complete
clarification of the meanings of these notions has not come forth yet. In
spite of this, the researcher has to be able to denote a priori whether a
relationship between, say, two cognitive elements is consonant or dissonant.
And when speaking of "consistence", 'e has to make clear what it means that
the components of individual or social attitudes, that is, cognitions,
affects and behavioral tendencies, and also practises or actions themselves,
cohere. These attitudinal components, practises and actions are not
necessarily incoherent because they are different, even when pertaining to
the same object or issue. Sentiments, beliefs, thoughts, and the practical
realization of a person's beliefs and thoughts in actions, almost all admit
of degrees; that is, almost all of them have intensities which may be equal
or unequal. Nevertheless, psychic-social phenomena, such as emotions,
volitions, convictions and actions of largely different intensities are
still coherent when pertaining to the same object or issue so long as the
directions in which they work are the same. Even when they do not pertain to
exactly the same object or issue, but when the connection is logically
possible, people speak of "logical coherence" without requiring that there
be any necessary connection. Hence, with respect to a given set of
cognitions, the logical criterion of coherence is basically reductive (or
'negative') in that it only eliminates those cognitions which cannot be
logically combined with the other cognitions. It does not require, nor
provide a common denominator for those cognitions tho. All it demands is
that the combination of different thoughts, sentiments, tendencies and
actions not be logically invalid. In this sense coherence is not more than
the absence of truth-conditional incoherence.

For a structural foundation an attitudinal system requires a standard of
coherence according to which the attitudinal components can be assigned to
two or more different ground-world categories. Starting from such a
'positive' criterion, thoughts, sentiments and actions cohere when they
belong to the same category, that is, have a specific common feature, while
they do not cohere when belonging to different categories. The criterion to
be suggested here for structural consistence is the norm of inclusivity
itself. On the basis of this norm, ground-world thoughts, beliefs,
sentiments, behavioral tendencies and actions are either inclusive, when in
accordance with it, or exclusive, when not in accordance with it. It is,
then, either because of their consistent inclusiveness (or 'openness') or
because of their consistent exclusiveness (or 'closedness') that normatively
significant ground-world beliefs show structural consistence; and it is,
then, because of the inconsistent combination of inclusive and exclusive
beliefs that they are structurally nonconsistent, even tho they may be
logically consistent.

With a structural criterion like (the norm of) inclusivity it becomes
possible to determine what kind of belief or attitude belongs to the same
category as another kind of belief or attitude. (What is meant exactly by
kind will have to be pointed out by means of the classification system
already mentioned. Such a system is also a prerequisite for any adequate
scientific research with respect to attitudinal consonance or consistence.)

The norm of inclusivity holds independently of any factual-modal condition,
independently of any empirical fact or correlation. Yet, if the interplay
between especially attitudes and practises which are discriminatory could,
indeed, be proved to exist, it would for many people (save thoroughly
monistic utilitarians) probably be easier to accept that the harmlessness or
harmfulness of particular types of such attitudes and practises is not of
immediate import. It would, then, need no further explanation that with the
endorsement of the requirement of discriminational relevance all forms of
making nonrelevant distinctions become equally condemnatory on principle;
that is to say, on this principle.



1.3  TWO PRINCIPAL ATTITUDES


1.3.1  THE EXCLUSIVE AND THE INCLUSIVE ATTITUDES


We know already that several psychological and sociological studies have
shown that discriminatory attitudes (and beliefs) tend to covary. To prove,
however, that the correlations hold for all types of discrimination, or
infrafactorial exclusivism, it is not only the conceptual apparatus of a
complete classification system of exclusivisms which is required. Even with
such an instrument available, the conclusive proof will have to wait until
the first society can be studied which has been free from any exclusivism
for a number of generations. Can we wait that long? The answer is No, we
cannot, because it is precisely by waiting for such an inclusive society to
come that it would never emerge. Strictly speaking, we do not need any
empirical presuppositions with regard to correlations between exclusivist
attitudes and practises, and we shall not pretend that we know that such
correlations exist in the ground-world. (However, ground-world correlations
in general must be distinguished from the impact of exclusivist ideology
itself.) Nonetheless, if the assumption is correct, it means that a
particular belief, attitude or practise which should be displayed according
to some doctrinal principle (the norm of inclusivity in our case), cannot be
displayed, to a certain extent, when it is demanded in combination with (too
many) exclusivist beliefs, attitudes and practises. Thus if (infrafactorial)
exclusivisms do covary strongly, every ideology or normative doctrine which
propagates a nonexclusivist ideal, but which simultaneously is founded on a
multitude of exclusivist elements of belief, is doomed to failure as far as
that ideal is concerned (but unfortunately, not necessarily in other
respects). This, in turn, may explain why quite a few 'universal ideals'
have never been realized even after millenniums of one exclusivist
ideology's hegemony over large parts of the world. It is therefore very
worthwhile to take a closer look at the plausibility of the assumption that
the different kinds of infrafactorial exclusivism do indeed lend each other
support. We shall first do this by discussing a number of imaginary, yet
quite realistic, cases.

To start with, let us consider a group of people of one race who believe
that their own race is an intelligent one, altho other races may be more
musical. They also believe in a supreme being which has (once) exclusively
revealed itself in the person of somebody of their own race. What is, then,
the chance that these people at the same time are of the opinion that
anybody of any race should be eligible for any job or office, for example,
that of the president of the country? If the people in question show a
consistent pattern of sentiments and opinions, the chance is nil. Because of
the fact that they find members of other races perhaps musical but not
intelligent, they will not expect anyone of a different race to be
intelligent enough for a position of authority. Because of the fact that
they believe that the supreme being exclusively revealed itself in a person
of their own race, they will readily associate their own race with
supremeness and supremacy (if not consciously, then subconsciously) and they
will be of the opinion that superior tasks should be assigned to superior
people, namely members of their own race. The chance that the persons in
question are for racial equality in the occupational field, not only
formally but also in practise, while accepting all its consequences, may be
expected to be much smaller than in the case of people who do not have the
ideas mentioned (because their ideas are inclusive or less exclusive). In
the exclusivist belief of the former group there always remains one office
which definitely never was held, and definitely never will be held, by
somebody of a different race: the office of the supreme being or its
purported (onetime) representative on Earth.

Let us now consider a man who thinks that physical beauty only concerns
women, or women and girls; that it is their task to cook, to wash and to
make everything look nice, including their own bodies; he does not feel that
males are ugly, but he believes that boys and certainly men cannot (or
should not) distinguish themselves, or be distinguished, on the basis of
their physical appearance (other than the criterion that they should not
look 'feminine'). Let us assume that this man also believes in a supreme
being which has the characteristics of a male person, of a 'father' who
rules the family of 'mankind', and that 'He' has exclusively manifested
'Himself' in one living person, namely a male human being on the planet
Earth ('His son' or '(last) prophet'). What is the chance that he at the
same time is of the opinion that every man and every woman should be able to
occupy any post he or she is qualified for, such as the highest position in
his religious organization? Again, if this person shows a consistent pattern
of sentiments and opinions, the chance is nil. Since he judges women by
their beauty (or ugliness) and not by their technical or intellectual skill,
he will easily attribute a lack of technical and intellectual ability to
them, and he would not like to see them in high positions accordingly. And
since he refers to the supreme being as "He", attributing to 'Him' all the
characteristics of a male person, he will easily associate his own sex with
supremeness and supremacy (if not consciously, then subconsciously) and he
will be of the opinion that superior jobs or positions should be given to
superior people, namely men. And again, the chance that this person shows no
consistent pattern of sentiments and opinions, that is, that he is for
sexual equality in the field of jobs and positions, may be expected to be
much smaller than in the case of someone who does not have the ideas
mentioned. In the man's exclusivist belief there remains always one office
which definitely never was held, and definitely never will be held, by a
woman: the office of the supreme being or 'His' purported representative on
Earth.

The question of correlation does not only play a role with respect to
thoughts, feelings and tendencies in the same field, it also plays a role
with respect to thoughts, feelings and tendencies in different fields.
Consider, for example, a person who believes that the office of head of
state should be held by someone who(se body) is the (male) child of the
previous head of state (somebody of 'er own race), and that certain other
people should be granted an (upper-class) state income on the basis of their
being related to the present or previous head of state. Let us assume that
this person also feels that complete nudity is indecent, that certain
(so-called 'private') parts of the body should always remain hidden in the
presence of other people or bodies, except, perhaps, for a spouse and for
pressing (other) medical reasons. Let us further assume that this same
person has a great influence on the building of new homes in the town or
city where 'e lives, and that 'e uses this influence to build family homes
only, that is, homes for married couples with children, altho many (if not
most) households do not consist of one male adult, one female adult married
to him and one or more children. What is the chance that this person is of
the opinion that anyone of any race should be able to get any job 'e is
qualified for? Altho the question of racial equality lies in another field
than that of family membership, nudity and the composition of households,
the chance is still nil if the person considered shows a consistent pattern
of sentiments and opinions. Because of the fact that this person believes
that certain offices ought to be held, and certain incomes ought to be
received, on the basis of relationship only, the belief that offices ought
to be held, or for that matter, not to be held, on the basis of race only
agrees with this. Not being able to look objectively at the phenomenon of
nudity, and being subject to purely emotional reactions of inhibition and
fear, 'e would similarly show a purely emotional reaction of insecurity when
confronted with people of another race in a high position. And as this
person has no interest in people who live alone or together in households of
a different composition than (what presumably is, was or will be) 'er own,
'e will have a lesser interest in people who live alone or together in
households of a different race than 'er own, and more generally, in people
of a different race than 'er own. 'E will not find other races (or a
particular other race) as interesting and likable as 'er own race, nor will
'e assign an equal importance to other races, and accordingly 'e will be of
the opinion that at least certain exclusive positions (like that of the head
of state) should remain the privilege of 'er own race.

The chance that the person focused on in this third example will not show a
consistent pattern, and that 'e will not have racist opinions, sentiments or
tendencies in any way, will be smaller than the chance that 'e does have
them, unless this pattern is or has been upset by interfactorially
exclusivistic effects. For example, if it is taboo in the community in which
the person lives to be a racist, or to openly display racism in ground-world
conduct, whereas it is not taboo to defend monarchism, to be a prudist and
to discriminate between households on the basis of their composition, then
it is obvious that the correlation in such a community between racism and
the three other infrafactorial exclusivisms may be weaker or even absent.
But it is, then, weaker because it is counteracted by a force especially
exerted to mitigate or offset the ill effects of a particular form of
discrimination (say, when racism is not merely taboo, but when exclusive
antiracism has even become a fashion). As soon as that force is not strong
enough anymore, or as soon as it has to be divided over too many fields in
order to counteract not just one, but several infrafactorial exclusivisms,
the discriminatory beliefs and practises which once seemed to have been
quelled, will reemerge. It is not until that moment that correlations
between exclusivisms in entirely different fields may indeed turn out to
exist, even tho they are (temporarily) absent because of an interfactorially
exclusivistic counterforce.

In theory the possible combinations of beliefs, feelings and tendencies a
person can have, and of the things 'e can do, are innumerable. But each
thought, feeling, tendency or action is either exclusive or nonexclusive,
however unrelated the fields they belong to may seemingly be. And if there
is indeed a strong correlation between exclusivist beliefs, feelings,
tendencies and actions on the one hand, and inclusivist beliefs, feelings,
tendencies and actions on the other, there are not only structurally but
also in practise two basic combinations. They are: the combination of all
the former beliefs, attitudinal components and actions which reflect the
exclusive attitude; and the combination of all the latter beliefs,
attitudinal components and actions which reflect the inclusive attitude.
Between these two principal atitudes there is a fundamental divide. More or
less consistently people exhibit either the one or the other attitude in the
things they believe in, and in the way they feel and act. To the extent in
which feelings and thoughts about the world around them show a pattern of
consistence (an either inclusive or exclusive one) we cannot divorce the way
people deal with one facet of life from the way they deal with other facets
of life. Certain exclusive beliefs or feelings which seem harmless on their
own may in fact be correlated with other exclusive beliefs or feelings which
have a pernicious influence on the attainment of cardinal inclusive ideals.
All exclusive beliefs, thoughts, feelings, tendencies and actions, however
harmless at first appearance, do reflect one of the two principal attitudes:
the exclusive attitude.

When an ideology is exclusivistic, it contains exclusivist factual, modal
and/or normative beliefs or thoughts; it arouses or exploits exclusivist
feelings; it creates or depends on exclusivist tendencies; and/or it incites
people to act in an exclusivist manner, either by exclusion or by
exclusivity. Exclusivist ideologies are the product of exclusive attitudes
but once having established themselves, they perpetuate these very attitudes
(which by then can correctly be called "exclusivistic"). Altho 'exclusivism'
as an explicit ideology in itself does not exist (yet), it is a way of
thinking, feeling and acting which has had, and still has, an enormous
impact on all aspects of human and nonhuman life, not only in its active,
infrafactorial form of discrimination, but also in its interfactorial and
passive forms. The absence of exclusivism as an ideology in which the
violation of the norm of inclusivity would be an end in itself has been
'most generously made up for' by religious, theodemonical, political and
other ideologies or traditions with out-and-out exclusivistic contents and
records.



1.3.2  CAN FEELINGS ABOUT MIXED SCRIPTURES BE STEADY?


Usually an ideology is organized or centered round a body of writings which
are considered authoritative by those concerned. In the case of a
theodemonical ideology such writings are said to be 'sacred', because they
would be connected in a supernatural or symbolic way with the supreme being
itself, or with another principal being. Sacred, theodemonical or religious
scriptures are called "holy books" too, but holy can also mean perfect, good
or pure and, like heal and health, comes from the same root as whole. In
this sense it is the norm of inclusivity itself, when taken proscriptively,
which is the 'holiest' of all norms. (Theoretically it would be even
'holier' not to make any distinction under any circumstances. However, those
adhering to such a principle have, wisely, never spoken about it.) In order
to associate the 'holiness' of the norm of inclusivity as little as possible
with exclusivist writings, we shall call them "sacred" rather than "holy".
This also stresses their built-in or purported immunity from criticism.

What theodemonical, sacred writings have in common with the authoritative
writings of certain political or other ideologies, is that they are
exclusivistic but not necessarily in every respect and in every detail. They
may contain passages compatible with the ideal of inclusivity, and that is
why they are 'mixed' in a way: mixed exclusive-inclusive. In spite of this,
they entirely deserve the epithet exclusivist(ic), because inclusivism does
not allow for any exclusive belief, attitude or practise, and definitely not
for a preponderance of such beliefs, attitudes and/or practises. Add to this
the perpetual overrepresentation on the wrong side of especially monotheist
and certain political ideologies in questions of abnegational discrimination
and preferential treatment and it is clear that their mixed character never
made theodemonical and other mixed writings inclusivistic. Even during an
absolute and uninterrupted reign of a thousand years (and many centuries
more than that) the holiness promised in theodemonical scriptures never
prevailed for any considerable length of time, let alone any 'holiness' as
radiated by the norm of inclusivity.

Perhaps it is not always clear that the mixture is one of exclusive and
inclusive elements, but that exclusivist ideology is often terribly mixed
(if not confused) is quite obvious. Exclusivist scriptures may recommend
peace, justice, equality and a class- and stateless society at one place,
while glorifying war, submission, lordship and the dictatorship of one
particular class and the state at another place. Theodemonical tales in
particular are tales of both tenderness and violence, of both bliss and
disaster. A male god of love may try to spread his faith, and adherence to
it, with a sword, sulphur and fire, lopping the heads off nonbelievers who
will not convert, driving entire peoples into the sea and destroying
complete cities. Theodemonical scriptures do not only speak of people who
are to be sacredly stoned, but also about the sort of man who should be
allowed to throw the first stone. A latter-day 'prophet' (that is, ethical
theorist) has religiously tried to modernize this Stone Age passion by
suggesting that not only adulterous women but also adulterous men should be
punished this way, which would strip it of its sexism. Neither the ancient
prophet of the religious writings nor the latter-day theorist did pronounce
upon stoning to death itself as a penal practise, thus implicitly accepting
and perpetuating its sacredness.

The mixed nature of most scriptures is also the reason why the ideologies in
question are so incoherent (and plagued by schisms). Or, maybe, it was the
other way around: the ideologies of the people who produced those scriptures
were just too disordered to start with. The pitiful result of this is that
their scriptures are often only coherent where they are immoral, and only
moral where they are incoherent. The incoherence may even be a
straightforward contradiction, for example, when a divine prophet is
reported both as saying, "he that is not with me is against me" and as
saying, "he that is not against us is for us". Those faithful to incoherent,
mixed scriptures like these ones will therefore in practise have to choose
between the exclusivist statements and the statements which are not
incompatible with the ideal of inclusiveness, interdenominational
inclusiveness in particular. (It does not help to say that no prescription
is more important than, for example, the injunction to love, if some other,
venomous or abominable prescriptions are not less important.) Altho the
adherent may continue to pay lip-service to a theodemonical or political
document as a whole, 'e is forced (or 'allowed') to make a choice where the
different stories or exegeses of such a document cancel each other out.
However, the adherent cannot then base 'er final choice of what to say and
what to do in concrete cases on emotions or doxastic norms emanating from
the ideology's scriptures themselves. The interpretation of an incoherent or
polyinterpretable, denominational or political doctrine must be governed by
external emotions or doxastic norms, if not the adherent's character itself.
The attitude underlying the interpretation of mixed scriptures may, then, be
humanistic or antihumanistic, fascistic or antifascistic, libertarian or
antilibertarian, egalitarian or antiegalitarian, and so on.

The follower of sacred or political writings which speak of peace,
tolerating people and respect for life in one place, and of holy wars and of
fiendishly brutal aggression towards the same people and towards nonhuman
animals in another place, must choose 'imself which order to strive for, and
which of the rules laid down in those writings 'e will take seriously. If
'er choice between the norms and values of the religion or political
ideology is not made purely at random or intuitively, 'e must base it on
norms and values not belonging to this religion or this political ideology
proper. And it is these external considerations determining 'er decision
which might be more or less of an inclusive nature (for example, if the
follower's interpretation is humanistic or egalitarian). Or, if the
follower's choice was intuitive, this choice might be expressive of an
inclusive ideal.

Any person adhering to an incoherent or polyinterpretable, exclusivist
doctrine can therefore in practise think and behave in conformity with the
norm of inclusivity so far as 'er relationship with other people is
concerned, however much the doctrine 'e formally espouses may deviate from
the inclusivistic one. This is a reason why it remains absolutely necessary
not to confuse the total rejection of exclusivist ideologies with an
exclusion of the people adhering to or sympathizing with such ideologies,
unless these people show disrespect for other people's rights to personhood.
It is, then, especially important that they do in no way infringe upon the
rights of personhood of people who do not adhere to, and who do not
sympathize with their religion, theodemonism or political creed, say, by
trying to impose their own systems, rules or symbols upon them.

When the adherents of an exclusivist ideology founded on mixed scriptures
display some kind of humanist, libertarian or egalitarian attitude which is
as close as possible to an inclusive one, we are, of course, glad that they
do so. Yet, we have to be very cautious (if not suspicious), not only
because of the contradictions in their ideology itself, but also because of
those between the attitude exhibited and large parts of the doctrine they
claim to espouse. Given that there are indeed many correlations between
exclusive beliefs, feelings, tendencies and actions in the same and in
entirely different fields, their feelings or attitudes with respect to the
mixed scriptures of their ideological doctrine simply cannot be steady when
there are too many discrepancies to cope with. Their ideology allows them to
take on an attitude tomorrow, completely different from that of today,
without any change of faith or allegiance. Since the norms and values of
that ideology are incoherent or admit of widely divergent interpretations,
the adherents may but too easily modify their views, or pick just another
set of norms and values, when times or circumstances have altered, and when
it suits them. Their present emphasis on some liberal, egalitarian or
peaceful aspect of their creed may be 'warranted' for them, but so is a
possible, future (and so was a past) emphasis on the most monstrous and
murderous exclusionism preached in other parts of their sacred scriptures or
political writings. That's the negative: the scandalous episodes, statements
or implications which are exegetically hushed up or explained away to
prevent the general public from seeing thru the total scheme of such a
theodemonical or political ideology.

Instead of giving up a 'partially inclusive' attitude by changing it into a
more exclusive one, the adherents of a religion or political doctrine whose
scriptures are mixed may also change their attitude into an inclusive one by
giving up their exclusivist ideology. (Partially inclusive is a
contradiction in terms, but contradictions is precisely what this section is
about.) It is, then, not necessary that all interest in the ideology's
scriptures be lost as well. But if not, they are not authoritative anymore
and have become merely of anthropological, historical, literary or
speculative-philosophic significance. Whether people who adhere to an
exclusivist ideology founded upon mixed scriptures will finally abandon
their attitude and interpretation or their ideology itself, in either case
we must conclude that the feelings which characterize them cannot be
expected to be steady and independent of times and circumstances. Those
feelings may only be partially and contingently inclusive in practise at a
certain moment at a certain place --that's all. Their instability is one of
the reasons that the implementation of ideals compatible with the norm of
inclusivity has never stood the test of time when pursued and carried out by
people with mixed scriptures in their hands.


1.3.2.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A PROVINCE OF INCLUSIVITY

When a nation* treats the neglected as the preferred,
and the preferred as the neglected;
and when a nation treats the lesser as the greater,
and the greater as the lesser;
and when it thus includes
the adherents of theodemonical and of nontheodemonical**
denominations in a single one;
and when it thus includes
the denominational and the nondenominational in a single one
-- that is,
those who*** believe in the existence of a god and/or demon,
those who believe in the nonexistence of a god and/or demon,
and those who neither believe in the existence
nor in the nonexistence of any god or demon --,
then such a nation shall have entered
one of the provinces of inclusivity.


  *  : instead of "(such) a nation" one may read "this government", "you",
       and so on
  ** : instead of theodemonism one may take another factor of distinction,
       for example, the question of whether a denominational doctrine is
       religious or nonreligious, or the factor gender
  ***: instead of "those who" one may read "the person who", "what", and so
       on


Example of another Province of Inclusivity:

When you treat the neglected as the preferred,
and the preferred as the neglected;
and when you treat the lesser as the greater,
and the greater as the lesser;
and when you thus include
male and female in a single one;
and when you thus include the sexual and the nonsexual
in a single one
-- that is,
what is only male, what is only female,
what is both male and female, and
what is neither male nor female --,
then you shall have entered
one of the provinces of inclusivity.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------



1.4  UNIVERSAL IDEALS AND OMNIFARIOUS FAILURES


1.4.1  JUST A FEW EXAMPLES


There is a number of ideals which have somehow been professed for centuries
or millenniums by adherents of practically all ideologies, political or
nonpolitical, religious or nonreligious:
  *  peace, peaceful coexistence and security
  *  democracy (as opposed to the dictatorship of one or a few)
  *  equality or nondiscrimination (particularly with regard to nationality,
     race, ethnicity and gender)
  *  tolerance
  *  personal freedom and fulfilment.
Not many people are openly against any of these ideals. Yet, humankind is,
and has been, perpetually faced -- also for centuries or millenniums -- with
all kinds of failure, like the following ones:
  *  civil and international wars and conflicts
  *  dictatorships
  *  abnegational discrimination and preferential treatment
  *  intolerance
  *  unnecessary restrictions of personal freedom.
It seems incomprehensible that humankind appears to have universal ideals,
but that it is not capable of actually establishing a society in which these
ideals are carried thru. There must be something that overrules the ideals
formally adhered to, or paid lip-service to; something that prepares human
beings, or people, to act to the contrary. Let us therefore take a closer
look at the examples given.



1.4.2  PEACE INSTEAD OF WAR


No country probably starts a war merely because it likes to fight, unless it
would be ruled by a mad dictator. And no country starts a war merely because
it has to fight ('unless' its arms industry has obtained so much power that
it can force the country into war in order to boost its own sales figures).
Whatever the reason that a country is involved in a war, it will always have
some rationalization for its conduct. Such a rationalization may formally
replace the desire:
  *  to attack a different political and/or socioeconomic system
  *  to spread the established, denominational ideology and/or to prevent
     another ideology from freely gaining more and more support
  *  to subjugate a national, racial, ethnic or linguistic community
     considered inferior
  *  to expand territory and/or to increase the power and wealth of the
     ruling class, and, perhaps, also the rest of the nation.
Each of these 'justifications' prepares citizens for war.

The desire to attack people with a different political or socioeconomic
system may be rationalized by referring to 'their' desire (fictitious or
not) to destruct 'us', by referring to the economic malaise 'their' system
is in, by referring to the lack of personal freedom or to the exploitation
occurring in 'their' society. In a process of political indoctrination the
citizens are continuously confronted with the shortcomings and excesses of
the politics and economics of the enemy or potential enemy. The dangers of
their system are underscored again and again, thus making the citizens ready
for war when needed. "We want peace, but they do not want it!" To remain
level-headed under such circumstances would probably mean that one would be
able to distinguish advantages and disadvantages of both economic systems,
that one would recognize certain defects in both political or economic
systems, and that one could accept the idea that one politico-economic
system might be better for one country, while another system might better
suit another country, at least temporarily. But in societies which are
getting ready for war, any degree of objectivity is taboo, because someone
who would see any advantage in the system of the enemy (even when
overshadowed by its disadvantages), or who would dare to point at any
comparable drawback of 'er own system (even when offset by its advantages),
would be regarded as collaborating with 'the enemy'. In such an atmosphere
all information about people's own side is interpreted in a way that it
answers to their positive expectations, while information about the other
side has to confirm to their negative expectations.

There is much similarity between the desire to attack a different political
or socioeconomic system and the desire to attack a different religious or
denominational system, but there are some important differences too: the
ideals for which people are willing to fight are likely to be conceived of
as 'higher' than any other ideal. The fear of a different denominational
ideology can be stronger than any other fear of a different system, while
the rationalization of religious warfare is more egregious than any other
rationalization of warfare. History has proved but too often that it can be
sufficient in a religious conflict to brand others as "pagans", "infidels"
or "atheists" in order to sanction an attack on them without any 'further'
rationalization. But more often than not, a difference in religion, or
denomination in general, has coincided with a different political, economic,
racial, ethnic or linguistic identity, and it is this difference in identity
which may be used as a more rational cover-up in place of the recognition of
the denominational incompatibility of the rival communities, both in civil
and international wars. Even when a nondenominational argument was or is
used as a pretext of attack, the attackers may not refrain from openly
expressing the gaudy belief that the supreme being (or 'God') would be there
to exclusively save their nation and head of state (especially when this is
a monarch), thus betraying that theodemonism certainly has to do something
with the conflict in question.

While the desire to fight a different political or denominational system may
be one cause of conflict, the desire to suppress people who are considered
inferior, is another one. The more doubtful certain individuals are about
their own status and the more life leaves them with feelings of insecurity,
the stronger their need will be to strengthen their own identity by
degrading others. It is by looking down on others that these individuals
believe themselves to be placed on a higher footing. When the object of
degradation is another racial, national, ethnic or linguistic group, this
can readily lead to serious conflicts. And again, it is seldom or never
possible to completely separate these conflicts from concurrent political,
socioeconomic and religious or mixed religious-irreligious differences.

The fourth cause of conflict on our list is the desire to expand territory.
A larger territory means more resources; more resources means a wealthier
country; and a wealthier country means more power for the ruling class and,
perhaps, more prosperity for all, or most, classes. This in itself can be
believed to be a sufficient reason (and has in colonial times definitely
been a sufficient reason) for the rulers of a country to subjugate foreign
territories. However, the land-hungry aristocrats, politicians and others
who gave themselves up to these adventures, were but too eager to use
nice-sounding arguments for their territorial expansions instead of
admitting pure selfishness. So would annexation of the foreign territories
to the empire bring civilization to the so-called 'savages' living there.
This 'civilization' was to be understood as conversion to the religion of
the smart conquerors, who brought with their sword a book of words along:
their Manual of Divine Justification.

All civil and international conflicts are conflicts between people who
differ in one or more of the following respects: politically,
socioeconomically, denominationally, ethnically and/or linguistically; and
in all these conflicts the rival parties show an exclusive attitude towards
each other in one or more of the following ways:
  *  by providing and allowing only biased information about the other party
  *  by making inadmissible generalizations about the people and the system
     of the other party
  *  by not treating members of the other party, or individuals relevantly
     similar to them, as equal human beings, and in a national context as
     equal citizens
  *  by not respecting the adherents of other religions, of religion in
     general or of nonreligious denominations as persons
  *  by stimulating alienation from the other party (in a national context
     by concentrating their own or the other party in certain little
     accessible areas, in an international context by making travel to and
     from other countries difficult or impossible)
  *  by believing that their own party would have Mono's or another
     principal being's support in the conflict.
While all may claim to be in favor of peace, it is this exclusive attitude
which prepares people for war.

An exclusive attitude is not just reflected in a limited number of
sentiments and opinions which have a direct bearing on a civil or
international conflict, it is a fundamental inclination by which a person or
community more or less consistently exhibits a pattern of exclusive beliefs,
feelings and thoughts in all fields. The correlation which exists between
exclusivisms is not necessarily a causal relationship (two of them may be
caused by a third factor, or a different third and fourth factor), but the
fact that the combination of inclusive sentiments and opinions with
exclusive sentiments and opinions leads to inconsistence, implies that every
exclusivism contributes to the acceptance of other and more exclusivisms.
Some relationships are very obvious:
  *  providing and allowing only biased information on a certain
     socioeconomic doctrine, for instance, is only one step away from
     providing and allowing only biased information on a certain
     denominational doctrine
  *  making inadmissible generalizations about a different race, for
     instance, is only one step away from making inadmissible
     generalizations about the other sex, about those with a different
     sexual preference or about those who speak a different language or
     dialect
  *  not treating the members of an ethnic minority as equal citizens, for
     instance, is only one step away from not treating the members of any
     minority group as equal citizens
  *  not taking into account irreligious convictions in a predominantly
     religious society, for instance, is only one step away from not taking
     into account personal convictions at all
  *  stimulating alienation from disliked foreigners, for instance, is only
     one step away from stimulating alienation from disliked fellow-citizens
     such as those belonging to a different caste or social class
  *  believing that one's own party would have the exclusive support of the
     supreme being in a conflict, is only one step away from believing in
     the supremeness or superiority of one's nation, one's own language,
     one's own race, one's own class and one's own political system.

Since conflicts are caused by the exclusive attitude of one or both of the
parties involved, every exclusivism is either the cause of a possible
conflict (and therefore of national or international insecurity) or
contributes to this cause, however unrelated to such a conflict it may seem.
A society in which measures and beliefs which offend against the norm of
inclusivity enjoy official and exclusive recognition is not only due to
suffer from internal frictions, but will also create the conditions leading
to international conflicts. Altho it may seem that the internal frictions
have nothing to do with the international conflicts, they result from the
same official sanctioning of exclusivism.

To be more concrete, let us compare two ideologies, both of which recognize
a supreme being. In ideology A the supreme being does not have the
predicates of one particular race or sex, nor does it have a representative
on the planet Earth or elsewhere who did belong or must belong to one
particular race or sex; in ideology B the supreme being has the predicates
of a particular sex and judging by its ('his') representative on Earth, also
of a particular race. In ideology A there is a second (minor) principal
being, but this embraces all races and sexes; in ideology B this nonsupreme
being is of the opposite (inferior) sex, but of the same specific race.
Ideology A is not exclusively related to the conditions of any particular
country or part of the world; ideology B can clearly be identified with one
particular country and its neighbors. Now, which of both ideologies makes
the greatest chance of being the cause of a bloody, civil or international
war in which different races or ethnic groups will be fighting each other?
And which of both ideologies makes the greatest chance of activating racism
and sexism? If there is a difference in chance, the answer to these
questions is obvious! But the answer to these questions would not be
different, if we asked which of both ideologies made the greatest chance of
having a one-sided view of socioeconomic systems, of ignoring ethnic and
linguistic minorities, of promoting the acquisition of more wealth for
oneself or one's nation to the detriment of others. The next question would
be, which of both ideologies would make the greatest chance of being the
cause of any civil or international war. With the few characteristics given
of both ideologies in this example, it may seem entirely unjustified to
think of an answer to this question. But when we think of the
interrelationship of all inclusive sentiments and opinions on the one side,
and all exclusive ones on the other, we must conclude that even a small
number of inclusive features indicates an inclusive attitude, and even a
small number of exclusivist features an exclusivist one. Since these
attitudes are fundamental inclinations, the answer to our last question is
obvious as well.

Let us once more compare two ideologies, neither of which is theodemonistic.
Ideology A does not relate to any particular social class, whether
constituting a minority or a majority; ideology B relates exclusively to a
particular category of social classes (which represents a majority,
however). For ideology A the public expression of different opinions and the
distribution of information from any source should be free, that is, not
excluded; for ideology B the free availability of information and the
expression of individual ideas in public is not permissible if it
contradicts its own dogmas. For ideology A one politico-economic system (or
variant of such a system) may be better for one country, while another
system (or variant of the same system) may be better for another country at
a certain time; for ideology B there is only one acceptable
politico-economic system, irrespective of time and place. Which of both
ideologies makes the greatest chance of being the cause of a bloody, civil
or international, war in which different social classes or politico-economic
systems (or variants of the same system) are fighting each other? And which
of both ideologies makes the greatest chance of stimulating the development
of internal and/or external (international) absolutism? If there is a
difference in chance, the answer to these questions is obvious again! And it
would be the same if we asked which one would make the greatest chance of
having a one-sided view of religion (not even recognizing its denominational
value), of subjecting or ignoring ethnic or linguistic minorities, of
promoting or yielding to the fulsome adoration of political or
party-leaders. When we conceive again of the fact that even a small number
of exclusivist characteristics denote an exclusivist attitude (in one of its
many gradations), this is also the obvious answer to the question which of
both ideologies would make the greatest chance of being the cause of any
civil or international war.

It turns out that the ideal of peace and peaceful coexistence is formally
entertained by practically whole humankind, but that it is overruled by two
types of exclusivist measures and beliefs reflecting one and the same
principal attitude:
  *  those which are the or a direct cause of civil and international
     conflicts; and
  *  those which are not the or a direct cause, and are seemingly unrelated,
     but which, in fact, contribute inadvertently to the emergence of these
     exclusivisms.
Permanent peace and security can never be established so long as either or
both of these two types of exclusivist practises and beliefs prevail in any
field.



1.4.3  DEMOCRACY INSTEAD OF DICTATORSHIP


When democracy is believed to fail or is not vigorous enough to be defended,
it will easily revert to the absolute rule of one person or family or a
small omnipotent political or military body. This dictatorship will present
strong arguments for its suspension or abolition of the democratic system.
With these arguments it often conceals its fears of the participation in
government of certain socioeconomic classes and of denominational, ethnic or
linguistic groups whose presence it does not consider desirable, to say the
least.

The conditions which are responsible for the outbreak of a civil or
international war are very much similar to the conditions under which a
dictatorship can come into being. The same exclusive attitude which
motivates some individuals to aggress against fellow-citizens or other
nations induces them to attack a democratic system for the sole benefit of a
privileged minority, or to support such an attack.

No society is democratic because those in power allow the country to be
ruled by politicians who have the same or similar political and
denominational convictions as they have themselves. Just as freedom cannot
be measured by the fact that it permits conformity, but only by the degree
in which it allows deviation from the standards, so democracy cannot be
measured by the fact that it permits politicians of a limited range of
political creeds to rule, but only by the fact that it allows politicians of
any political creed (in which people's moral right to personhood is
respected) to rule when the people so prefer. It is not until the majority
of the people elect representatives whose ideology significantly deviates
from the beliefs of those in power that it may turn out that a country has
never been a democracy. The powerful conspirators behind the screens who
take on the rule of the country themselves in such a case, only remove the
last resemblance of a democratic system. In their exclusionist opinion it
had never been acceptable to permit politicians with certain political or
denominational ideals essentially different from their own to have a major
say in the country's affairs.

Democracy as a form of government in which the power is officially vested in
nothing else than the majority of the citizens of a country is in itself a
fertile soil for dictatorship. Altho almost all adults may have the right to
vote and to be elected in such a system, any majority of voters has absolute
power over any minority of voters, even when that minority represents up to
49% of the population. Many issues in democratic societies can be reduced to
the question whether party or coalition A will be able to impose its own
values on B, or whether party or coalition B will be able to impose its own
values on A. It is in such an atmosphere of majoritarian competition that
one party might simply forget that it needs at least 51% of the votes to
impose its ideology on the nation, and if it happens to have powerful
connections, or if it knows to operate strategically, a dictatorship is
easily established, if only that of a state in which solely one party or
coalition has and can have legal status.

Democracy as such does not guarantee inclusive equality, altho individual
democratic countries may guarantee certain rights of certain minorities or
near-majorities (such as both sexes) in their constitution. On the other
hand, a political system based on inclusive equality (and the right to
personhood in particular) would be a democratic one in that no minority
could impose its own values on the majority of people. But it would differ
from other democratic systems in that a majority could only override a
minority where there is no other choice than uniformity, that is, where
differentiation to accomodate the preferences or convictions of different
groups or individuals is impossible. The decision in question must, then,
not in any way depend on other decisions or systems which were or are
somehow discriminatory. Only in such a society need democracy not degenerate
into an institutionalized fight of exclusivism against exclusivism above
which the threatening sword of dictatorship hangs forever.

Not seldom is the exclusive attitude of dictatorial rulers complemented by
an exclusive attitude of those ruled over. In addition to the fact that the
dictatorial rulers and the people ruled over may share a common fear of the
same ideological, ethnic or linguistic group, or of the emergence of a
certain social class, the desire of the rulers to rule may be complemented
by the desire of the others to be ruled. Or, it may be complemented by their
belief that it is normal that there is one or a small number of omnipotent
leaders surrounded by an endless mass of obedient minions. Especially in
societies which have a strong theodemonist organization it is believed to be
natural that a higher level in the hierarchy has absolute power over lower
levels, and that the man at the top of this theodemonical hierarchy is an
infallible fuehrer in his field. In the ideology of these organizations even
the supreme being itself is claimed to be an absolute and almighty ruler
commanding reverent fear and submission from the believers. The male at the
top of the human part of the hierarchy is said to be its (or 'His') present
representative in the material universe: not showing deep respect for him
and his orders is interpreted as disrespect for the omnipotent Mono
'Himself'. It is evident that such beliefs and such organizations, which
glorify the concentration of power in one person or personified being,
prepare common people to unconditionally surrender themselves to the
dictatorial rule of potentates, not only in the religious organization but
also in the political organization of the state. When there is a personal
union between the ruler(s) of the state and the ruler(s) of the mono- or
polytheist (temple) society concerned, or when these rulers cooperate very
closely, the acceptance of religious, political or military dictatorship by
those who adhere to the particular or a related religion will be very easy
indeed. In submitting to the control of the dictator naive people are made
to feel as if they were administered the first rights by the supreme being
itself. Using the word god in the pragmatic sense of the most powerful
leader(s) of the community of believers it is, perhaps, a fact that they are
directed by (the) 'god'. However, these theonomous pawns do not realize that
this does not mean that they would be directed by (the) supreme being itself
in any way or in any sense.

The difference which exists between the inclusive attitude and the exclusive
attitude is of fundamental significance for the establishment and
maintenance of a democratic system which is not apt to be replaced by a
dictatorship at some time. Any exclusivist belief, feeling or practise will
contribute directly or indirectly, intentionally or inadvertently to the
emergence of the exclusivist attitude both among those in power and among
those they are likely to lord it over, and thus to the possible emergence of
a dictatorship. However solemnly human beings may profess democracy, it is
the inclusiveness of their beliefs, feelings and practises which counts, not
only in the fields which are clearly related to the institution of democracy
but in all fields.



1.4.4  EQUALITY INSTEAD OF DISCRIMINATION


All reasonable persons seem to agree that human beings should not be
discriminated against on the basis of their nationality, race or ethnical
identity, while the most obvious discrimination on the basis of sex has
become equally unpopular. Yet, racial and ethnical equality often does not
go much further than the absence of legal discrimination. When it comes to
the appointment or election to the better or best jobs and positions members
of racial or ethnical minorities (or sometimes majorities) are often very
much underrepresented. And people may conceive of members of these groups as
equal citizens and equal partners at work, to have them as friends (that is,
persons with whom they spend leisure time together), as neighbors or as
in-laws is but too often viewed as something different. The reason why they
may not want to get too close with other ethnic groups may partially be that
they do not feel at ease with aliens or in an alien environment; partially
it is the fear and dislike which result from misconceptions and inadmissible
generalizations. The fact that somebody belongs to a certain racial or
ethnical group may at a certain place and time (under the conditions as they
have been so far) be correlated with sometimes unfavorable factors. If this
correlation is not a product of the imagination, it is still a purely
statistical relationship which does not characterize any particular person
of the group in question, but when generalizing, the unfavorable
(nondoctrinal) quality is automatically projected onto each individual
member of the group. Such does not only happen to races or ethnic groups but
also to the sexes and to all other groups of society distinguished on the
basis of a ground-world quality and not treated as equals in some way.

Even when and where men and women are formally considered equal citizens,
they have still been discriminated against all over the world in many other
respects (also in the law). That the legal discrimination of women is on the
way to extinction, does not mean that they would not remain extremely
underrepresented in (the higher-level or better-paid) official positions.
Also when women are considered suitable for a number of jobs (especially
those in which men do not have to be their subordinate), they may be the
first, if not the only, ones to be held responsible for the housekeeping and
the upbringing of the children. (In sexist dictionaries homemaker is not
person managing a household but one who manages a household (especially) as
a wife and mother.)

On the other hand, a number of jobs may not be generally considered very
masculine, and men were, or still are, the first, if not the only ones, to
be held responsible for the maintenance of the family and the defense of the
country or community (against other men). The traditional differentiation
between the functions of females and the functions of males all over the
world has degenerated into a system of roles female human beings have to
play and roles male human beings have to play in order to achieve the
highest possible status in their (sub)culture. This division into roles goes
far beyond what can be explained from the features which define whether one
has a male or female body. From a purely biological standpoint it is not
less preposterous to suppose that the excellence of the behavior of men and
women would lie in their aggressiveness or arrogance, and in their weakness
or affectedness respectively.

One unfavorable factor engendering the underrepresentation of a race, ethnic
group, sex and in particular a social class in the higher positions, is the
lack of education among members of such a group. This is reflected in its
disproportional representation at the medium and higher levels of education,
especially at the university level. Such a negative disproportionality can
be a result of many factors, like:
  *  the financial inability to pay for a higher education (which in itself
     is a sign of socioeconomic inequality)
  *  the fact that no-one tries to arouse the intellectual interests of such
     a group or to encourage its members to continue their study, coupled
     with the belief of a substantial part of the general public that the
     group in question lacks the skills for doing so
  *  the fact that within the family the intellectual interests of the
     children, or exclusively of the girls, are not aroused either, combined
     with the parents' belief that education leads to estrangement from the
     children's family and/or community, or from the role the girls will
     later have to play in family life.
All these and other factors demonstrate that it is relatively easy to bar
discrimination by the government, by corporations or by individual citizens,
but that it is far more difficult to establish a state of equality in which
a group formerly stereotyped or otherwise discriminated against is no longer
underrepresented in social and political life. However, it does not follow
that a group is discriminated against when it is underrepresented in a
certain respect, because it may on the average have, for example, fewer
qualified people, or fewer people who aspire to a particular (type of)
position, even when all forms of discrimination are, and have been, absent.

We cannot divorce the discrimination of one particular group from the
discrimination of any other particular group, whether this group is
distinguished on the grounds of physical factors like skin color, family
membership, sex, sexual orientation or age, or on the grounds of cultural
factors like language, social class, wealthiness or ideological (political,
religious, nonreligious) convictions. However much the groups discriminated
against may seem to differ, they all suffer from one and the same attitude:
the exclusivist attitude. A community or individual discriminating on the
grounds of any of the factors mentioned or not mentioned is likely to
discriminate abnegationally or to show a discriminatory preferential
treatment of more groups on the basis of more factors, if not avowedly, then
possibly in a hidden way, since the one exclusivism contributes to and
reinforces the other exclusivism. Only the fundamental conviction as
portrayed by the inclusive attitude to keep aloof from all discrimination,
whatever physical or cultural factor is involved (with the exception of
exclusivisms themselves), can save any particular group from the continuous
threat of being discriminated against, from being ignored, from (irrelevant)
unequal treatment and from (unjustified) underrepresentation in certain
sectors of society.

It is erroneous to assume that the attitude of a group which itself is, for
example, stereotyped or withheld equal opportunities would be inclusive
because this group tries to put an end to its own state of being
discriminated against. In fact the attitude of this group may be more
exclusivistic than the attitude of the (other) discriminators. This may
express itself in misconceptions and generalizations with regard to those
not belonging to this group, in a tendency to keep exclusively to themselves
and thus to estrange themselves from the rest of society, in a preferential
treatment of fellow-members, in a desire to distinguish themselves from the
rest of the public by a purposely provocative behavior and appearance, or in
other exclusivist beliefs, feelings and actions. The exclusive interest in
their own emancipation, and the lack of interest in the liberation and
equality of other groups which are ignored, stereotyped or withheld equal
opportunities may be part of this pattern.

Because of the fundamental discrepancy between inclusive beliefs, feelings
and thoughts on the one hand, and exclusive beliefs, feelings and thoughts
on the other, the abnegational discrimination or discriminatory preferential
treatment of any particular group is correlated with all other exclusive
convictions, sentiments and opinions on the side of the discriminators and
with all exclusive convictions, sentiments and opinions on the side of the
discriminated. Neither discrimination in general, nor any particular form of
discrimination (sexism, racism, and so on) can ever be completely overcome,
if we do not attack the principal attitude which is behind it in all fields
and among all parties.



1.4.5  TOLERANCE INSTEAD OF INTOLERANCE


In many (sub)cultures it is quite common that people love their neighbors as
thems