THE VENUE: Starbucks, Burleigh St
The weather forecast for Sunday doesn't look promising but things may change. So, the default is to meet indoors but look out for updates later in the week.
We run the same event in two locations: Caffè Nero and Starbucks, so as to provide capacity for as many people who would like to attend. Thus, there will be two events published, and you can choose which one to attend. Please don't sign up for both. This event is for the Starbucks location.
We meet upstairs at Starbucks. An organiser or regular attendee will be present from 10.45. We are not charged for use of the space so it would be good if everyone bought at least one drink.
An attendee limit has been set so as not to overwhelm the venue.
Etiquette
Our discussions are friendly and open. We are a discussion group, not a for-and-against debating society. But it helps if we try to stay on topic. And we should not talk over others, interrupt them, or try to dominate the conversation.
There is often a waiting list for places, so please cancel your attendance as soon as possible if you subsequently find you can't come.
WhatsApp groups
We have two WhatsApp groups. One is to notify events, including extra events such as meeting for a meal or a drink during the week which we don't normally put on the Meetup site. The other is for open discussion of whatever topics occur to people. If you would like to join either or both groups, please send a note of the phone number you would like to use to Richard Baron on: website.audible238@passmail.net. (This is an alias that can be discarded if it attracts spam, hence the odd words.)
THE TOPIC: Should we renounce our ego, or befriend it?
(This week's topic has been suggested and this introduction written by Richard.)
In politics which comes first, the word or the deed?
St John's Gospel starts with "In the beginning was the Word". Goethe's Faust, trying to make sense of this, settles on "In the beginning was the deed" (Part 1, line 1237).
Let us rip these two profound statements from their contexts and apply them to the practice of politics.
The word will be the political doctrine, whether a general approach or commitments to specific political views. The deed will be what politicians do, calmly or frantically, when they are in office.
The formulation of doctrine and practical acting are of course carried on in parallel, with crisscrossing lines of cause and effect. But we can ask how things should be, rather than how they are. We can think about individual political actions and the doctrines that at least seem to justify them. Should actions be steered by well-reasoned doctrines? Or should doctrines be relegated to justificatory froth on the cappuccino of action, with politicians just doing what works and then telling stories about why?
Guidance by doctrine would have some advantages. It might bring coherence of plan, and encourage sticking to a course of action rather than being buffeted off course by the next little crisis. It would also mean that electors could at least to some extent rely on what parties promised in manifestos that indicated their doctrines.
On the other hand, doctrines may become too rigid and encourage foolish courses of action "because this is the kind of party we are". Political doctrines are fallible guides, unlike the word that St John saw as the mind of God. Doctrines are also abstract and indefinite, ineffectual in themselves, far from the gritty reality of action. (This is one way to read what bothered Faust about St John.) And they are open to reinterpretation - which makes them a great tool of justification after the event.
So do we want politicians of principle, or of practicality? Is there a middle way, of flexible doctrine but not so flexible that it does nothing useful? Perhaps we should pick politicians with plenty of practical wisdom but no doctrinal commitments. Or perhaps the best politicians are the ones who do not do much at all.
