All posts by Robert M Ellis

About Robert M Ellis

Robert M Ellis is the founder of the Middle Way Society, and author of a number of books on Middle Way Philosophy, including the introductory 'Migglism' and the new Middle Way Philosophy series published by Equinox. A former teacher, he now runs a retreat centre in Wales, Tirylan House, and is in the process of creating a forest garden there.

Network Stimulus Issues 4: Honour and Shame Culture

Network Stimulus, Social Media, Sociology, ,

The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be on Zoom at 7pm UK time on Sun 11th Apr 2021. In this, the fourth and last of our meetings on the Middle Way in moral and political issues, Nina Davies, who is a member of the Middle Way Society, will give a talk on applying the Middle Way to ethical issues involving sex and gender.

Nina introduces her talk as follows: “Muravchik and Shields published their ethnography ‘Trump’s Democrats’ in August 2020. After years of pondering the attraction of Trump, I was convinced by their simple finding that he was a recognisable leader in communities with a traditional ‘honour and shame’ understanding of morality. This started me on a journey of looking at how the gender performance of machismo and misogynistic attitudes bubble up in societies we assume dominated by the ‘Western Liberal’ values. I have considered how honour and shame have become moral framework of social media, where truth and evidence are less important than reputation and status. In my talk I will demonstrate how identifying ‘honour and shame’ morality at work allows a great opportunity for Middle Way Philosophy.”

In this Network meeting there will be a short talk on this topic, followed by questions, then discussion in regionalised breakout groups, and a plenary session at the end. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up. All the videos of previous Network stimulus talks are now indexed on this page. 

Here is the video of the talk:

Suggested questions

These are three questions that may help you think about how you may have experienced an honour and shame morality system:

To what extent are marriage rituals a performance of traditional honour and shame values? Think about the difference in gender and kinship roles and how this may or may not illustrate aspects of honour and shame.

Have you ever felt obliged to return a favour or to show loyalty to a friend or relative? In what way is honour and shame morality at work in this situation?

Are their any circumstances under which would you consider your reputation or the reputation of your company or your team more important than the truth? Would that involve the hiding or disregarding of certain information?

Here are some resources recommended by Nina:

“Stephanie Muravchik – Ricochet” https://ricochet.com/guests/stephanie-muravchik/

“‎The Last Days of August on Apple Podcasts” https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-last-days-of-august/id1258779354

Contrapoints on JK Rowling’s Twitter experience following her ‘gender critical’ posts and article. 

Contemporary examples of traditional honour and shame morality:

“BBC iPlayer – Murdered for Love? Samia Shahid” https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09qjltw/murdered-for-love-samia-shahid

Gypsy Blood documentary, 2012:

Relaunch of the Middle Way Network

Middle Way Society, Video

From 25th April 2021 we will be relaunching our Middle Way Network with autonomous groups, separate talks, and a new website for communication.

New arrangements will be finalized in the meeting on 25th April, which will be the final one for the main meeting of the Network in its current form. If you’re involved in the Network, please get in touch with other people in your region to help agree the best arrangements for meetings before then. If you would like to join, this is a good point to do so – please fill in the form on this page. If you no longer want to be involved, please let us know.

The new sister website for network communication will be found at middlewaysociety.net. Please contact Vijaya (vijaya at middlewaysociety.org) for an early login to help test out and develop the new site.

Network Stimulus Issues 2: Public Health and Covid 19

Ethics, Health, Network Stimulus

The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be on Zoom at 7pm UK time on Sun 28th Feb 2021. In this, the second of our meetings on the Middle Way in moral and political issues, Hannah Bailey-Thomas, who is a doctor working in the British National Health Service and a member of the Middle Way Society, will give a talk on applying the Middle Way to public health in the context of the current Covid 19 pandemic.

Hannah will talk about general perception of personal and social risk and how poor we tend to be at it, and the spectrum of ‘evidence based’—’common sense’ — ‘herd mentality/feelings as facts’. She’ll also then apply this to the issues of mask wearing, lockdown adherence, vaccine uptake, the effects of social media and rule fatigue in the pandemic, with the absolutizations she thinks can be avoided in these areas.

Picture by Mehmagar Dolutmand (Unsplash)

There’ll be a short talk on this topic, followed by questions, then discussion in regionalised breakout groups, and a plenary session at the end. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up. All the videos of previous Network stimulus talks are now indexed on this page. If you would like catch up more with basic aspects of the Middle Way approach, we are also holding a reading group (next on 7th March) which will do this – please contact Jim (at) middlewaysociety.org if you want to join this.

Suggested reflection questions

  1. Where do you tend to sit in the evidence based/common sense/herd mentality/feelings and facts spectrum and what factors tend to shift that for you?
  2. What is your response when challenged with the idea that no human being individually is good at assessing risk? If this is the case how can we address this?
  3. What specific absolutisations have you found yourself indulging in during the pandemic? What has driven that for you?

Suggested further listening

Podcast interview with Sir Harry Burns, former Chief Medical Officer for Scotland (this is pre-Covid, but is about wider public health issues)

Network Stimulus Issues 1: Climate Change

Climate Change, Ethics, Politics

The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be on Zoom at 7pm UK time on Sun 14th Feb 2021. In the last few sessions of our ethics and politics series we will be applying the Middle Way to some specific issues, and climate change is the first of those issues. This will also enable us to have some talks from different speakers. To apply the Middle Way to a particular issue is not to come up with a definite prescription or solution for that issue. In accordance with error focus as an approach, we can be more confident about identifying absolutised assumptions to avoid when approaching the issue than we can about the answers. However, hopefully the discussion will help you examine your own views of the issue.

The massive threat posed by climate change makes it an obvious source of fear, but because it is also a very complex issue, panicked or extreme reactions are the last thing we need. It is possible to recognise the urgency of the issue without panicking, and whilst maintaining a determination to stay in the Middle Way. Robert M. Ellis will suggest various absolutizations that it might be helpful to avoid in approaching climate change – including denialism, extreme pessimism, and sole reliance on one kind of response or solution as the only acceptable one.

There’ll be a short talk on this topic, followed by questions, then discussion in regionalised breakout groups, and a plenary session at the end. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up. On that page you can also find links to all the previous network talks on basic approaches to the Middle Way and to ethics and politics.  If you would like catch up more with basic aspects of the Middle Way approach, we are also holding a reading group (next on 21st Feb) which will do this – please contact Jim (at) middlewaysociety.org if you want to join this.

Here is the video from this session:

Suggested reflection questions

  1. What has been your general emotional response to climate change? Does it tend towards either of the extremes of panic or denial, or have you managed to find some sort of balance?
  2. What kind of response do you tend to favour, and how much weight do you put on that type of response?

Suggested further reading/ listening

There is no shortage of books and articles about climate change out there (do feel free to recommend these in comments). Here are some resources related to the society and the Middle Way. Some of these may now be getting a bit out of date in some respects, given the ever-developing information about climate changes.

Podcast interview with Adam Corner of the Climate Outreach and Information Centre

Podcast interview with Jonathan Porritt

‘Fiddling while the Planet Burns’ blog post by Robert

‘Embracing Extinction’ talk by Stephen Batchelor at our Festival in 2020

Review of ‘Facing Gaia’ by Bruno Latour

Network Stimulus Politics 2: Political Action

Activism, Middle Way Philosophy, Network Stimulus, Politics

The next main meeting of the Middle Way Network will be on Zoom at 7pm UK time on Sun 31st Jan 2021. This will be the second of two sessions on a Middle Way approach to politics. The first session focused on our political values and ideologies, whilst the second one will focus more on the practical dilemmas of political involvement of any kind.

Politics is often seen as an unavoidably polarised, and even corrupting, activity, so how can we manage to continue apply the Middle Way whilst being involved in it? However, at the same time many very important conditions and issues impacting our lives seem to demand political involvement. Much depends on where we start as individuals, and whether we can manage to maintain a sense of balanced perspective when we become politically involved. There is also a spectrum of political activity we can engage in, from merely voting, via online discussion and ‘clicktivism’, to active campaigning, party membership, and even standing for office.

In this session, we’ll be talking about the overall framing issues of finding the Middle Way in political action in the talk and initial Q&A, and the breakout groups should then provide the opportunity to apply this more to your personal situation and share your experience.

There’ll be a short talk on this topic, followed by questions, then discussion in breakout groups, and a plenary session at the end. At the main meeting, for this session only, we will be mixing up the normal regionalised breakout groups to help people get to know each other across the Network. If you’re interested in joining us but are not already part of the Network, please see the general Network page to sign up.  If you would like catch up more with basic aspects of the Middle Way approach, we are also holding a reading group (next on 7th Feb) which will do this – please contact Jim (at) middlewaysociety.org if you want to join this.

Here is the video from this session:

Suggested reflection questions

  1. In what ways have you been politically involved? How easy have you found it to maintain a sense of Middle Way perspective in these political activities?
  2. How do you think you could help set up the conditions for a more Middle Way approach to political activities?

Suggested further reading/ listening

Depolarising politics talk 2: Activists or Quietists?

Migglism, Part 4: ‘Politics’

Truth on the Edge, ch.9