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Draft: comments and criticismswill be most welcome.

Agonism, Meliorism, and Conflict ResolutionIn William James's Political Theory

William R. CasparyGallatin School at NYU

February 14, 2014

Prepared for Presentation atS.A.A.P Annual Conference

Denver, CONew York

March 7, 2014

William James's meliorist approach to social and political

change has much to offer our times. He proposes bold and creative

political action on behalf of our ideals, tempered by keen awareness

of the dangers of our blindness to the ideals of others.i Several

recent commentators have richly and accurately explained and

interpreted James's political thought (Cotkin, Ferguson, Miller,

Connolly). I draw extensively on their work, developing the thesis

that the current idea of “agonistic democracy” is a close fit to

James's meliorist thought and helps to clarify it. I hope to make an

additional contribution by interpreting James's approach to conflict

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resolution, which is stated in his “Moral Philosopher” essay, and

exemplified and amplified in his “Moral Equivalent of War” essay. I

view this as a crucial element of James's melioristic and agonistic

politics, not as apart from or in tension with it.

James and Democratic Agonism

Kennan Ferguson finds a strong resonance between agonistic

democracy and James's outlook. Where other self-styled pluralists,

are devoted to overcoming difference, Ferguson says, James celebrates

it. “James held contestation as necessary for the fulfillment of

human character” (Ferguson:27). “He wanted to see ideas he disagreed

with fully realized” (8). But this generates a tension. Joshua

Miller asks, how can we, as James requires of us, both passionately

advocate our own ideals, and appreciate deeply the ideals of our

adversaries? (Miller:92). By way of an answer, Miller construes

Jamesian empathy in the language of “agonistic respect,” quoting

William Connolly's formulation: “Sometimes one shows respect for

another by confronting him with alternative interpretations of

himself, sometimes by just letting him be, sometimes by pursuing

latent possibilities of commonality, sometimes by respecting her as

the indispensable adversary whose contending identity gives

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definition to contingencies in one's own way of being”

(Connolly,1991:179; Miller:73).

Each specific process in this list does, indeed, correspond to

an aspect of James's approach. 1. James forcefully asserts his

commitment to tolerance, at the close of “A Certain Blindness.” This

is equivalent to Connoly's “just letting him be.” 2. James makes a

concerted effort, in “The Moral Equivalent of War,” to understand and

express the essence of the spirit of military virtue. This offers

the military party an accurate but subtly reframed mirroring. In

Connolly's terms, it confronts the other with an “alternative

interpretation of [it]self.” 3. James's reflects, in “The Moral

Equivalent,” on the mediocrity and loss of vitality of “a world of

clerks.” This reconsideration exhibits the illumination of his own

views cast by his encounter with the military party. It illustrates

Connolly's category of the “contending identity . . . [which] gives

definition to contingencies in one's own way of being.” Finally,

James's effort to construct a “moral equivalent” of war is precisely

Connolly's “pursuing latent possibilities of commonality.”

Democratic agonism, as expressed in the quotations, above,

emphasizes individual character development through confronting

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others' ideas and values, in the public arena. But democratic

agonism is also about social and political action; about influencing

the choice of the policies, institutions, and theories that will

shape our lives. James addresses this aspect of agonism in his

“meliorist” approach.

James's Meliorism

Meliorism for James has several components:

First, James takes a voluntarist stance in opposition to

philosophical determinism and political fatalism. He urges citizens

to advocate and struggle for the realization of their values in the

world. Political change, James asserts, always has been and will be

the result of the impassioned advocacy – by committed individuals and

their followings. And he argues that the world is malleable – is

responsive to our efforts.

Second, essential to James's philosophy is his pluralism: the

world of ideals is plural beyond the capacity of any concept or

theory to encompass its full extent. Thus he rejects totalizing

theories and projects which lead to and justify oppression. James's

philosophical and theological pluralism also has a political cast.

Third, as a consequence of the first two positions, James

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advocates piecemeal reform.

Fourth, as a consequence of the pragmatist theory of truth,

these reforms are to be conducted as experiments.

According to James's agonism and meliorism, everyone with an

ideal, and the energy to pursue it, should contend in the public

arena for the realization of that ideal. But what of ideals that

cause harm to others, that restrict their freedom, that lead to their

subjection under tyranny? James's answer has two parts.

Agonistic Respect and Tolerance

James would not exclude such advocacy from the public arena, but

he contends against it in his eloquent appeal for tolerance in “On a

Certain Blindness.” James does not make absolute normative claims

that tolerance is a duty binding on all human agents. Instead, he

conducts discourse through memoir, fictional narrative, and poetic

speech. Thus James's essay can be seen as a contribution to the

rhetoric of agonistic democracy, and not to normative ethics.

Through this rhetoric, he hopes to awaken in us a sense that others –

who seem to us so opaque, lacking in worth – have depths and ideals,

spirits and souls, aspirations and passions. He seeks to evoke, not

compel, tolerance in us by thus awakening us.

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James believes that such toleration would have “the most

tremendous practical importance. . . The forgetting of it lies at the

root of every stupid and sanguinary mistake that rulers over subject-

peoples make. . . No one has insight into all the ideals. No one

should presume to judge them off-hand. The pretension to dogmatize

about them in each other is the root of most human injustices and

cruelties, and the trait in human character most likely to make the

angels weep.”

James's rhetoric of tolerance, and his claim for the benefits it

will yield, can be seen as the first of two crucial parts of James's

melioristic theory of social change.

II. Contending Ideals and Conflict Resolution

Though toleration would alleviate “most human injustices and

cruelties,” James recognizes another major arena for political action

i James uses virtually interchangeably the terms, “ideals,” “demands,” and

“satisfactions.” The latter two terms suggest a Utilitarian approach,

which James explicitly disavows. I have chosen, therefore, to use the

term ideals throughout. I believe that I acquired this approach from the

writing of Ruth Anna Putnam, though I do not have that text in front of

me at the time of this writing.

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and theory. Ideals which are not essentially unjust and cruel,

nonetheless contend for limited resources (MP). Advocates will

promote these conflicting ideals in the public sphere and some will

prevail over others. In the Jamesian struggle among spirited

advocates of opposed values and policies, what prevents the worse

from vanquishing the better? James has two answers to this question,

one descriptive, drawing on evolutionary theory, and the other

prescriptive – the progenitor of the modern practice of conflict-

resolution.ii

Social Evolution

James argues that social innovations and the victories of their

advocates, are essentially random, by analogy to random biological

variations. What is crucial in social as well as biological

evolution, James insists, is the selective pressures. Those

ii James may have had a direct effect on Mary Parker Follett, who

studied at Harvard during James's time there, and who is seen as a

founder of conflict-resolution as understood and practiced today.

In any case, conflict-resolution in Follett's presentation and in

today's texts bears an almost point for point similarity to James

proposals (Follett, 1924, 1942; Fisher and Ury).

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innovations survive which the “common people then adopt” “Society

has shaken itself into one sort of relative equilibrium after another

by a series of social [innovations] . . . Polyandry and polygamy and

slavery, private warfare and liberty to kill, judicial torture and

arbitrary royal power have slowly succumbed to actually aroused

complaints; and though some one's ideals are unquestionably the worse

off for each improvement, yet a vastly greater total number of them

find shelter in our civilized society than in the older savage ways”

(MP:205).(SV:109).

This descriptive theory of social evolution raises urgent

questions: Can we depend on, and, if so, must we wait for this

alleged long term tendency of the common people to adopt the richer

value universe? The Philosopher's Role: Might the philosopher intervene in

this process with theoretically informed judgements of which ideals

are most just, most conducive to human fulfillment? In “The Moral

Philosopher and the Moral Life,” James argues compellingly against

any account of moral truth which would confer this role on the

philosopher. Every philosopher is a finite situated human being who

can not grasp the full range of values or judge impartially among

them. She has no philosophical method which gives her privileged

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access to moral truth. The philosopher can not be a legislator. As

soon as he prescribes certain values, he becomes an advocate like

any other citizen. How then are philosophers, or reflective

citizens, to judge whether the victories of particular advocacy

groups have led to human betterment?

Having posed this challenge, James answers: “But do we not

already see a perfectly definite path of escape? . . . Since every

[ideal] which is demanded is by that fact a good, must not the

guiding principle for ethical philosophy (since all [ideals]

conjointly cannot be satisfied in this poor world) be simply to

satisfy at all times as many [ideals] as we can?iii . . . Since

victory and defeat there must be, the victory to be philosophically

prayed for is that of the more inclusive side – of the side which

iii “As many ideals as we can” suggests that ideals are

commensurable and countable. This is clearly problematic. James,

shifts, however, to a qualitative formulation in terms of “richer”

experience, and “more inclusiveness.” Later in the paper I

elucidate what “richer” and “more inclusive” might mean. I suggest

avenues for dealing with this difficulty, and do not attempt an

analytical argument justifying James's conceptions.

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even in the hour of triumph will to some degree do justice to the

ideals in which the vanquished party's interests lay.”

James's Conclusion: General Principle of Conflict Resolution

From these philosophical conclusions, James derives and

advocates a strategy of agonistic/melioristic political action: “Invent

some manner of realizing your own ideals which will also satisfy the

alien demands . . . !” (MP). No longer is James's philosopher the

observer who watches society progress through evolutionary

competition and selection. He is now the advocate of a specific

strategy for achieving a better society by promoting a richer harvest

of realized ideals. This is clearly stated and intended as a

general strategy embracing all issues where ideals are in conflict.

It is meant to be a central and momentous strategy, offering a potent

path toward social betterment. But this bare abstract formula needs

to fleshed out before it can be understood and evaluated. James does

this in “The Moral Equivalent of War.”

James's Conflict Resolution Method

“The Moral Equivalent of War” is often read narrowly as

addressed only to war and to the strenuous life, nor does James

generalize it explicitly. Nonetheless, if we read the “Moral

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Philosopher” essay and the “Moral Equivalent” essay together, James's

strategy in addressing the war issue is precisely the one he

announces generally: “invent some manner of realizing your own ideals

which will also satisfy the alien demands.” And he does explicitly

generalize one aspect of his procedure, urging us to “do that first

in any controversy,” as we will see shortly.

Understanding the Other: Before inventing a moral equivalent, James

feels the necessity to fully, deeply, and respectfully understand the

other. While making no secret of his allegiance to the peace party,

James devotes ingenuity and energy to understanding his adversaries,

the military party. “I will try to characterize . . . the opposite

[party's] imaginative forces” (ME:663). James elects to focus only

on “the higher aspects” of the ideals of the military party. He

seeks to understand the “soul” of the “patriotic” and “romantic”

ideals of militarism. James hopes that he has plumbed “the

innermost soul” of military ideals (665). These “ethical and

aesthetic insistencies, “James says, “have “to be listened to and

respected” (666).

James's attempt to understand the mind/soul of the military

party was no casual one, Ralph Barton Perry tells us, but the result

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of extensive study. Evidence of James's ongoing investigation

“remains in the form of two boxes containing bibliography, pamphlets,

and letters” (Perry:272). James writes that “certain persons do

exist with an enormous capacity for friendship and for taking delight

in other people's lives; and . . . know more of truth than if their

hearts were not so big” (LS:131). James's biographer, Perry asserts

that James was just this sort of exceptional individual. “It was

part of his genius to find something within [each person] when others

failed to find it” (Perry:282). Kennan Ferguson is impressed with

the “exceptional empathy” James developed “for the militaristic

viewpoint” (Ferguson:7-8). For William Connolly, Jamesian pluralism

provides precisely the outlook and resources for coupling the

passionate affirmation of one's own ideal with “agonistic respect”

for the ideals of the other (Connolly, 2005:ch. 3). James alludes to

– though he does not theorise – the value gain for the one in

“agonistic respect” for another – “a sense of widening of vision,”

through “enlarg[ing one's] sympathetic insight into fellow-lives”

(LS).

Reframing: James does not merely literally reproduce the ideals

and arguments of the military party. He casts them in a new light by

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distilling out the ideals of virtue, honor, strenuousness,

commitment, and so on, which might be pursued in another context than

war. He reframes the ideals of the other.

Dialogue: Although his essay is a soliloquy, James imagines having

a dialogue with the adversary. He can now show the others a genuine

understanding of their point of view, and this should establish a

mutuality from which further exploration can proceed. Parties in

controversy “ought to enter more deeply into the aesthetical and

ethical point of view of their opponents. Do that first in any

controversy, says J. J. Chapman, then move the point, and your

opponent will follow.”iv

Invention: Reframing and dialogue point toward the discovery of

common ground, but do not in any way guarantee this. Often there is

no existing social form in which the ideals of both parties can be

iv James's source is is John Jay Chapman, “Froebel,” in Causes and

Consequences, p. 110: “If you wish to convince him that you are

right, concede that from his point of view he is right, then move

the point and he follows.” [Chapman traces this idea to Froebel.

Perhaps, given the great influence of Rousseau on Froebel, the germ

of the idea can even be traced back to Rousseau.]

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realized. A new one must, then, be invented. Each moral equivalent,

in each unique conflict situation, is something new under the sun – a

policy or structure not previously imagined. When proposing his

service corps, James says: “If now — and this is my idea — there were,

instead. . .” This is an invention, springing from James's imagination, in

his effort to resolve a particular social tension. James's

Pragmatism – with its emphasis on a malleable world, and on the

corrigibility of all truths – creates a space for creative

imagination to play this central role. As Myers recognizes, “James's

social ethic is distinguished by a fresh attack and the absence of

stereotyped suggestions . . . The sense of a need for creative

approaches is contagious” (Myers:445). Many social tensions appear

to us to be intractable conflicts, struggles between mutually

exclusive positions. Only the power of creative imagination can

offer novel options that will transform these situations into ones

capable of resolution.v

Creative innovations, James points out, arise in the

unstructured musings of exceptional minds. “Instead of thoughts of

concrete things patiently following one another in a beaten track of

habitual suggestion, we have the most abrupt cross-cuts and

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transitions from one idea to another, the most rarified abstractions

and discriminations, the most unheard-of combinations of elements,

the subtlest associations of analogy . . . a seething caldron of

ideas . . . fizzling and bobbing about in a state of bewildering

activity, where partnerships can be joined or loosened in an

instant . . . and the unexpected seems the only law” (GM:248).

Although this passage refers to innovation generally, it is a small

step to apply this specifically to inventing moral equivalents.

Mutually Satisfactory Resolution. James proposes, in particular, a

service corps in which the virtues of the military life can be

sustained in peaceful activity. This was a proposal to persuade the

military party that despite the loss of their ideal of warfare, the

ideals of human character and conduct realized in warfare would still

be preserved. Presented in the context of a specific issue, this is

nonetheless an instance of James's general principle. James applied

v Both Stephen Fesmire, and Mark Johnson have written important books

on moral imagination – though referring more to John Dewey than to

his fellow pragmatist, William James (Fesmire, Johnson). See also

Paulo Freire's concept of the “untested feasibility” beyond

perceived “limit situations” (Freire).

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his strategy to an issue of enormous scope and deep entrenchment, so

it is little wonder that the proposed resolution never occurred. The

article is better seen as an articulation of a general approach

applicable to smaller settings – to the piecemeal changes that his

meliorism calls for. Though it was not a sufficient answer to the

war impulse, James's creative idea was eventually significantly

enacted on a national level – in the Civilian Conservation Corps, The

Peace Corps, and Vista.

A Path to Social Betterment in a Malleable World

James's conflict resolution perspective poses this general

question: In our world replete with bitter and often lethal

conflicts – theological, territorial, resource, economic, social

class, racial, ethnic, and ideological – do there exist common ground

solutions to any but marginal clashes? James, in his meliorism,

insists that the world is malleable, but this is too broad an answer.

His more specific answer is in two parts. First, with regard to

tolerance – the first element of his strategy – he believes that

tolerance is an inherent potential in human beings, which can be

elicited by appropriate rhetorical and activist strategies. The

success of the nonviolent civil rights movement in the United States

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in eliciting widespread sympathy among a (non-southern) constituency

with majority voting power is suggestive evidence for James's view.

Second, with regard to value conflict generally, he asks us to think

of a malleable world subject to creative invention. Within the limits of

present day social forms, many social conflicts may indeed be utterly

incapable of resolution. But human beings can invent new social

forms. In “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life,” James makes

cryptic but pregnant suggestions about larger forms of social

organization. He speaks of “the more and more inclusive order,”

“the richer universe . . . the good which seems most organizable,

most fit to enter to complex combinations, most apt to be a member of

a more inclusive whole” (MP:205, 210; also 208). This echoes the

idea of a “secondarily rational shape” in James's meliorist account

of social change (P:137).

Can we anticipate, in more specific terms than James provides,

what such a novel inclusive order might look like? Can this make it

seem more possible?

First, we can return James's own example of a service corps.

This is a specific institution within the persisting macroscopic

social organization, but that is consistent with the piecemeal change

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aspect of James's meliorism. James's proposed service corps gives us

a concrete instance from which we can articulate what might comprise

a “richer universe.” The New Deal version of James's service corps,

the Civilian Conservation Corps, provided unemployed men with work

creating trails and building lodgings in National Parks, and

reforesting eroded lands. It preserved natural resources which

provide for human needs. It provided facilities for people to

experience recreation – and perhaps spiritual enrichment from

immersion in nature. It brought young men from different communities

together, increasing contact and communication and expanding

perspectives. It offered skill acquisition and further education to

its workers – increasing the range of ideals which they might realize

in their subsequent lives. It brought a modest income and a sense of

hope to the families, and their communities, to which the young

workers were required to remit a part of their earnings. This was a

novel form of organization that released far more energies than were

invested in creating and maintaining it. It created, in its own

small region of society, the “richer universe,” “complex

combinations,” and more “inclusive order” that James proposes.

Second, though James does not specifically mention democracy or

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education as providing richer order, the connection is inescapable.

Participation and representation of all citizens in the political

process permits the expression and enactment of the ideals of a

greater number of people. As agonistic political theory insists,

participation in deliberating and determining the choices of one's

society is itself a good. So democracy is both means and end for

James's inclusive order. Indeed, James espouses a “reasoned faith in

radical democracy” (Weber:105). For James, “democracy is a kind of

religion, and we are bound not to admit its failure” (SV:109; quoted

by Miller:106; also LS:136). Education is an essential preparation

for democratic participation. It is a good in itself, and a means to

recognizing and acquiring a range of other goods. It must have a

prominent place in any account of inclusive order, and James, indeed,

gives it that place in his writing (Miller:ch. 5).

Third, many new inclusive social forms have been invented in

recent times, some microscopic, and some of considerable scale.

These include participatory budgeting, micro-credit, European

corporatist solutions to the problem of inflation, the Finnish

educational system, the modern practice of conflict-resolution and

mediation and organized dialogue and deliberation, grassroots

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community organizing, workplace democracy, the Harlem Children's

Zone, and many others.vi Indeed a longer view of history can be seen

as a sequence of innovation in social forms, of which universal

public education, the modern democratic state, and the international

organization are but a few examples.

Fourth, there are today's visionary cyber-social theorists.

Steven Johnson and others have noted that the internet was invented

as a distributed peer-to-peer network (S. Johnson; see also Kelly,

Standage). This is an unprecedented social form, that is different

both from existing centralized and decentralized systems. Lewis Hyde

has proposed the idea of an intellectual commons (Hyde). Could the

rich interconnectivity provided by these new forms permit “complex

combinations,” and release potentialities for action and expression

far “richer” than has heretofore been possible?

Conclusion

James gave his conflict resolution principles as important a

place in his philosophical work as he claimed for them in the world

of social action. His pragmatist theory of knowledge was a mediation

between the tender minded and the tough minded temperaments. Our

vi See, for example, Abers, Caspary, Katzenstein, Krimerman and Lindenfeld, Siriani, Robert D. Putnam, Whyte.

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task as thinkers, James writes, is “simply to offer mediation between

different believers, and help to bring about consensus of opinion.

[We] can do this the more successfully, the better [we] discriminate

the common and essential from the individual and local elements of

the religious beliefs which we compare” (from Varieties of Religious

Experience, quoted by Seigfried, in Langsdorf & Smith, eds.

Recovering Pragmatism’s Voice, 1995 p. 128). This is the task that

James, himself, adopted and pursued throughout his life. His

dedication to the task underscores his proposal: that conflict-

resolution, as he has elaborated it, should be an essential and

immensely productive aspect of a melioristic and agonistic politics.

References

Works by William James

CB: “On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings,” in Talks to Teachers on

Psychology, and to Students

on Some of Life's Ideals. (reprint of 1899 ed'n). New York:

Dover., 1962.

GM: “Great Men and Their Environment,” 1880, in Will to Believe and

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Other Essays in Popular

Philosophy. (reprint of 1897 ed'n). New York: Dover, 1956.

LS: “What Makes a Life Significant,” in Talks to Teachers.

ME: “The Moral Equivalent of War,” in The Writings of William James.

John J. McDermott, ed.

Chicago: U. Chicago Press.

MP: “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life,” in The Will to

Believe.

P: Pragmatism A New Name for Some Old Ways Of Thinking (1907), in

Pragmatism, and The

Meaning of Truth, Cambridge: Harvard U. Press, 1975.

SV: “The Social Value of the College Bred,” in Essays, Comments, and

Reviews. Cambridge: Harvard

U. Press, 1987.

Commentaries on James's Thought

Cotkin, George (1994). William James Public Philosopher. Bloomington:

U. of Illinois Press.

Ferguson, Kennan (2007). William James: Politics in the Pluriverse.

Rowman and Littlefield.

Miller, Joshua (1997). Democratic Temperament: The Legacy of William

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James. Lawrence: U. Press of Kansas.

Myers, Gerald (1986) William James. New Haven, Yale University Press.

Perry, Ralph Barton (1996). The Thought and Character of William

James. Nashville: Vanderbilt U.

Press.

Putnam, Ruth Anna (1990). “The Moral Life of a Pragmatist.” In

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Owen J. Flanagan, and Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, eds. New York:

Bradford Books. pp. 67-89.

Weber, Eric Thomas (2009). “James, Dewey, and Democracy,” William

James Studies. IV, pp. 90-110.

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Abers, Rebecca (2000). Inventing Local Democracy: Grassroots Politics

in Brazil, Boulder: Lynne

Reinner.

Chapman, John Jay (1898). Causes and Consequences. New York:

Scribners.

Connolly, William E. (2002). Identity/Difference: Democratic

Negotiations of Political Paradox.

(expanded ed'n). Minneapolis: U. Minnesota Press.

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Connolly, William E. (2005). Pluralism. Durham: Duke U. Press.

Fesmire, Steven (2003). John Dewey and Moral Imagination,

Bloomington, IN: Indiana University

Press.

Fisher, Roger & William Ury (1981). Getting to Yes: Negotiating

Agreement Without Giving In. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Follett, Mary Parker (1924). Creative Experience. New York:

Longmans, Green & Co.

Follett, Mary Parker (1942). Dynamic Administration: The Collected

Papers of Mary Parker Follett H. Metcalf & L. Urwick (eds.).

New York: Harper.

Freire, Paulo (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Hyde, Lewis (2010). Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership.

New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux.

Johnson, Mark (1993). Moral Imagination: Implications of Cognitive

Science for Ethics. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press.

Johnson, Steven (2012). Future Perfect: The Case for Progress in a

Networked Age. New York: Penguin.

Katzenstein, Peter J. (1984). Corporatism and Change: Austria,

Switzerland, and the Politics of

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Industry. Ithica: Cornell U. Press.

Kelly, Kevin (2010). What Technology Wants. New York, Penguin.

Krimerman, Len, and Frank Lindenfeld, eds. (1992). When Workers

Decide : Workplace Democracy

Takes Root in North America, Philadelphia: New Society

Publishers.

Putnam, Robert D. (1993). Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in

Modern Italy. Princeton:

Princeton U. Press

Sirianni, Carmen (2009). Investing in Democracy: Engaging Citizens in

Collaborative Governance.

Brookings.

Standage, Tom (2013). Writing on the Wall: Social Media, The First

2000 Years. Bloomsbury.

Whyte, William Foote, and Kathleen King (1991). Making Mondragon.

Ithica: Cornell U. Press.