Rings of Discourse

This weekend I spent several hours working through dozens of screenshots of old books, trimming them and putting them through the sketch filter of a photo editor to make them black and white, then pasting them into documents so they are readable and printable.   This is one of the ways I take notes on books I have read, similar to the highlighting function on the Kindle but way less efficient.    I had a back-log of these from reading over the last year and it was a fairly soothing project to sit down in between going to monastic high mass, playing a boardgame called Nemesis 2 with my family, and talking to granddaughters who were here overnight.  

Many of the books I annotated this way were about the Vatican II Council and its aftermath, some were about theology, and almost all of them mentioned Cardinal Newman somewhere.   

I'll probably have more to say about them as I go through them more carefully now that they are easier to read.  Some of them I didn't even remember reading.  Which is why it makes sense to at least save parts that struck me at the time, even if it did pass right out of my memory.

Playing board games with my husband and two of the younger adult sons, I sometimes reflect about the differences between their approach to games, differences both from each other and from me.   With such a small and specific group of people I don't think I could make any useful generalizations, and I won't try.  

 But I do notice that discourse styles play a big part in some  online discussions, Catholic and otherwise, polarized and otherwise.   I don't think it can be broken down into female vs male, or by temperament, or even by political inclination or level of education or intelligence.    

But I think it's safe to say that many people adopt the discourse style that seems most likely to be successful in the group they want to belong to.    I think it's perfectly natural, almost to the extent of having biological roots.   But like other biologically rooted inclinations, in humans it can be problematic if taken to extremes.  

CS Lewis talked about the Inner Ring.   

....I can assure you that in whatever hospital, inn of court, diocese, school, business, or college you arrive after going down, you will find the Rings—what Tolstoy calls the second or unwritten.  All this is rather obvious. I wonder whether you will say the same of my next step, which is this. I believe that in all men’s lives at certain periods, and in many men’s lives at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside. .... 

The internet, of course, exacerbates this struggle to find one's tribe, to belong to it, not to be excluded, to make sure the boundaries are there even if they are not drawn clearly, and that the boundaries enclose you and do not keep you out.    You can see it in a hundred different commentaries on the effects of social media.   You can see it in many conflicts.

Again, like all human desires, this one is in itself not a bad thing.  It just IS.  CS Lewis:

 I am not going to say that the existence of Inner Rings is an Evil. It is certainly unavoidable. .....But the desire which draws us into Inner Rings is another matter. A thing may be morally neutral and yet the desire for that thing may be dangerous.

He goes on in the essay to invite the listener to make a choice, which is the take away point here, I suppose.     During Advent the Church cautioned us to be watchful, and in Lent we are going to be advised to be watchful again, over our own proclivities that can lead to danger if we are unguarded.    Lewis says that the person not aware of the possibility of being drawn in by this desire is probably already being influenced by it.  

My original train of thought was about the dialects or languages of the different circles, which after all is the main evidence available when reading things on the internet.    The Underground Grammarian, Richard Mitchell, used to warn about the role of syntax in power maneuvres and things haven't improved since the 70's when he wrote.   Orwell and others called out the use of "wooden language" in politics.      Those are some genres that have been documented but sub-dialects of various types, some benign and others not so much, multiply constantly.      It is something to be aware of.