Common ground

In Quest of Uncommon Ground: beyond impoverished metaphor and the impotence of words of power (Part #2)

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Challenge: Many initiatives in response to potential conflict are now based on a search for "common ground". What ground is implied by this phrase? Where such ground is sought based on an implicit metaphor such as a "town square" or "village common", this objective needs to be challenged in terms of its over-simplicity. The use of "common" suggests that, as in the town square, it is a space well-known to all and naturally shared in some way. There is even a note of condescension implying that such ground may be common to the point of being banal, if not vulgar. It is readily assumed that the only challenge is to acknowledge its commonality and use it as a central place of reference in responding to differences that emerge. This approach is applied optimistically to intractable conflict situations such as Jerusalem, Northern Ireland and Bosnia. Given the dramatic rise in organized crime, notably in Eastern Europe, what common ground to be sought in articulating civil society?

Potential: Little attention is paid to the possibility that the transformative potential of "common ground" may be associated with a form of "ground" which is a major challenge to understanding. Whilst what can be fruitfully understood may indeed be "simple" in its commonality, it may well be simple in the sense that fundamental theories of physics, or spiritual insights, are simple. That kind of simplicity is only understood after extensive exploration and experience -- and the exclusion of misleading interpretations which may appear satisfactory from some perspectives. In this sense, the much sought ground with transformative potential is distinctly uncommon, although once recognized its commonality is readily acknowledged. However, simplistic approaches to "common ground" serve only to obscure the nature of this common ground, facilitating premature conceptual closure on what is a continuing challenge to human society. Representing and communicating the nature of this uncommon ground will continue to be a challenge to the most creative in society -- however readily individuals may intuit its existence. (Aspects of the conceptual challenge are illustrated by the fact that Uncommon Ground is the title of a book, edited in 1996 by William Cronon, concerned with rethinking the human place in nature; to further confuse the issue, it is also the title of a 1994 report by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith concerned with links between anti-semitic extremist groups)

Example: Jerusalem is characteristic of a situation in which claimants claim the totality of the common ground -- in contrast to the many simpler negotiating situations in which some sharing may be envisaged. It is precisely what makes the ground "sacred" to a given faith that undermines simpler approaches to "common ground" -- in a special sense it is an ethnic "homeland". These dimensions take "common ground" out of its metaphoric two-dimensions, so easily enshrined in legalese, and call for other levels of understanding.

With respect to Jerusalem, given, its profound and fundamental symbolic significance, the key question is how the Jerusalem which is commonly held to be of such great symbolic importance is related to the land measurable by a surveyor. Is the symbolic Jerusalem to be solely understood through what are effectively Euclidean and Newtonian perspectives? Or does that Jerusalem call for a depth of understanding which is more closely analogous to concepts associated with complex geometries and fundamental physics -- which are a real challenge to the understanding? In this sense, does not the conventional Euclidean/Newtonian approach effectively demean what is essential to the symbolic and spiritual significance of Jerusalem and all that it represents? Can those who would defend the profundity of insight underlying the importance attached to Jerusalem truly believe that this insight can be validly expressed through conceptual frameworks that are many orders of magnitude less complex than those required for fundamental physics (in understanding atomic structure) or for astronomers (in understanding cosmic phenomena)?

The question is whether there are not multidimensional understandings of Jerusalem which totally legitimate a number of seeming incompatible or incommensurable understandings of Jerusalem. Such richer multidimensional understandings would justify particular interpretations, each apparently incompatible with the other. In the case of physics, an example is the "wave vs. particle" understandings of light. Both are correct at one level, but their reconciliation is a fundamental challenge to comprehension -- even for those with long training in physics and mathematics. Given the symbolic importance of Jerusalem, is it to be expected that comprehending its psycho-cultural significance should be less or more complex than that required to understand the nature of light? It is in this sense that the "common ground" is highly "uncommon" -- although this representational complexity does not deny the simplicity with which its commonality may be intuited.

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