Live with Beth Mackintosh: The Young and the Young at Heart - Exploring Human Capacities for „Widely Extended Sympathy“ (Midgley)
Thank you to everyone who listened to Beth and me chatting about the idea of the inner child and working with actual children! Here are the quotes from Midgley’s Animals and Why They Matter that inspired us again in full:
On the Species-Barrier
[…] the species-barrier there, imposing though it may look, is rather like one of those tall wire fences whose impressiveness is confined to their upper reaches. To an adult in formal dress, engaged on his official statesmanly interactions, the fence is an insuperable barrier.
Down below, where it is full of holes, it presents no obstacle at all. The young of Homo sapiens, like those of the other species present, scurry through it all the time. Since all human beings start life as children, this has the quite important consequence that hardly any of us, at heart, sees the social world as an exclusively human one. (Midgley, Animals and Why They Matter, p. 118.)
This is one of Midgley’s many evocative pictures and she uses it to tease out one of the constitutive elements of the mixed community. Membership to such a community is not organised by some sort of old-fashioned philosophical sorting of live beings according to rules of “people here” and “things over there”, using species membership as a proxy. Rather, certain social practices can take place across species, even if intraspecific occurrence is “more natural”. She mentions play, but also adequate responses to infants such as helping and understanding.
On the inner child and her allies
A few pages later, she links these childish-in-a-good-way traits to a “capacity for widely extended sympathy, for social horizons not limited to one’s familiar group” (AaWTM, 120) that seems part of human nature and suggests that we can keep these traits alive as we mature.
What is more, humanity has been treated so kindly by “Fate” that we can even “extend[] our horizon beyond the social into the ecological”, becoming “true citizens of the world” (ibid.).
I think this is a lot for “just kids”, whether actual or inner ones, to shoulder, especially perhaps when things are getting complicated, environmental conditions harsh and humanity is faced with unpopular choices or affairs. But, for Midgley, they are not alone.
When some portion of the biosphere is rather unpopular with the human race — a crocodile, a dandelion, a stoney valley, a snowstorm, an odd-shaped flint — there are three sorts of human being who are particularly likely still to see point in and befriend it. They are poets, scientists and children. Inside each of us, I suggest, representatives of all these groups may be found. (Midgley, Animals and Why They Matter, p. 145.)
With this quote, we have reached the end of said book, in a chapter called “What Can Matter to Us?”. Midgley says that we can answer that question in a “minimalist” fashion, being careful (perhaps even anxious) not to “waste” our concern, care and attention for others, only agreeing to care for others deserving of our care previously left out in the cold if the inconsistency of doing so becomes “unbearably uncomfortable” (ibid.); and perhaps dropping a few other commitments because of that (think: “I can’t be just vis-à-vis all humans because I started to care about animals.”). But why be so ”minimalist” or “parsimonious”, Midgley asks. Why not take a leaf out of the poet’s, the scientist’s and the children’s books? Why not take the advice of the inner child, the inner scientist and the inner poet?
Her very last sentence states that as for the problem of that choice — between minimalism and a state of mind that would set us up to be able to face the unpopular and become true citizens of the world — she “must leave [her] readers to settle it” (ibid.). So, you can imagine that it was really good fun to talk to another avid reader and interpreter of Midgley — and I would love to hear what you think! I hope the recording is okay and below are some additional resources you might find helpful.
Beth has written an entry on Mary Midgley, Persons and The Moral Community, freely available here [https://www.womeninparenthesis.co.uk/persons-and-the-moral-community/]. In the chat, she mentioned that she found SAPERE [https://www.sapere.org.uk] (soon to be Thoughtful) very helpful in her work with actual young people. If you take a look at Team Wales’ “Programme” tab here [https://www.notesfromabiscuittin.com/wales/], you can find many resources and inspiration for doing workshops with young people, including Beth’s cool short story for young people.
Finally, Notes from a Biscuit Tin has a number of philosophical worksheets [https://www.notesfromabiscuittin.com/philosophy-worksheets/] available for young people, and for the German speaking folks, I wanted to share lyriklab [https://www.lyriklab.org], a great pool of resources for young poets.
That’s it. Thanks for reading and listening or watching. I hope you will have time to join me for my next conversation with Greg McElwain, which will be a deep dive into the mixed community, scheduled for the 10th of December at 4:30 pm (UK time).
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thedrynosedprimate.substack.com [https://thedrynosedprimate.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]
