In a first year undergraduate philosophy class in the Fall of 1993, I heard a Belfast teaching assistant ask If you were in a lifeboat with six seats and seven people on board, who would you throw overboard? They added an ethical wrinkle, identifying the lifeboat passengers as the following: Hitler, a newborn baby, an elderly woman, your best friend, Gandhi, a random stranger, and you.
I’d been around people who think about the subterranean depths and metaphysical heights of life, who work for peace and think about how to prevent or reduce violence, and promote reconciliation, and my instinctive response says more about what such mentors had taught me to imagine than what I was capable of doing. Nonetheless my instinct was to respond that the only person I could throw overboard would be me - that the only legitimate scapegoating is when I let myself be scapegoated as a way of protecting those more vulnerable than me. And if I jumped overboard it's entirely possible that one or more of the others in the boat would offer to take turns, rotating with me in the water every fifteen minutes or so.
Brian Ammons has a different perspective:
Gareth's take, that the only possible answer is to jump over yourself, fails to recognize that the pragmatic solution to save the most lives might be for Gareth to stay in the boat and paddle. Sometimes the harder choice might be to claim that what you can offer is important and vital to claim. Gareth's second approach, which is to think outside the box and take turns holding onto the side of the boat, offers an interesting way forward — though I’ve only ever heard the lifeboat dilemma presented as going through shark infested waters in order to eliminate that possibility and make it a forced choice.
What strikes me as important is not that you choose to jump yourself, but that you are willing to thoughtfully consider that jumping yourself may be the best choice — which also means it may not be.
And that, it seems to me, is a perfect of example of the only things we should be fighting about: how best to nurture the possibilities of love and courage toward the common good.
Brian may be more “right” than me, or vice versa; but I suspect we both have a bit of what’s wisest here. Anyway it’s far more interesting to jump into the creative competition of working with a dilemma not as a way of defeating another person, but of discovering a bigger truth that makes more space for all of us.
I’ve heard it suggested that in the future, the human tendency toward war will have evolved instead into championing large-scale competitive games whose purpose serves the common good. Perhaps in a few centuries (or sooner) the nations that used to be Iran and what used to be Canada (or other entities that used to be called “nations”) won’t try to conquer each other, but will rival to conquer cancer, hunger, or other injustices.
Perhaps the next idea-conflict I have with a friend can be an opportunity for each of us to grow, rather than for merely one of us to “win”.
If you want to explore this and other elements of transformative storytelling, we have some in-person options in the near future.
September 2024 - Los Angeles and Austin
I’m doing three in-person events with Kathleen Norris to launch our book A Whole Life in Twelve Movies: A Cinematic Path to a Deeper Spirituality - all are open to the public - we’ll post final details soon. If you’re in the area we’d love to see you: please come and say hello.
Sunday September 29th, 2pm-4pm: First Congregational Church of Los Angeles
Monday September 20th, 7-8:30pm: Vroman’s Bookstore, Pasadena
Tuesday October 1st, evening (time tbc): St Mark’s Episcopal Church, Austin (TX)
Here’s some more about A Whole Life in Twelve Movies
To everyone who writes, performs, sculpts, paints, builds, or otherwise creates for a living: thank you for stepping into the flow of what can make the world better. And thank you to everyone who supports the work that lots of us are trying to do in that regard.
Creativity woven into the common good is a gift and a pleasure, sometimes a struggle, and many of us who write or otherwise (co)create for a living find it hardest of all to get the word out about what we're doing.
But in the spirit of the same gift, I want to say two things:
1: If your work is worth doing, it's worth sharing. The marketplace lies about the value of creative work - some of the most beautiful, life-giving, meaningful stuff finds only a vanishingly small audience; and some of the most popular stuff isn't what we most need.
2: I have a book coming out in a few weeks, and I'd like to tell you about it.
Beginning this week we're gathering readers who are interested in joining the Launch Team for A Whole Life in Twelve Movies, which will be published on October 15th.
Kathleen and I invite you along as we discuss how cinema can help us reflect on our lives, and even live better - from before birth to death and beyond.
You can help us introduce our book to the world - and I'm so grateful if you do.
If you join the Launch Team you'll receive:
An advance digital copy of the book
Access to a private Facebook group for discussion and collaboration
Live book discussion with us over Zoom
I hope you will join us! Click here for more details on how to join the team.
PS: We still have a very small number of spaces left on our Ireland retreat this October, with Kaitlin Curtice, Micky ScottBey Jones, Brian Ammons and me. Details are at www.irelandretreats.com - we can offer an extended payment plan if you need it to join us; but you should apply soon.
Gareth Higgins is an Irish writer and co-founder of The Porch. www.garethhiggins.net