Bear with me on this one... Today a friend of mine attempted to explain to me how, mathematically speaking, you can make something out of nothing. It's called set theory. Not sure I entirely understood it but it think it went something like this... Take any number, say four, it can't be defined as four of something - because we could conceivably have four of anything, making the pure number four the only common element. It also can't be defined mathematically, as 2 + 2 for example, because then we have exactly the same problem for 2. What we need to say is what 4
is because this will allow us to then say
why 2 + 2 = 4.
Fascinatingly this can apparently be done by grouping nothing in a certain way. A mathematical group is called a set (hence set theory), for example multiple's of 2 (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12) or prime numbers (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13), and there is one particular set called, somewhat ominously, the 'empty set'. Perhaps predictably the empty set is a set with nothing in it, it is actually not
strictly nothing, but it does
contain nothing. Think of it like a bag. What becomes apparent is that these bags don't need to contain some object to be distinct from each other. If I take two bags (sets), putting one bag inside the first and another and another bag inside that, but put only one bag inside the the second then, in spite of the fact that there is nothing that isn't a bag (set) inside of them, I can still tell which one is which if they were jumbled up.
So what the hell does that mean? Mathematically I have no idea, I'm not sure I really understood, but as usual my mind flicked to politics and what struck me is how similar political identity can be to this idea of mathematical identity. Political disputes, particularly ideological or nationalist ones - which usually boil down to identity (prescriptive in the former case and descriptive in the latter), often seem to lack content. The conflict seems so pointless, and it is impossible to discern exactly what is motivating either side.
The upcoming elections in Rwanda remind us of a perfect example of this, the substantial difference between hutu and tutsi essentially comprising a twelve centimetre average height disparity and a tolerance for milk. This is clearly no reason for killing 800,000 people, so we tend to explain it in terms of how the two sides are the same. We say, though often tacitly, that there is a universal human tendency to commit vile and horrific acts for very spurious reasons, and this explains it. The fact that the Tutsi
RPF (now the governing party) started the
Rwandan Civil War, and possibly assassinated the president by shooting down his jet, leading eventually to the genocide is usually a good place to start when trying to prove this.
I think this is wrong for two reasons. Firstly it leads to a phenomenon that the brilliant documentary maker Adam Curtis calls
'Oh-Dearism', essentially the tendency for us to give up and stop trying when we think that problems are happening for no reason and are therefore intractable. Secondly it may simply be wrong, and I think set theory can help explain why (if only as a good analogy). The problem is that we are looking for a difference in content to explain the reason for a conflict (and failing, like looking for an
explanation for 4 in 2 + 2), when we actually don't need one.
The real reason for politically or ethnically tribal conflict may in fact be down to the clarity and distribution of boundaries and borders and not the political or ethnic characteristics that the argument is ostensibly about. In other words it is more important when fighting an enemy to know that you
are different than to know
how. When the boundary between you, your group, the people 'like you' and the other individual or group is of the right kind then conflict becomes almost inevitable (given the appropriate means). That probably sounds like a long way of saying the same thing as the old 'look at what you have in common, not what separates you' line that is so popular in modern multicultural politics. In some sense it is, but it doesn't go far enough because it fails to deal with the areas of division, it simply tells people to ignore them in the hope that (because there is no
substance) they will disappear, even though there is no reason to think that they necessarily will.
What is the message then? Should we try to eliminate all distinction between people in an attempt to end conflict? This is certainly what the Soviet Union tried in response to the hugely problematic issue of
ethnic conflict in the former Russian Empire. But, as that example should show, this kind of policy rarely has a happy outcome (although to come back to Rwanda this seems to be what they are
trying now, even if they have avoided persecution and mass deportation as tools so far). So we are back to Oh-Dearism then? Not quite, because in politics, unlike in mathematics, we can make use of those sweet shades of grey. As I have said it is borders, not substantive differences, itself that are the problem - and this is key. The problem is greatly lessened, if not eradicated, by the clear commonly recognised existence of positions (political, ethnic, economic, cultural) between you and your erstwhile opposite. The cause of conflict is not difference, but polarisation of those differences around two implacable opposites that cannot be mixed. Common ground simply in other areas (as per 'focus on what unites, not divides') simply will not do.
This is of course not at all new. Aristotle said something similar, and his version reveals the disturbing fact that the cure in this case might just be worse than the disease. What is needed, so he said, was a middle group to sit in the middle on the issues that would otherwise polarise society and cause damaging division - a group of middle income, middle culture, well tempered sort of individuals. A group of people who have both conservative and progressive tendencies (my words not his) that will bring stability simply by existing between the extremes. Yes that's right folks - It's the middle class. So next time you see a Toyota Hybrid 4x4, crammed full of organic, sustainably produced whole-foods, dropping Julian and Artemis off at that CofE school that they got into by moving house, even though they don't really agree with religious education - but the discipline must be good and it's last ofstead report was just marvellous! Before heading off to John Lewis to pick up some nick-naks for the kitchen. Just bite the back of your hand and remember - they are holding society together!
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