ON DEMOCRACY AND RELIGION, 22 02 07: the subject of an evening talk given by Professor Ronald Dworkin at the London Review of Books bookshop in London last month. Professor Ronald Dworkin is an authority. “The point of political debate is to argue”, he says, and he holds us in thrall for nearly ninety minutes.
He is a master of every move. It is like a chessboard, and the Grand Master of Jurisprudence is moving all the various pieces, demonstrating his skills. About the limits of law in either a secular or a religious society, he is equally skilled with the black or the white pieces. Within the bounds of our shared imaginations, those rules of tolerance that govern how we conduct debate in our common political world, we know that whatever move we make, whatever way we might choose to argue, we will be defeated by him. My attention begins to wander. I dream of the Atlantic Ocean…
…“You are wrong," the grand master is saying. It is late on and the Grand Master has been showing us the moves for the ‘End Game’: at the limits of toleration, what to do when the fundamentalist (whether of the black or white, the holocaust denier, or the suicide bomber) puts the extreme view. "Should we we say, ‘Ultimately I respect your viewpoint, even though I profoundly disagree with it’ ?”, somebody is asking in the audience.
“No”, the Grand Master of Jurisprudence replies, “you must say to the person – ‘you are wrong’ ”.
My attention is suddenly back in the room. I notice one side of the Grand Master’s mouth is beginning to droop with age. At the edge of the chess board the ‘Greek Key’ mosaic decoration of marble tessarae is being invaded by the motion of the sea, rain storms and the wind shifting sands, and they say that once the mosaic pattern is lost there is no longer protection from the invasion of ghosts.
I feel my heart rate quickening. In an instant and without any warning, the Grand Master has lead us off the sixty four black and white squares of the board into a wilderness where desert tribes roam, and where the Rule of Law includes those that apply to the vendetta, the Blood Laws, and all those ancient customs and laws that accompany the constant state of war that exists between our tribes, even between yours and mine. Here there is danger. Here at any moment the sword that belongs to he who is not my brother or she who is not my sister, may fall upon my neck, or dagger be thrust into my chest.
mmj