The Principles and ways of knowing

There are many paths to truth. Time to allow them all into the conversation

A national wānanga on the Treaty Principles seems to be happening whether people like it or not. Last week I gave my personal view that this is to be welcomed. And contrary to the dire warnings of former politicians and even PMs, the hikoi mo ti triti – so far the wānanga’s biggest utterance – showed to those with any doubt that the public could be trusted with the conversation. That day looked like a contemporary gathering of New Zealanders of all walks of life, one about facing the future with unity and positivity. Through the hikoi, it became possible to see that if six months of this doesn’t take us somewhere new and positive, we have bigger problems.

I also suggested that one might do well to take Seymour seriously in terms of believing that Seymour believes what he says, and to hold back from assuming the worst of Seymour for what he is saying. At least before we understand it thoroughly. When we think we do understand him, we might even hold open the possibility of thinking something other than “the worst” of him. (For example, if we think his position is ignorant rather than malicious. After all, there is an infinite amount to know even about this single issue, and none of us know close to that infinity.)

I got a range of interesting feedback on this stance, and in particular refusing to make assumptions about Seymour’s intentions or character. Some said my stance was the very least one should do in the context of a national wānanga. Others said one could and should assume he is acting in bad faith, and all about personal electoral advantage.

The variance in answers seemed to depend on what people thought Seymour was and is “really saying”. Which we’ll get to in good time today.

For me, I have formed a clear view that the conversation is welcome, and that enacting the Bill would not be a good way to advance it. But I will continue to refrain from judging Seymour, the man, because I think what he is “really saying” is animated positively even if in a way that is misplaced – how so being a subject for today.

Perhaps I’m wrong and naïve and so on, but giving this benefit of the doubt is my little act of foolish renunciation, for what it is worth. It appealed to my sense of humour, often a bit wry, that some had missed the rhyme between that kind of act and the well-established Treaty principle of utmost good faith.

But I know most are not laughing about this, and the depth of feeling is very strong. In this vein, last week I applauded Damien Grant and Arena Williams for an exchange on The Working Group of 28 November 2024 in which both seemed to make such acts. In that exchange, the two offered a glimpse of the kind of dialogue which, writ large, could transform much more than “Crown – Māori relations” for the better over six months. Alas it was only about a day before Williams reverted to the more usual mode of dialogue on the Bill thus far, calling people “reckless” again. But let’s not judge Williams: we’re all human, and always pulled in all sorts of directions by the various currents in our lives. Being an MP with all its expectations cannot be easy.

Of course Grant is only human too. He has also commented that “a haka isn’t an argument” and similarly Heather du Plessis-Allan has made similar comments in relation to hysteria. Last week I finished up offering the view that none of these comments are helpful, but that they do gesture at a so-far unspoken dimension of the wānanga. That is the jumping-off point to for the remainder of this week’s effort.

An unspoken certainty in the wānanga

What is it to say that “a haka isn’t an argument”? Or that some set of behaviours is “hysterical” or “non adult”, and is therefore unwelcome in the conversation? Or perhaps by the Prime Minister characterising the feelings around the discussion as “frustration”? Or even to take pride in the Treaty settlement process based on an understanding that it has principally been a show of respect for contracts and property rights?

To me, these kinds of contributions share a key certainty, and in this they are not unlike Seymour’s way of discussing the Bill. This certainty seems like a common element of all unproductive ways to advance the wānanga. The certainty? A conviction that only “reason”, “rationality”, or some correlate of these ways of approaching the world will form the basis for a worthwhile contribution to the wānanga on and around the Bill. This certainty is constant, latent, and very commonly unexamined – even as to what is meant by “reason”, let alone whether it should be the privileged or sole mode of understanding for a given situation.

Contributions of this kind form a good bulk of opinion on Treaty issues over a very long while. So let’s linger for a moment on just part of Heather’s recent contribution, the bit about the need for an “adult” conversation.

This seems sound at first pass. But if we buy it, we might notice that “non adults”, aka children, are still on their way to a developed theory of mind. Without this, children lack a full capacity to stand in others’ shoes. All of which would mean, “logically”, that a failure to step into the shoes of other ought to be unwelcome in a national Treaty conversation. And would an embodied reason drawing on value not recognise that something might be being communicated in at least some “hysterics”?

Here, then, we have logical argument for trying to understand all perspectives on the Bill. But is this what we are seeing from the rationality-only brigade – perhaps, if he is in it, Grant aside? Is it what we see from many people at all?

Are, then, many “adults” living up to their own standards? You be the judge.

Some will say I’m being “cute”, and some that I made a slam-dunk. But neither is what is really happening. Because in a twist, another with its potential to be taken as a wryly amusing opportunity for reflection, Heather’s move seems to be qualitatively similar to contributions from many others, be they opponents or supporters of the Bill. Think of the legal experts content to exchange only in the language of detailed arguments on the issues, or of Tame and Seymour attempting to settle issues by a relatively low-resolution facsimile of such exchanges.

In short, much of the national wānanga is in thrall to an unexamined certainty, a certainty about the place of reason, by which it seems to mean a narrow, almost computational, rationality. And the part of the conversation where this certainty has seemed least prevalent? The gathering of New Zealanders of all walks of life, the one about facing the future with unity and positivity, the one embodying the importance of belonging somewhere together. The hikoi mo ti triti.

When things like this are said, we know what typically comes next. Some readers will get very excited. At least five of them! Of these, four will be the ones who are typically labelled “post-modernist” or “radical left” or any number of similar epithets by those who watch good amounts of Gad Saad or Jordan Peterson or Ben Shapiro on YouTube. Conversely, those other five who do watch lots of that YouTube, or hang around too much on reddit or at Kiwiblog, or who otherwise claim to push away “emotion” in “arguments” will get all up in arms about defending reason or rationality.

I would encourage readers to try to go another way here. To try and see one another. Personally I hear Heather and Damien and all the lawyers who want rationality and the cluster of ways around it – including often an unexamined reliance on expertise – to feature heavily in the “conversation”. Reasoned and rational contributions are obviously very important and absolutely necessary to a national Treaty wānanga. Categorically, it is not and cannot be that “anything goes”. The likes of “lived experience” do not trump all else, particularly if these come with the all-too-common “you must understand me / you can’t understand me” dimension.

No. I am simply offering the contribution that reason and correlates are just one way among many to approach truth and knowledge. Having a “good conversation” will mean being able to approach or dis-cover different aspects of the truth or knowledge in different ways. A national Treaty wānanga is no different.

Anyone who says “a haka isn’t an argument” is saying there is only one way to contribute to a Treaty wānanga. But the kinds of attention we can pay are many. Working on many is a cultivated skill, and the choice in attention paid is a moral act. Every approach won’t be appropriate all the time – obviously. The task will be one of discernment and not of drawing hard lines. The county seems like it could find a wise path in discussing the Bill, and many other contemporary issues, but to the extent it is ready to admit a far wider group of approaches to truth than only reasoned ones.

How does this help?

This dimension of the wānanga seems so far to have been un-spoken. This dimension is about paying attention to, and proper respect for, different ways of knowing. For those into big words, it’s about epistemology. And while dimensions un-spoken can exist, the act of naming them can still help.

But for those scratching their heads, consider some of what might happen if different ways of knowing are admitted to the conversation.

Those with the intuition that Seymour is operating in bad faith will need to be heard by Seymour and friends, and not only because they are many. But others may have an intuition that he is “really” using the only powerful grammar available to him, a Parliamentary Bill. He is doing that to highlight a tension between, or co-existence of, the unique and historically factual rights and interests of Māori, particularly those flowing from Article 2 of the Treaty, and the human rights and equality of all New Zealanders. They will have to be heard also, including by Te Paati Māori and others.

And this is (Aotearoa) New Zealand, so it seems certain that many will become impatient without at least gestures to a practical solution soon. We will have to give space to those who prototype and make mistakes, in some of our best tradition, in other words those with imagination. So while everyone remains pre-occupied with the 2D menu of solutions on offer through a Bill/no Bill/status quo discussion, those bringing imagination may have something to say about 3D ways to better accommodate the tension or co-existence mentioned above, in the myriad particular circumstances of 2024. These might point at things in non-obvious places like radical subsidiarity and different modes of accountability than currently provided for in the Public Finance or even Electoral Acts. And so on.

Consider also that letting different ways of knowing in might help by better locating some of the areas where people are speaking past one-another.

For example, in emphasising universal human rights, Seymour speaks to relations that are apparently universal and timeless. There was and is ‘not nothing’ to these ideas: they are noble, and disrespect for fundamental rights has been a hallmark of great evils like the Holocaust or Great Leap Forward. Defending rights remains a serious concern all around the world today.

But they are the product of one strand of history and philosophy. And even within this strand, since people started discussing Plato, there has been a question mark, something unreal, about universals. Aren’t people who are too sure the most concerning kind? Isn’t there something horrific about the immortal quality of an idea of timeless rights, or of any vision for immortality at all? Is the timeless quality of “fundamental rights” even real? Are they relations or propositions? Doesn’t the etymology of the English word ‘thing’ trace back to a legal and more relational history? Where did these rights come from? How have other people in other places and times looked at these issues? And so on.

Any which way, Seymour seems very certain about what he calls “fundamental rights”. So while some might be well hurt by his not seeing their view, those people need not be surprised that with these kinds of foundations he would seek to guarantee his own certainties by freezing a perceived creep of rights and interests coming from outside and prodding at his certainties. And given the overwhelmingly positive contributions of such rights, including to minorities, they need not necessarily even hold him in contempt, no matter how much they might disagree with him.

On the other side of the discussion, that of Te Ao Māori, I claim no expertise. I can only say I have intuited that tikanga is about specific relationships with specific people and specific places, even at specific times. Tikanga has not been written for a good fraction of its history, which seems to have allowed it to maintain a character more relational than propositional. It has a different relationship change to English law. It is not even always for everyone to know. And I don’t know, but I’d love to better understand if it has a cyclical view of time, not a linear one - because it seems to place both past and future in different relationship to the present than how I’ve been seen to see time.

Tikanga, then, seems to be the opposite of universal. It seems to be (without pejorative) vernacular in character. One certainty in tikanga is located in associated guarantees made in point of historical fact in 1840, one of the most important relating to a Crown guarantee of rangatiratanga.

All these kinds of priors give rise to views of a living partnership, an expectation that living Treaty obligations will outlast settlements, and that while obligations may be less well defined in advance, they will be crystal clear in the here and now. Seeing these kinds of things might help many be less surprised by the actions of people like Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke. Seeing these dimensions also helps in other ways too, like disclosing that equations between this view and 19th century continental European philosophies like communism are not accurate.

But just as Seymour’s certainty is open to question, so must be those of this and every other worldview. Does either view need to take every question defensively? What about the possibility of leavening, and not destruction or milk toast, through the reality of combinations of worldviews in 2024?

The Bill, and much of the discussion around it, doesn’t set up the conditions of trust to get to those possibilities – but possible they are.

No doubt many will find the above passages unsatisfactory or even perhaps offensive, or just opaque. The intention was not to offend, of course, and the short point is simply that by admitting only a narrow view of reason to the discussion, or conversely by denying it any place, it may be that we make room not just for some “views”, but only for some visions of time, and therefore ideas as rich as life and death. So too with concepts of space and so things like property.

But in failure even to see that the conversation is moded almost solely in one way of knowing, these major issues pass many without notice.

Where to next?

Just finally this week, I was delighted to come in my reading travels across this quote from an author I don’t know at all, called Gustav Landauer:

The State is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently toward one another… We are the State and we shall continue to be the State until we have created the institutions that form a real community.

There seems a wonderful freedom in knowing that wherever our friends in Wellington get to, we are having the wānanga up and down our islands, largely in good faith. There’s something uplifting in that it looks like very much a search for a way to face the future with unity and positivity. Those who can find the courage to make foolish little acts of renunciation, and who are prepared to admit different approaches to truth, will help move towards that new unity. Without any doubt.

Next time here I’ll set out some views on the government’s other major Treaty policy effort, which is one to amend and possibly repeal Treaty clauses in 28 Acts. What is going on with this work, and how it relates to the Bill, is another area of the wānanga that remains under-discussed. But for now, thanks for your interest in Brenty’s Two Cents. As ever, feel free to find me and get in touch to discuss, as some have and do.

AB

5 December 2024