In early March, I had the privilege of speaking at the Wanner Mennonite Church in Cambridge, ON. I was invited to speak about my research – how the public’s perception of addiction affects the ability of people with addiction to recover. It was the first time I had been invited to speak at a church!
A call to action
The pastor and I spoke a few weeks before my visit. He asked me what kind of presentation I had in mind. It seemed like a peculiar question at the time; I told him that I was planning to speak about my research and possibly elaborate on the impact of the research for both the addiction and academic community. After a pause, he asked me to consider what I could say to encourage his congregation to help and support people with addiction.
The pastor’s question got me thinking about what Arendt said about action and identity. For Arendt, it is through action and speech that humans “show who they are, reveal actively their unique personal identities and thus make their appearance in the human world” (Human Condition, pg. 179). Thus, according to Arendt, our identities aren’t fixed but is in flux; we discover aspects of ourselves as we disclose ourselves. When we speak or act with others, usually for some common cause, our very actions emphasize some part of us which we may have forgotten or not known at all.
So, who could I be at the Wanner Church? I had thought that being invited to speak, I was being invited to speak and act like a scholar. The pastor’s request seemed to hint at something else.
Narrative identities
Arendt’s work has been the foundation for many theories of narrativity and narrative identity. In general, these theories maintain that our agency is supported and enabled by others who may either affirm or deny the stories we tell about ourselves. I felt, that day, the truth of this. I was able to appear to the Wanner folks as a new me, a combination of the different selves that I had been prior. I attribute the experience of a new me to the Wanner atmosphere – they gave me the chance to be something other than just an academic or advocate, and they created an atmosphere where I felt safe to do this.
When I spoke at the Wanner Church, I was greeted as a special guest. People saw me as an expert of two kinds. It was thus different from the vibes I had experienced at conferences or academic get-togethers. In those settings, I am a junior scholar, just starting to make her mark. At the church, I was a highly specialized expert – because I had technical training and the know-how that comes only through lived experience.
I want to stress too that the warm reception helped me to speak that day. I not only talked about my research but also shared stories about my personal familiarity with the subject matter. It was the first time where I really felt like I could speak as both the me of academia and the me outside of academia. I experienced a new part of myself.
Public spaces
According to Arendt, the public realm or, as she puts it, the polis, is not a physical space. Rather, “[i]t is the space of appearance in the widest sense of the word, namely, the space where I appear to others as others appear to me, where men exist not merely like other living or inanimate things but make their appearance explicitly” (Human Condition, pg. 198-199). The Wanner Church then is a public space because they offer individuals a place where they can speak and act, that is, where they are free to discover new parts of themselves.
One might think that the Wanner Church isn’t a public space because it isn’t like a library or city hall; it isn’t open all the time and lingering is the idea that one has to be Mennonite to attend. But the Wanner Church really is a public space, not just because one doesn’t have to be a Mennonite to enter the building but also, because the Wanner congregation is interested in meeting people outside of their congregation.
I am not the only non-Mennonite person they have hosted. Over the years, as I learned after worship, the church has welcomed many individuals from the larger community – to talk about neighbourhood issues, global crises, and the occasional feel-good news. They also volunteer their space and time to folks who are looking for affordable places to host a ceremony, etc. (Of special interest to me was their connection to the Indigenous people of Canada. The Canadian Mennonite community has been working with Indigenous folks all over Canada for decades “to promote positive political, social and economic change for Indigenous Peoples.”)
The loss of public spaces
The recent COVID-19 closures and social distancing measures makes me think, like Katy, that we are losing public spaces. It is not just that physical spaces are closed to us, but also that we are prohibited from getting together. Virtual spaces are being heralded as a new way of coming together, but I doubt that online meet-ups can replace the public spaces that Arendt had in mind.
Meeting via webcam has phenomenological difficulties but, beyond that, Zoom and social media can’t recreate spaces open to the public. Sure, I could have given my talk over a Zoom worship session, but I can’t, by pure chance, run into someone on Zoom that will give me a chance to explore who I might become. I can’t, by commenting on a live video, interact with others who might show me to myself in a different light. Being able to physically go out means that we can sometimes leave behind oppressive and damaging narratives of homelife, worklife, etc. It means that I might, on the off-chance or through a random encounter, learn who I can be.
Arendt thinks that our actions create (public) spaces, but work and labour are just as important because it contributes durable objects to the world that provide us with the physical structures of those spaces. Think of the local library, self-help groups, or even the shopping mall. These places become public spaces because we appear to others there – these are places where we can meet new people and, because they don’t know us and maybe will never know us, get the opportunity to try being someone new. But this opportunity is contingent on the availability and accessibility of physical structures.
Perhaps the alcoholic at home is, at his AA meeting, the reliable coffee guy. Perhaps the obedient woman at home is, at her local coffee shop, the social butterfly.
When I spoke at Wanner, I experienced freedom because I found myself in an environment I hadn’t ever been in before. Moreover, the space was public (in the Arendtian sense) and filled with supportive people. I therefore got the chance to discover a ‘new’ me. Different parts of our identity come out in different environments and with different people. So, we not only need supportive people in our lives but also the opportunity to encounter different people in order to be free. Arendt is right that we reveal ourselves when we are with others, but supportive others aren’t all that we need. We also need strangers, in a sense, who aren’t unsupportive. I suspect, in some ways, strangers are a key component to our freedom. Different places and new people give us the freedom to explore who we are and who we can be.
Coming Up!
Stay tuned for my next post in late May. I’ll pick up on the strange solidarity of strangers.
Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash