"60 / 40"
by Rev. Kimi Riegel
May 9, 2004

We can’t know it all. We do the best we can with the information we have. We are imperfect creatures. These are themes that return to my sermons again and again, perhaps because as a parent, a minister and a wife I feel these messages daily, perhaps because I hear the struggles of other humans in my office every week, perhaps because it is simply the human condition. Whatever the reason certainty will never be a part of my sermon topic list, of that I am certain.

But this issue is wider and deeper than just our daily haggling over the right way to put dishes in the dishwasher or how to handle the kids. Science, philosophy and theology have been struggling over how we know what we know and what is true for centuries. Some of it gets into the notion that we each see what we choose to see and hear what we wish. When a pickpocket meets the Pope all he sees are the pockets. 

Speaking of meeting the Pope it is scientific interaction with the church through such people as Galileo that set us on the road to uncertainty. His theories about the order of the planets turned our orientation in space on its head. If we can’t trust the church on issues of our place in the cosmos who can we trust and more essentially who are we?  

 Then we have philosophers such as Nietzsche saying that there are no facts only interpretations. Or Kant who says we can not know the things of our world we only know their appearances. And although these guys and their abstract language and scientific theories don’t necessarily make it into daily human discourse their ideas do.

We have come to distrust everything. Every day some “known well established fact” is over turned. Uncertainty and imperfection seem to dominate our world.        

And the “fact” that we can’t really know is being presented as a fact and used for different group’s and interests benefit. For instance there was a NY Times editorial opposing changes in environmental laws that stated:

“Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue”[1]

You can clearly see how this can begin to threaten us and keep us from making any decisions at all. We are led to believe it all depends on where you are standing, everything is relative, no one perspective is better than another. I have been paralyzed by this myself.

The most recent Gulf war is an example. I spent my days saying what if? What if Sadam had weapons of mass destruction? What if he doesn’t? What if he is an evil despot? What if we have no business in other people’s countries? What if our government does know something they can’t tell us? What if, What if, What if? Of course, from my perspective now the “what ifs” have disappeared. Hind sight is 20/20.

As a Unitarian Universalist I am most uncomfortable with black and white responses. I can nearly always see the gray in every situation. I can easily see other agendas and their importance for that person from their perspective. It can freeze us into inaction. So how do we move forward if we aren’t perfect, we can’t know all the facts and we are each subject to our own perspective?

Let me offer three ideas. They are: radical perspectivism, life affirmation as the ultimate value and the other I will call the 60/40 option.

Radical perspectivism is the idea that to better understand something we must consider it from a variety of human and non-human perspectives. Underlying this notion is the assumption that collective perspectives contain more truth than single ones.[2] If we can put ourselves in the perspective of another we can begin to judge the place we stand. If as a white, female, heterosexual I can put myself into the perspective of another through listening, role play or analogous experience I can begin to judge my perspective and its truth. 

Perhaps the most powerful example I have of this is when Cornel West, a prominent African American philosopher, spoke at our General Assembly one year. He spoke of understanding the fear that is a daily part of women’s lives as we walk around knowing that it is often only social custom that keeps safe and that can disappear. I cried. He was speaking from my perspective on truth. His challenge then was for me to hear the truth in his perspective and judge my perspective and decisions through his lens as well.  

Radical perspectivism can unfreeze our “there are no facts” dilemma as it asks us to listen to one another and come to some common understanding of the world that is our perception. It gives us a shared perspective that transcends a single perspective allowing us to move forward. It asks me to take in the interpretations of others and add that to my own data thus creating the beginnings of a common understanding from which we can make decisions.

The life affirming value is another place to stand together. If your perspective and mine are different we can come together on a common understanding of value. You have heard this from me before, that my bottom line value is the affirmation of life. OK, so science is imperfect. When I look at the Global Warming question I realize you can stack one scientist on top of the other with opposing view points. For me then the bottom line is no matter who is right, which position will be more life sustaining for all creatures. It is still an imperfect standard as who gets to decide whose life and what affirmation is, but it is a place to start. 

This one was very useful in a church conflict I once witnessed. The church had the option of placing several cell phone antennas on the church and making itself quite a sum of money. To many it seemed like a no brainer to others it was the kiss of death. They each lined scientists up with study after study about the safety and the dangers of such antennas. Finally during one particularly heated church meeting one of the long time members, an elder stood up and calmly said, “It seems to me that although the money would be useful the agony of our fellow members is not worth it.” I won’t say it ended the discussion but I will say it changed the tenor of the rest of the debate as people were called to what really matters, what is most affirming of us as a community.

The final antidote I have to the times our decisions become frozen in uncertainy is the 60/40 option. This comes from a colleague; Rev. Forester Church, the minister of All Souls in NY. I can’t find the article anymore but I remember he suggested we will rarely have a 100% clear direction in any decision. There are always risks and other options that just might turn out to be the better choice. I am often caught in the “if only I could ‘know’” dilemma. If could have the facts, know the outcome, trust implicitly the experts I might not feel in such a tangle. But such is not the case. We live in an uncertain world with imperfect data. So the best I can do is settle for the 60/40 option. If I am mostly sure, if most of the people I trust agree, if it seems likely the outcome will be good I need to go with the decision. Not the best or most perfect but the best we have today. 

Does any one of these spell the answer to all our dilemmas? Of course not! But putting them together helps to get us off the stuck place we can find ourselves. Have I considered other perspectives? Have I listened to others who are different then me? How can I incorporate their truth into mine to make it even more truth? What is the most life affirming choice I can make? And finally baring 100% certainty can I at least be mostly sure?

This applies certainly in our daily lives as we figure out how to get along, manage our houses, raise our children and make our way in the world of work. But also, in the coming weeks and months, as a church community we will face many decisions. How shall we proceed? What shall we build? When? And what will the process be for our decisions? Because we are Unitarian Universalists there are no set answers from on high that are trusted as 100% right. Actually, we probably tend to distrust those answers on high more often then we listen to them. That’s our nature. But perhaps if we give room for many different perspectives, really listen and find the more truth there, perhaps if we consider our values of individual worth and interdependence, perhaps if we can find a mostly OK place for all of us we will move forward in our uncertain world. Certain at least that we are in this together and doing the best we can. May it be so. Namaste. Blessed Be and Amen.