In recent weeks, Mission in Motion has considered the many ways that Georgetown’s mission, values, and spiritual traditions can be animated during this political season. At the root of this encouragement is a recognition that active participation in civic life is a core virtue and part of the University’s ethos as a Jesuit university located in the nation’s capital. Contributing to the common good through public service is a defining feature of Georgetown’s educational legacy. But active participation in civic life also comes with significant costs.
In this nation and throughout the world there is a persistent challenge in how to maintain and nurture the basic mechanisms of democratic practices and norms. To fully invest in the project of civic democracy is to recognize that active engagement requires some essential virtues related to managing conflict that arises in the course of vigorous debate and disagreement. How to disagree without being disagreeable? How to enter into policy decisions and political choices that do not go the way you wanted them to go without losing faith in the process or faith in fellow human beings? How to locate hope during times of crisis and hopelessness?
All of these questions require meaningful reflection and some sustained introspection. Thankfully, the Jesuit traditions of education and organizational strategy provide some resources for this task. In particular, St. Ignatius of Loyola’s insistence on a generous interpretation of another’s words and actions, referred to as the “presupposition,” can be an asset for this ongoing project. The “presupposition” derives from Annotation 22 in the Spiritual Exercises, the Ignatian manual of prayer that has been practiced for 500 years:
“We ought to be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor’s statement than to condemn it. Further, if we cannot interpret it favorably one should ask the other how the other means it. If that meaning is wrong, one should correct the person with love: and if that is not enough, one should search out every appropriate means through which, by understanding the statement in a good way, it may be saved.”
A recent article on the website of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities about work happening at Loyola University Chicago on political disagreement using the “presupposition” resource helps make the connection. In “Seeking the Common Good with Ignatian Civil Discourse at Loyola Chicago,” we learn about the “leaps of faith” that are necessary in order to engage in meaningful dialogue that embraces civic virtues, like the right to participate in the public square equally and ensuring that human dignity is preserved in the process. The article is reflective about what needs to change for us if we are to engage in this spirit of “presupposition.” Some suggestions include reframing how we define winning in the civic participation process, how we strive for compromise that charts mutually acceptable possibilities in a pluralistic society, and remembering “how” we engage in the process is often more important than “what” we say.
It would be a mistake to confuse this approach with simply accepting ideas and policies one disagrees with in a passive way without any contestation or challenge. But this reframing of the “presupposition” invites us to reconsider our own humanity and the humanity of others whenever we challenge particular ideas or structural realities in need of reform. The Ignatian tradition can help all of us sustain our continued activity in the public square with hopefully more generosity and mutual understanding.