Links to the World

An interview with actor, Martin Sheen ("The West Wing").  I love this show and you can see from the interview with Martin Sheen, who plays President Bartlet, that it's almost a hypothetical - "what would happen if a President with these beliefs was in this situation?".  A great quote from Martin Sheen

Other Links to the World

On weekends, I visit the movie session times at Our Brisbane.

Some of my articles, including an essay in the defunct National Outlook magazine.

I am proud to be a good friend of the artist and designer, Teresa Jordan and her husband Dr Trevor Jordan.  Trevor is an ethicist, fisherman and writer.  Trevor and I are both members of the Queensland Writers' Centre.

My brother, Peter Young, helped me with the links and technical advice for this website.  Peter is a West-Ender and amateur sailor.

Barney Vollans taught me how to create and set-up this website.  Plus he has introduced me to some great web resources about films, popular culture and photography.

Favourite celebrities (at the moment) are:

Rebecca Pidgeon

Marie Louise Parker

Favourite films seen recently include:

Finding Neverland

This study examines particular models and principles of ethics education which facilitate perspective transformation through critically engaging formative experiences. It is intended to encourage reflection and debate amongst those educators, practitioners, and agents of social change who are working to transform the moral perspectives of the middle-class in developed or so-called First World societies. It will argue specifically that the effectiveness of such perspective transformation in developed societies has been reduced, in many cases, because of a lack of attention to people's formative experiences and, in particular, because of their interpretations of, and responses to, suffering. Such experiences, if reflected upon within a supportive community which recognises the moral narratives and identities of its members, can be a source of empowerment, empathy, and resilience in working for social transformation. While reflection upon personal experiences, such as suffering, does not inevitably lead to collective forms of emancipatory action, it is an important preparatory process for the formation and development of responsive communities which can initiate and sustain such action. In other words, the use of experience in ethics education provides an important prerequisite for communities which are attempting to analyse their social context and identify sustainable forms of liberating action.

1.1 What is perspective transformation?

Recent ethics education programs in First World societies have tried to encourage critical thinking about the social construction of experience in the hope that it may subsequently lead to appropriate forms of collective action. They represent a serious attempt to link personal and social change - for example, racism and sexism workshops, literacy programs, migrant education, health awareness programs, community development projects, and development education. Such programs often make assumptions about the nature of human learning which have theoretical roots in models of adult development and education. This study draws on one such theoretical framework, developed by North American adult educator Jack Mezirow (1991c), called perspective transformation. The process of perspective transformation begins with a `disorienting dilemma' which challenges existing meaning perspectives, either on an individual, group, or collective level. It presupposes that the interpretation of experience is distorted by learned habits of expectation which govern the way that experience is perceived and comprehended (Mezirow, 1989: 171). The `radical intent' of perspective transformation is to link individual experience to collective experiences, and ultimately to a critical understanding of the relationship between the individual and society. It represents, as Mark Tennant (1993: 41) argues, a developmental shift - that is, to a new worldview - rather than simply a progression through to an anticipated developmental stage. Mezirow defines the goals of perspective transformation as:

(a) an empowered sense of self;

(b) a more critical understanding of how one's social relationships and culture have shaped one's beliefs and feelings, and

(c) the development of more functional strategies and resources for taking social and political action (1991c: 161).

Mezirow writes that:

Perspective transformation can occur either through an accretion of transformed meaning schemes resulting from a series of dilemmas or in response to an externally imposed epochal dilemma...A disorienting dilemma that begins the process of transformation also can result from an eye-opening discussion, book, poem, or painting or from efforts to understand a different culture with customs that contradict our own previously accepted presuppositions. Any major challenge to an established perspective can result in a transformation. These challenges are painful; they often call into question deeply held personal values and threaten our very sense of self (1991c: 168).

While Mezirow's model has been criticised for being individualistic (Collard & Law, 1989) and neglectful of both the social context and political realities of collective action (Clark & Wilson, 1991), it does provide a useful entry point for ethics education with the so-called `oppressor-beneficiaries' of First World societies. Brian Wren affirms this point by arguing that:

because the whole group cannot reasonably be expected to become loving and moral, the beneficiaries of injustice must be seen and approached as individuals. Only a few can be expected to respond, to awaken to their position and act positively for change (1986: 84).

Thus, although the model of perspective transformation focuses, to a large extent, on ways of changing an individual's worldview, it can also provide a strategic tool (in conjunction with other tools, such as social analysis) for awakening the First World middle-class to larger social and political realities of injustice and suffering. This assertion recognises that while adult education has a social and political context, it is only one part of a larger journey of social and political action. Adult educator Myles Horton made such a distinction between being an educator and an organiser - "one helps others make their own decisions, the other advocates a particular action" (quoted in Mezirow, 1991a: 30). As Mezirow writes:

Transformation theory - and adult educators - can promise only to help in the first step of political change, emancipatory education that leads to personal transformation, and to share the belief that viable strategies for public change will evolve out of this (1991c: 210).

Models of perspective transformation, therefore, often try to deepen personal reflection about the social forces which affect the integration of experience. Moreover, they assume that "direct experience is a powerful, authoritative source of knowledge which influences individual perspectives, attitudes, values and behavior" (Graybill, 1989: 129). The kind of `direct' experience which is considered in this study is that of suffering. It is described in this study as a formative experience because it contributes, one way or another, to the formation of moral character and worldview. This thesis will argue that formative experience has the potential to transform ethical perspective by challenging universal definitions of experience which invariably undergird an established social consensus. Consequently, these experiences are often excluded by the dominant cultural and institutional narratives within society. This study is particularly interested in how the formative experience of suffering is identified and used as a `disorienting dilemma' within particular models of perspective transformation. It critiques such processes and tries to establish guidelines which will enhance both their effectiveness and ethicality.

This study also critiques some of the assumptions which models of perspective transformation make about the role of experience in ethical discourse. In trying to educate for greater responsiveness to suffering in the world, there is often an emphasis upon the experiential - or praxis - dimension of ethical and pedagogical theory. Theory begins with, and reflects upon, the experience of a particular moral community, which leads on to new forms of experience. Such an emphasis is a feature of ongoing attempts to define the discipline of applied ethics. As an applied ethics study, this thesis draws on, but is not directly representative of, the disciplines of moral philosophy and adult education. It arises out of a practical setting in a particular moral community (focussed on a role as a practitioner within a mainstream Protestant denominational agency) and, consequently, should be seen primarily as a reflection on practice within the realm of applied ethics rather than as a study exclusively within the specialised disciplines of moral philosophy or adult education - disciplines which, in the course of this research project, happened to intersect at the point of `ethics education'. Within these parameters, therefore, this study tries to downplay the expert, individual and problem-centred approach which Isaacs and Massey (1993: 56) identify as being characteristic of a narrow philosophical view of applied ethics. Rather, it attempts to build upon what they describe as an educative perspective on applied ethics which is responsive to the needs of others, `especially where that other is weak, vulnerable and disempowered' (1993: 57). It occurs within an institutional setting, discussed below, with a practical focus on ethically enhancing the human social condition and transforming social relationships.

1.2 Some other terms explained

While `perspective transformation' has been defined as a pivotal conceptual theme of this study, there are other terms which serve to outline the parameters of this study. For example, this study emerges out of models of ethics education in a First World society which try to enhance responsiveness to situations of oppression.

Ethics education, within this thesis, refers to those forms of formal and informal educational processes that attempt to identify and reflect critically about the moral dimension of human existence. There are a number of branches which emerge from the trunk of ethics education - for example, development education (which addresses the structures and processes of international and interregional economic and social relationships), global education (which tries to enhance an interdependent perspective on planetary problems), peace and conflict resolution (which tries to encourage co-operative, fair and nonviolent responses to human conflict), public or values education (which tries to explore the implications of citizenship alongside various local contexts and problems), and cross-cultural education (which tries to encourage greater understanding, empathy and commitment between different cultural and sub-cultural groups). Although there are clear differences in setting, method, and scope, there is a common commitment to teaching and learning about particular values which are seen as desirable for a more coherent human community - even though, there may be differences in both the nature and extent of those articulated values (such as equity, dignity, mutuality, participation, and respect for difference). These forms of education have been categorised as emancipatory models of education by Preston and Symes (1992), because they strive towards the transformation of human relationships to ones which are more empowering and liberating for everyone, but especially those who have been excluded and disadvantaged by systems of power. Such forms often draw upon the perspectives of critical pedagogy (Giroux, 1988; Noddings, 1984), which affirm the importance of the experience of those who have been excluded or marginalised as both a subject and context for learning and social transformation.

These pedagogical approaches make assumptions about the way human relations have been or are currently shaped - in terms of discrepancies in power, disadvantage, and opportunities. For example, `partnership education', as described by theologian Letty Russell (1981: 119), tries to develop ways in which oppressor and oppressed can become partners in education, in order that the oppressor, in particular, can develop new perspectives on the world. The use of the term oppression implies the structural inequalities of power which lead to the systemic disadvantage of groups of people (Evans, Evans & Kennedy, 1987). The description of economically developed Western societies (within the European, North American, and Australasian continents) as the First World (sometimes referred to as the `North' because of the disproportionate amount of the world's wealth located in the North American and North European countries) is based on the three-tier categorisation of the world's nations which recognises the historic and systemic differences in economic and social development, political power, and cultural dominance. (For elaboration of the North-South distinction, see Reed and Pask (1986: 46-47).)

The Third World commonly refers to the poorest and most disadvantaged nations (sometimes referred to as the `South') within the African, Asian, and South American continents. The term `Third World' was first used by French demographer Alfred Sauvy in 1952, alluding to the tiers etat or third state (people deprived of privileges) of French society before the 1789 revolution. The term took on international connotations as Asian, African and Latin American nations found themselves in opposition to the two Superpowers, the USA and the USSR. Chinese leader Mao Zedong subsequently developed the `three worlds' theory (Bissio, 1992). Although, this nomenclature is evolving and subject to criticism due to shifts in the past decade in economic and political power (Crow & Thorpe, 1988) it nevertheless helps to identify the privileged social setting which surrounds this particular study of ethics education. The context of forms of ethics education which seek to transform the perspective of the oppressor is crucial. This thesis will argue, for example, that developing suitable pedagogies within First World social institutions requires much more than simply transposing successful models of ethics education from the developing (or Third) world to the developed (or First) world. The insights of such models, it will be shown, are neutralised when First World educators fail to engage sympathetically and dialogically with the experiences of the `non-poor' - that is, those people who, in an overall sense, are beneficiaries rather than casualties of the prevailing economic systems.

1.3 Context for this study

1.3.1 Ethics education within a mainstream Protestant denomination

This study has emerged from a commitment to ethics education within a mainstream Protestant denomination, namely the Social Responsibility Section of the Uniting Church in Australia (Queensland Synod). Since February 1988, the author has been involved in interrelated tasks of (1) educating church members to pursue the ethical implications of their Christian faith and (2) activating the institution to act responsibly within society as an expression of its corporate ethos. This two-level approach attempts to address the relative moral capacities of individuals and the institution to which they belong: recognising that the moral identities of the members form and are formed by a combination of the internal and external manifestations of the institution. Walter Wink (1992) argues that institutions have a `spirituality' or ethos which needs to be identified and encountered if its capacity for oppression is to be resisted and its capacity for liberation maximised. The Social Responsibility Section has tried to encourage both spheres of action - the institutional and the individual - within a framework of social or `public responsibility'. The values underlying this framework are defined by Christian ethicist Larry Rasmussen:

`Public' here refers to a vision and understanding of our factual interdependence, despite the reality that most of us are strangers to one another and will remain so...`Public' means the realization that we strangers occupy a common earth space, share common resources, increasingly share a common destiny, and must somehow find common ways to learn to live together (1988: 27).

This framework fits within one of the forms of action which, according to British development educator Brian Wren, is available to the `conscientized oppressor' - namely that of erosion. Erosion, as opposed to the strategy of identification (which entails leaving one's privilieged position and joining with oppressed people or groups), involves "a sustained attempt to chip away at the foundations of cultural, economic and political power that perpetuate injustice, and to do so quietly from the inside" (1986: 87). Consequently, this study has, in some form, been a study of that which weakens the oppressors' resistance to change or, in other words, the preconditions for perspective transformation. The experiences of the oppressed - represented by stories, poems or case studies - have been used within this model of erosion to dispel the "myths, fixed ideas and pretensions of the oppressor group" (1986: 87). Wren warns that the educator who adopts this strategy risks compromise or haphazardness, because of the isolation and demanding agenda it entails. To avoid these pitfalls, he advises that "the only way to remain effective is to work with others, follow a definite aim and strategy, and be honest in assessing its results" (1986: 88). This study affirms this co-operative, strategic, and evaluative emphasis within a model of eroding the hegemonic influence of the oppressor group Other critics, while applauding the attempt to exercise a transforming influence within an institution prone to oppressive behaviour (as is argubly the case within a mainstream and relatively privileged institution such as the Uniting Church in Australia), also warn against falling prey to those same values. For example, Ken Jones writes: "unless well centred in alternative values, employees securing some formal participation in the management of an enterprise may in due course simply be assimilated into the dominant management ethos, instead of being able to use their position positively to achieve substantial change in traditional managerial attitudes" (1989: 344).

1.3.2 Emphasising affective dimensions of moral formation

This study also builds on the observation that many transformative models have often displayed an overreliance upon purely rational models of education and ethics - valid in themselves, but not as effective as they could be in terms of inspiring vision and motivating change. They have tended to see the moral agent as a one dimensional rational person and, consequently, to focus on cognitive processes of information, rather than affective processes of formation, as the fundamental basis for transformation. Feminist scholars, among others advocating an `ethic of care', have reminded ethics educators of the need to engage in forms of `emotional work', such as intuition, imagination, mediation, nurturing, and community-building, in order to develop a greater understanding of, empathy with, and capacity to change moral perspective (Calhoun, 1992). Patricia Washburn and Robert Gribbon make this very point in their assessment of church curricula on peacemaking in the United States:

Our evaluation of the resources...suggests that, while they deal with much of the cognitive data of peacemaking, they do not deal with the affective levels of awareness nor the climate within which effective education takes place (1986: 2).

Karen Lebacqz (1989b: 61) identified a similar trend within North American Protestant economic statements which emphasised deductive modes of ethical reasoning rather than drawing on the voices of experience. Theologian Walter Brueggemann (1984: 14) also noted such a tendency generally within liberal-oriented North American Christian Churches which were inclined towards forms of criticism (usually of social structures) ahead of practical forms of mobilisation (for, say, social change). He argued that these churches should learn from the ability of conservative-oriented churches to invite people to a future promise or vision (albeit, at times, in a somewhat self-interested way). Transformative models can also learn much, in this regard, from First World women's movements which have displayed a greater confidence in their target audience (primarily women) to create communities of dialogue and action across divides of class, race, political socialisation, and sexual orientation. See, for example, Naomi Wolf's documentation of this confidence in her recent publication, Fire with Fire (1993). This tendency to emphasise the reflective and analytical processes of informing ahead of strategic and creative processes of transforming consciousness, whereby motivation is sacrificed for justification, needs addressing by ethics educators. This study is one attempt to redress this imbalance.

1.4 Previous research relevant to this study

Models of perspective transformation which attempt to use suffering as a moral catalyst need a greater degree of evaluation than has occurred so far within educational and philosophical literature. Attempts to harness the dynamics of suffering and empathy in order to inform and transform moral perspective require caution and sensitivity on the part of educators, as well as the movements and organisations to which they are accountable. The dangers of perpetuating oppression, undermining the moral context of ethics education, and damaging the educators themselves needs to be constantly recognised and monitored. North American theologian Karen Lebacqz is one author who has reflected critically about the assumptions which such models make about suffering. She asks a crucial question for ethics educators in First World settings who are engaging with the narrative expression of formative experience:

How do we begin with the stories of the oppressed if we ourselves are not oppressed? We cannot simply begin with our own experience if that experience is the experience of oppressors. Or can we (1988: 71)?

She contends that many people in privileged communities have, in fact, had experiences of oppression. Furthermore, that:

all people have had experiences of pain. Although not all would be `oppressed people,' all may be able to link their own experiences of pain to the pains of the oppressed. Thus, for example, in asking my class to read the stories of oppressed people, I trusted that the pains experienced by the oppressed would in some way tap the pains among us (1988: 71-2).

Key moments of transformation and experiences of conviction in people's consciousness have also been considered, in a more overtly political context, by Trevor Blackwell and Jeremy Seabrook (1993). In their recent publication, The Revolt Against Change: Towards a Conserving Radicalism, they surveyed people's `epiphanies, their conversions, their moments of revelation, their changes of heart', for interrelated patterns of personal and political change. They concluded:

We were disappointed, however, to find that no prescriptions emerged. There were patterns - often determined by a life crisis, loss of a loved one, breakdown of a relationship, illness; but these scarcely constituted models or blue-prints. After all, these are the common experiences of every life, and if for some they yield startling insights into the nature of society, for others they furnish the best reasons for the deepest attachment to the status quo (added emphasis, 1993: 3).

Their investigations identified the paradoxes of transforming moments - they have the potential to both conservatise and conscientize, or, in other words, to facilitate both a commitment and a resistance to social change. However, while this survey highlighted the variety of responses to significant life experiences, it hardly constitutes a definitive reason to end the search altogether for a pattern that will help educators and activists facilitate perspective transformation. For example, a more optimistic perspective is provided by Lebacqz (1989a) in exploring whether or not there is a common element within those experiences that yield changed structures of consciousness for First World communities:

is there something crucial to an appreciation and appropriation of oppression not as a general social reality but as a personal reality? How do we come to understand ourselves as oppressed and - most crucial - as oppressors?...clearly not every experience of pain evokes metanoia (a change of heart in which oppression becomes a deeply felt personal reality). Sadly, all too often painful experiences simply result in a `hardening of the heart' in which people retrench more deeply into their previous perceptions or positions...Why, then, did my experience of pain...evoke a change in consciousness. Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that it was not just any pain but the pain of self-recognition that I experienced. Perhaps it is precisely because I have been oppressed myself that it was painful to recognize suddenly that I do to others exactly what has been done to me (1989a: 169 & 172).

Blackwell and Seabrook's research, however, does raise broader questions about the relationship of personal transformation to social action within a political environment characterised by an apparent disillusionment with radical politics. Arguably, they need to ponder some of the preliminary pedagogical steps to radical commitment before passing such a pessimistic judgment about the overall configuration of political consciousness. The research of scholars such as Sharon D. Welch (1993) provides some encouragement in discussions about the process of perspective transformation and the birthing points of radical connsciousness. Consider, for example, her recent comments about her own process of radicalisation:

The impetus for analysis is an encounter with harsh, inexplicable realities. The move from liberal theology and politics to liberation theology and politics comes from an encounter with a suffering too deep for words. For me, the break has come again and again. I first realized the limits of reform by allowing myself to see the massive danger of patriarchal oppression...First, we experience the jolt of horror, of pain, grief, and rage that accompanies even momentary openness to the costs of oppression. Darkness arrives: clear typologies, categorizations, and linear progressions fly out the window and a weighty mix of complex reality remains. Yet with this openness to darkness, the mind splits open: new insights, feelings, appreciations, thoughts, categories of juxtaposition, and patterns of active response flow out (1993: 186-7).

Consequently, this study will try to build upon the research which scholars such as Lebacqz and Welch have developed in recent years into the formative experiences that people bring to the larger processes of social change and the specific educational strategies with which to engage such experiences. Eric Mount Jr. has made an explicit examination of this area. He writes: "Although shocking encounters have triggered radical rebirths, the willingness and capacity to put ourselves in others' shoes are in some ways acquired abilities and disciplines" (1990: 141). How an experience of private hope is developed or translated politically into explicit blueprints and schedules of action is, realistically, another study altogether. However, this study does shares Blackwell and Seabrook's concern with the paradoxes of people's resistance and capacity to change within rapidly changing contemporary societies. Models of ethics education will inevitably need to consider the extent to which postwar societies of `feverish turbulence and imposed instability' have wearied people with too much change too soon (Blackwell and Seabrook, 1993: 14).

Alongside this, educators are required to consider the abiding disillusionment - as well as the resilience - of so many of their fellow change agents. Recruiting the non-poor to movements of change within rapidly changing societies could be described as a recipe for madness, if not perpetual disorientation, if the need for transformation was not so imperative. Furthermore, a revision of current approaches to ethics education requires and permits a revision of the nature of oppression itself, including the consciousness and structures which cause and perpetuate such oppression. Such revisions also rely upon a renewed sense of hope in the capacity of people to change and the value of constant and thorough interrogations of the institutions and structures that people invent and inhabit.

1.5 Methodology

This study began as an attempt to discover something about the implications of suffering or moments of crisis on moral formation and perspective transformation. Its origins were contained within the hypothesis, developed from the experience of educating for social responsibility within a mainstream Australian Protestant denomination, that behind strongly held moral convictions was invariably some kind of experience of crisis or suffering - and a particular form of interpretation of that suffering. Consequently, the first task of this study was to survey philosophical, psychological, and educational theories for explicit connections between suffering and moral experience. This led to a discovery of the works of feminist philosophers (such as Noddings, 1984; Welch, 1985; Harrison, 1985) writing about the moral dimensions of empathy and care. It also encountered the large amounts of theological literature about suffering, often emphasising how suffering is interpreted within the stories and traditions of communities (for example, Soelle, 1975 & Brueggemann, 1978).

Secondly, the author conducted a series of informal research conversations (usually of an hour's duration) with a number of ethics educators in similar institutional settings (Dr David Batstone, Associate Professor of Theology and Culture at New College in Berkeley, California, Rev Stuart Reid from the Uniting Church Victorian Synod Social Justice Unit, Ms Coralie Kingston from the Social Action Office of the Conference of Religious Institutes, Br Paul Wilson from the Centre for Spirituality and Justice, Sr Elaine Wainwright from the Brisbane College of Theology) to identify various models of perspective transformation that were perceived as being effective educational bases for developing and sustaining movements of social transformation, and to sharpen the author's awareness of questions with which to interrogate the literature.

This was followed by a critical examination upon the works of a number of, mainly First World, authors who have reflected upon their own actions for transformation. These author-activists come from a variety of fields of action and have created an extensive theory of transformation across a range of disciplines and social movements. For example, Joanna Macy and Fran Peavey have written about the assumptions and lessons of the despair and empowerment workshops they have facilitated for various movements for peace, ecology, and community development. Ched Myers has written extensively about the challenges of the radical discipleship movement in North America through a conscious interplay of theological and activist narratives. Sharon Welch has adopted a similar approach through a synthesis of the narratives of literature, peace activism, and theology. Psychotherapist Alice Miller has reflected upon her treatment of the childhood roots of historical exploitation using a mixture of case studies and psychohistory. Marion Maddox has brought her academic expertise to her own experiences within the contemporary ecumenical movement. Parker Palmer, Thomas Groome, Mary Elizabeth Moore have evaluated many years of practice in the realm of formal and informal Christian education. Similarly, Letty Russell, Karen Lebacqz, Terence Anderson have inquired into their own experiences of education in theology and Christian ethics. Nel Noddings has written from her experiences in the fields of education and moral philosophy. Finally, Donald Graybill and Brian Wren have researched the lessons of their specific involvement in the field of development education in Mexico and the United Kingdom, respectively.

It should be emphasised that many of these writers were writing in conversation with other author-activists within a variety of settings which attempted to reflect upon action in a particular discipline, organisation, community, or arena - for example, the Symposium on Theological Education for Socially Responsible Ministry (held in 1987, proceedings edited by Dieter Hessel, 1988), the World Council of Churches Church and Society Commission (Maddox, 1992), the Joint Board of Christian Education Staff Training (held in 1994 in Adelaide, with guest speaker, Thomas Groome), Religious Education (North American Journal), and the Friends of Creation Conference (held in 1990 in Melbourne, with guest speaker, Joanna Macy).

Throughout the study an explicit attempt was made to apply an ethic of care (particularly in responsiveness to suffering) to the author's professional and practical experience of educating for social responsibility within the Queensland Synod of The Uniting Church in Australia. This provided a number of opportunities to apply and evaluate various models of perspective transformation. Each was considered for their capacity to engage people at a variety of levels - cognitively, affectively, collectively - and for the degree of mutual dialogue and self-examination (and social analysis) that ensued from their use. The choice of models of pedagogical change was determined by their perceived value in moral formation through a number of underused methods - for example, developing affective alongside rational reflection, using `disorienting dilemmas' or experiences of estrangement to catalyse transformation, and in personalizing `issues' often through direct testimony or indirect storytelling (for example, case studies and drama). This has provided some opportunities to develop what is being described as a `pedagogy of the oppressor' amongst middle class people in developed countries.

One model that has been noticeably effective in raising awareness amongst young adults within the Uniting Church in Australia has been the use of structured exposure programs - to both Third World countries and also indigenous communities within Australia. Past participants of such programs were contacted and surveyed about the value of such structured experiences for changes in perspective (some of these reflections and programs are outlined in the Appendix). In the course of the study the author was able to participate in an awareness-raising study tour to Central America. This provided a firsthand opportunity to consider the exposure model as a tool of consciousness-raising for middle-class people from developed societies. It also enabled some firsthand reflection on the capacity of such programs to effect changes in moral perspective, while educating about processes of development, political repression, and resistance. Further reflection was stimulated by Graybill's (1989) in-depth study of a structured exposure program in Mexico designed to raise the commitment of North Americans to addressing the sources and consequences of global poverty.

1.6 Chapter outline

The first part of this study (in Chapter Two) explores the categorisation of experience which provide some theoretical foundations for responsive forms of ethics education. The acknowledgement and naming of lived experience, particularly that which has been excluded or denied, is recognised as an essential process for the affirmation of moral identity. Chapter Two also explores the extent to which lived experience should be a source of ethical authority. [ Geoffrey Harpham identifies a range of authorities in ethical theory which provide sources of obligation: the face of the other, human nature, the consensual view of the good life, the natural telos of the species, the nature of rational beings, the subject's deepest self-interest, prevailing community standards, or one's duty as a creation of God (1992: 27). He suggests that there is a need to determine whether the obligation to act ethically emanates from the inside or the outside. ] In so doing, it notes how `objective' definitions of ethical ideals have marginalised or excluded the experiences of less powerful groups of people by formulating universal truths based on the particular experience of more powerful social groups (Sharon Welch, 1985; Nel Noddings, 1989).

It will be argued that the widespread use of the term `experience' in both an educational and philosophical context is useful for ethics education as long as such a use recognises both its individual and social dimensions. The particular categories of `experience' within ethical and pedagogical theory which are identified as providing a theoretical framework for models of perspective transformation are:

(1) Universality (as the objective data of impartial observation);

(2) Responsiveness to suffering (as a basis for a relational ethic of empathy and care).

(3) Narrative (as subjective testimony);

(4) Critical reflection (as a subversive tool of critical reflection);

(5) Social location (as a process and product of social construction);

This categorisation provides the framework for the remaining Chapters - Three (Responsiveness to suffering and the interpretation of formative experience), Four (Narratives of formative experience) and Five (Critical reflection on social location).

The ethical dynamics which occur during the interpretation of suffering is the subject of Chapter Three. This chapter examines the processes of moral interpretation of formative experience, in general, and experiences of suffering, in particular. Suffering is a formative experience that demands, through its interpretation, a meaningful answer and an ethical response. Ethics educators need to be mindful of the power of suffering to enhance or destroy the preconditions for ethical responsiveness (such as empathy). This chapter affirms the need for the interpretation of suffering to be self-determined by moral communities, especially oppressed ones. Ethics educators should attune themselves to the struggle to interpret suffering which is such a prominent aspect of moral experience. One of the aims of this study is to stress the importance of providing safe learning spaces for people to interpret and reflect on the formative experiences which affect their moral perspective.

Chapter Four explores the communication of formative experience through narrative forms (such as recollection, processing, and storytelling). These patterns of communication are a feature of such models of perspective transformation as Alice Miller's psychohistorical approach, Joanna Macy's monist paradigm, and recent ecumenical approaches to liberation critiqued by Marion Maddox. In exploring how ethical theory approaches the suffering of oppression, one encounters an emphasis on metaphors of voice - of listening, hearing, and speaking - which stand in contrast to the metaphors of sight (such as observation) that are so central to traditional male conceptions of knowledge (Held, 1993: 7). The power of storytelling, particularly in terms of giving a voice to (as opposed to a view of) suffering, is a feature of several pedagogical models that can enhance the development of relational imperatives such as empathy and communication. Some of the pedagogical and ethical limits of using stories of the oppressed are explored in this chapter.

Chapter Five explores a variety of measures for the development of a `pedagogy of the oppressor' amongst the First World middle-class. It assesses the value of particular forms of perspective transformation, such as structured pedagogical models which expose the non-poor to oppressed communities and encourage responsiveness to suffering. It is argued that processes of estrangement require opportunities for participants to affirm and explore their own moral identity. From a process of taking responsibility for one's own identity, there is a greater chance that perspective transformation will be sustained by a movement of empathy rather than one of guilt or duty. A cycle that allows experiences of estrangement to be reintegrated into the narratives of the community provides a model in opposition to the exclusion of narratives and moral identities that maintain oppression. Attempts to establish relationships between the beneficiaries and the victims of oppression are also affirmed. The thesis concludes by evaluating the extent to which, and under what conditions, some pedagogical uses of formative experiences, such as suffering, either radicalise, or in fact conservatise, the non-poor.

1.7 Recurring background themes

It is appropriate, at this point, to identify and briefly elaborate several fundamental issues which recur throughout the discussion of this thesis. They are:

growing interest in the preconditions of perspective transformation;

relationship between personal transformation and social change, and

recomprehending the nature of, and responses to, evil.

1.7.1 Growing interest in the preconditions of perspective transformation

There has also been research in recent years which has reflected a growing interest in the preconditions of perspective transformation, especially in relation to:

organisational and cultural influences;

experiential sources of moral empowerment;

the politics of personal transformation.

For example, M. Scott Peck's latest book, A World Waiting to Be Born: Civility Rediscovered (1993) identifies the unconscious role of organisations in discouraging and precipitating change. Walter Wink's Engaging the Powers (1992) examines the destructive and creative potential of the `inner life' of organisations, as well as the need for change agents to rehearse their nonviolent responses in everyday life. Gloria Steinem's Revolution from Within (1992) writes about the neglected work of building self-esteem, particularly amongst women, in overturning authoritarian social structures. Each of these works attacks the dichotomy between personal and social liberation, arguing that one cannot be complete without consideration of the other.

This, of course, is not a new idea, but perhaps a renewed emphasis. The search for a manifesto of social change which celebrates the individual was a feature of the New Left theories and movements of the 1950s and 1960s. There has been speculation that the emergence of `green' or `new age' politics in the 1980s was a fusion of the grassroots activism of the 1960s and the consciousness movement of the 1970s, `a synthesis of personal and social transformation' (Jones 1989: 342). Indeed, the transition to a post-industrial age has sparked renewed interest in the relationship between `spirituality' and `cultural transformation' - so-called `soft' areas of political influence. Traditional scenarios of political change, involving top-down strategies of influence, are increasingly questioned and relegated behind more holistic approaches. Capra and Spretnak (1984) describe this new paradigm, or vision of reality, as a necessary response to a multifaceted global crisis that affects all areas of life - health, livelihood, environment, social relationships, economy, technology, politics and even survival on the planet. The political manifestation of the cultural shift to this new paradigm involves a transformation of social and political institutions, values, and ideas (1984: xix). The personal and collective stress associated with this post-industrial age is perceived as a fertile source of transformation by such activists as Joanna Macy (1993) whose model is elaborated in Chapter Four. This study examines some of the models of perspective transformation which have emerged within this paradigm shift in political consciousness. It does not, however, evaluate such models in terms of their overall political efficacy - but simply in terms of their assumptions about formative experience in relation to transforming worldviews.

1.7.2 Relationship between personal transformation and social change.

Whether social change occurs primarily as a result of moral shifts in individual behaviour or due to structural realignments in the patterns of power and participation is a major question surrounding this study. Such debates about the capacity for change in a given situation, whether by aspiring to political or cultural influence within the system or by constructing an alternative system outside the established instruments of power and control, are unlikely to cease. The position of this study is that each approach has its limits and that it is wiser to embrace both spheres of action, at particular times and places, rather than set up a permanent dichotomy between the two. Economic and political forces, crucial though they are, are not the sole determinants of social change. There are other forces at work, many of which amplify, and are amplified by, the political and economic ones. For example, beliefs, values, cultural traditions and myths function on a mass level to perpetuate an existing order. The struggle for liberation, according to Gramsci (quoted in Boggs, 1976), should stress the task of creating a `counter-hegemonic' worldview or `integrated culture'. This is an underlying emphasis of attempts to educate for liberation. For example, Evans writes:

The aim of a pedagogy for the non-poor must therefore be more than to change persons' views of how to alleviate hunger or reduce the nuclear threat; the aim must also be to intitiate their emancipation from the controlling ideology (1987: 263). [Douglas Kellner calls controlling (or hegemonic) ideology `those ideas, images, and theories that mystify social reality and block social change' (Evans, 1987: 263).]

Personal experience has also been identified as a source of empowerment for social change. Gramsci observed that people are not moved on the basis of theories derived from statistical laws, but through their experience of immediate and everyday needs and feelings which tend to resist and break through abstract categories. Action, he argued, is powered by the energy generated by confronting the contradictions of everyday life (Boggs 1976). This is one of the central arguments of Henry Giroux's `critical pedagogy' (1988) and Paulo Freire (1973) in his description of `conscientisation' to a point of `critical consciousness'.

This study hopes to contribute to an increased understanding of the significance of vital transformative moments which result from, and reveal, such contradictions of individual and social life. While not denying the entrenched, or seemingly entrenched, power of dominant cultural forces, it will affirm that perspective transformation is an inseparable part of structural change - to overcome the direct physical coercion of domination as well as the ideological control of a dominant `consensus' or ruling `common sense'. This is why it is important for excluded experience to be remembered and retold - to challenge the universal definitions of experience entrenched in the dominant narratives or mythologies of society. Therefore, this study confirms the need for social analysis from within the subjective realities of everyday personal life - especially from its significant everyday relationships (Gilligan, 1982) and from those voices muted by the history of domination (Welch, 1985).

One model that tries to achieve this objective is that developed by William Bean Kennedy (1990) which involves critical reflection upon autobiographical narratives as an initial process of social analysis. Kennedy's model of `Integrating Personal and Social Ideologies' tries to help participants explore those moments in their personal histories which question and challenge the dominant ideological context, and to nurture such `personal breakthrough experiences' into greater critical consciousness (1990: 100). He uses the questions:

1. What events or relationships in my life have awakened in me a consciousness of dissonance, a questioning of the given and the accepted, particularly those intense seminal ones that are remembered because they illumine others?

2. What forces or influences have shaped my experience and perceptions of those events and relationships, and how can I probe into their systemic connections in such a way as to develop a larger more systematic critique of the `given' (1990: 101)?

This method tries to equip people to recollect their memories and subject them to critical self-reflection and analysis in order to deepen their understanding of the ideological and structural forces which locate them in society. Kennedy has applied such an approach to cross-cultural travel seminars, building it into the preparation, the reflection sessions during the experience, and the follow-up:

This makes seminar participants conscious of the ideological filters they bring from their culture and allows them, through their various cross-cultural experiences, to analyze critically both their own ideologies and those of people back home with whom they will be sharing the experience (1990: 114).

The connections between personal transformation and social change are considered in greater detail within the context of structured exposure programs, some of which are described in the Appendix.

1.7.3 Recomprehending the nature of, and responses to, evil.

Moves to understand the preconditions of perspective transformation have not only examined how people can be reoriented to liberation but also how they contribute to destruction and evil in the world. Ervin Staub wrote that:

a number of concepts that were useful for understanding why people did or did not help others in need were also useful for understanding the extreme destructiveness of the perpetrators of the Holocaust...a person helps more when circumstances focus responsibility on him or her. People help less when circumstances diffuse responsibility among a number of those who are present or focus it elsewhere (1989: xi).

Sharing the personal onus of responsibility is often a major emphasis of ethics education in First World churches. The institutionalisation of irresponsible behaviour invariably creates a mass larger than the sum of its irresponsible individuals (R. Niebuhr, 1963). The nature of corporate evil is a significant topic of discussion for those committed to educating individuals and organisations for liberation. Indeed, many theorists qualify their discussions of the nature and appropriate responses to evil with arguments about the nature of humanity and life itself. For instance, Nel Noddings concluded her book Women and Evil (1989) as follows:

Perhaps we should now consider an education guided by a tragic sense of life, a view that cannot claim to overcome evil (any more than we can overcome dust) but claims only to live sensitively with as little of it as possible (1989: 244).

This study will not attempt to summarise the major dilemmas raised within the literature on the subject of evil. [Some of the writers who have identified these dilemmas in recent decades have been Nel Noddings (1989), M. Scott Peck (1983) and Paul Ricoeur (1969). Of course, the problem of evil and suffering has been a significant theme of Judaeo-Christian theology since the writing of the biblical account known as the Book of Job.] However, any consideration of the role of suffering in moral formation and transformation will, nevertheless, intersect, at times, with this body of literature.

1.8 Aims of this study

This study tries to bring together some of the insights of ethical discourse and adult education in order to provide ethics educators with the basis for a new model of perspective transformation. The aims of this study are to:

(a) discover new ways of providing safe learning spaces for people to interpret the formative experiences which affect their moral perspective;

(b) identify ways by which the interpretation of formative experience can lead to increased awareness about the causes and consequences of social oppression (as well as self-discovery);

(c) develop educational strategies for perspective transformation which address the impact of suffering on moral formation;

(d) assess the advantages and disadvantages of making experience a priority in ethical discourse and praxis;

(e) identify pedagogical tools which ethics educators can use to facilitate responsiveness to human need and compassionate forms of action.

In pursuing these aims, this study tries to give greater to attention to the subject of empathy and how it can be developed into acts of compassion, both interpersonally and beyond the personal sphere of existence. Eric Mount has written about this subject, and concludes that:

According to (Larry) Churchill, `the imaginative capacity to put ourselves in each other's shoes' is what makes the virtues of justice and benevolence possible. These virtues extend our concern for others beyond the range of our direct experiences of others' anguish. They emerge with our ability to scrutinize our actions from our society's perspective and to encompass people in our concern who are outside our realm of direct exposure, but they are rooted in our social relatedness, not in our ability to detach ourselves from all connections and think `objectively.' Our early empathy does not automatically develop into compassion, but it testifies that social solidarity is not something we decide to create, but something we learn to extend (1990: 142).

Finally, this study is, among other things, an attempt to rectify the tendency, which scholars have identified (Razack 1993), of educators and organisers to "shy away from critical reflection of the practices of those on the `good' side" (1993: 65). Too often, the call to transform situations of injustice has lacked the accompanying critical and rigorous reflection about the processes of transformative education and empowerment. The neglect among scholars of the psychological dimensions of perspective transformation is often evident amongst self-confessed `agents of change' themselves. The absence of self-critical analyses has blinded many practitioners to the shortcomings of their strategies which, instead, are blamed on the immoveability of the system or the masses, or both. There is no guarantee, Leo Schneidermann (1988) writes, that social activists, however effective they are in criticising society and its faults, will be equally effective in identifying their own operating assumptions or theoretical perspectives, some of which, upon reflection, could be seen, in fact, to embody those of the dominant social system. This thesis is one step in the process of rectifying this imbalance.

At another level, this thesis is an attempt to make sense of the author's own sense of estrangement following a two week exposure tour to the Central American nations of El Salvador and Guatemala. Exposure to extreme suffering in these countries alongside a deep sense of community, celebration and hope provided a disorienting dilemma that was not easily resolved. This dilemma was fed by the story of what occurred in November 1989 when the military of El Salvador tried to suppress those parts of the Christian Church which had joined the reform movement challenging the unjust status quo. They did this by assassinating six Jesuit priests and two women at the pastoral centre of the Catholic University in San Salvador. However, the actions of the military, designed to scare off friends of the murdered Jesuits, did not work. Robert McAfee Brown commented on what transpired:

The response to the killings was supposed to be, `They've killed the Jesuits for speaking out, therefore we'd better not speak out or we will be killed also,' but the actual result of the killings was, `They've killed the Jesuits for speaking out, therefore we must speak out for them' (1993: 11).

This unusual phenonenon of inspiration from suffering provided the encouragement to pursue this three year investigation of the role of suffering on moral formation and perspective transformation. While the social context in Australia is dramatically different to that of Central America, the encounter with suffering and hope stimulated the search to discover that which would empower First World people to transform their responsiveness to suffering into a sustainable solidarity. It also reaffirmed the premise of many ethics educators (for example, Russell, 1981: 134) that people are more likely to develop an awareness of and commitment to ethical relationships based on mutuality and solidarity at points of crisis or transition in their lives. This sense of catharsis is present in Sheila Cassidy's latest publication: "I think it's my fury and impotence at the widespread use of torture that has, more than anything, fired me to write this book" (1991: 96). This study, while to some extent cathartic , attempts primarily to facilitate this empowerment through a liberating form of ethics education, as enunciated by Moore:

My passion is to engage in liberative education that is truly liberative - opening our eyes to those realities that we have denied, opening our ears to those voices who wish to name their own realities, and opening our hearts to receive others and to enter partnership with them in their struggles for liberation (1991, 163).

In keeping with the theme of reflection upon action, this thesis is itself reflection upon action - both the action of the author and also that of others working for transformation in contemporary First World societies. In this regard, it is intended that the thesis can contribute to transformative education which contributes to a more discerning and effective praxis.