Means to ends

One of the more enduring stereotypes in organizational life is "We've always done it this way." Change is the single hardest thing to introduce in an organization. There is big-time investment in the status quo.

What is ironic about this reality is that it seldom has anything to do with ultimate objectives. It almost always has to do with the means to ends about which everyone is agreed. People who have no disagreement about what they work together to accomplish will fight tooth and nail over the best way to get there. The best way is, in most minds, the way we are committed to right now.

But sometimes the means get confused with the ends. People begin to see the way to do something as just as important (maybe even more important) than the objectives themselves. The means become some kind of litmus test of commitment to the goals. We tend to associate this mentality with rule-bound bureaucrats, but the phenomenon is much more widespread than that.

In a previous life, when I was teaching a certain amount of biblical studies (I'm a seminary grad with a degree in Old Testament), I used to illustrate this confusion of means and ends in the unseemly and unnecessary arguments associated with creation vs. evolution. A good many Christians can be found on each side of that argument, not to mention across society generally.

What I used to point out to those who called themselves Christians was that none of us disagree (by definition, or we wouldn't call ourselves Christians) about God's sovereignty over the cosmos as its Creator. Whatever one's view of the process by which God created, he did so with a purpose in mind. All orthodox Christians (and people of many other faiths as well) believe that Creation has purpose and direction. In other words, Creation (and therefore life) is neither random nor essentially meaningless.

Therefore to argue that a method (whether six literal days of creation or some kind of young earth theory vs. traditional evolutionary teaching) was critical rather than the purpose (direction vs. randomness; sovereignty vs. chance) was putting the cart before the horse. Yet for many, it's the means that provide the true test of orthodoxy. Therefore, as a believer in some kind of evolutionary process myself, I have had my faith questioned by "true believers."

[Now I understand that the so-called "creationists" feel that belief in a literal six-day creation is necessary if one is to take the Bible at its word. This argument is hardly decisive, as it reflects an arbitrary notion of valid biblical interpretation that forces one to commit to what are really, in my view, non-biblical positions. This holds true for a lot of issues, including the status and role of women.]

In more recent times, this same confusion of means and ends has arisen with respect to women's full and equal rights. While the nature of rights (whether to do with race, gender, creed, and so on) is largely settled, at least in theory if not always in practice, the means of achieving those rights is still very much open to debate.

So with race, for instance, some people have argued that affirmative action programmes are the way to right the wrongs and achieve full and equal status for visible minorities. Others have viewed this as shortsighted and, in the long run, harmful to the cause. But before long, those who believed passionately in a process (affirmative action) began to see that means itself as the only thing that really matters. Therefore, if you were opposed to affirmative action, you must be a racist.

This same phenomenon is true of women's rights. Compare these three quotes:

1. Concordia University social ethicist Christine Jamieson: Abortion is not something someone seeks because it's a good in itself. It's always the answer to another question.

2. Henry Morgentaler describing his opponents to receiving the Order of Canada: [T]he usual suspects: the Catholic Church, fundamentalists, women opposed to women's rights.

3. Heather Mallick, Canadian journalist, on what is wrong with crisis pregnancy centres: There are thousands of these centres across North America. They're known in the business as CPCs, as they usually have names resembling Crisis Pregnancy Centre. They have cute websites designed to appeal to teenage girls, lots of advice about boys — giggle — and sites on MySpace. They take great care to look like kindly counselling centres. In fact, they exist solely to prevent abortion.

Jamieson has it right. Abortion is a means to some end. One doesn't get an abortion just to put it on her resume. The surgery is done to achieve some goal. But Morgentaler has confused means and ends--if you are opposed to abortion you are opposed to women's rights. Mallick views organizations that are trying to help women in crisis to find solutions as bad, by definition, because they are opposed to her choice of means--abortion.

I've been reading through the positions taken on abortion by the two presidential candidates in the U.S. Very little of the talk has to do with the ultimate goal of women's full and equal rights, as no one really disagrees with this objective. Virtually all of the talk centres on one of the means to achieving this goal--abortion. For the pro-choice side especially, if one doesn't believe in a certain way to achieve women's rights, one must not believe in women's rights at all.

How has one method hijacked this important issue of women's rights? Surely achieving those rights is far too complex to concentrate on, much less rely on, one process for getting there. The cause for full and equal rights would be taken forward much faster and more effectively if all of those who believe in this goal would sit down together and discuss it in all of its facets.

I'll give John McCain a certain amount of credit for trying to take the discussion beyond the one way of achieving full rights for women. Here are a couple of quotes:

Q: Should Republicans encourage pro-choice voters to support their candidates?
A: We must begin a dialogue and a discussion on the issue of abortion. Both pro-life & pro-choice people believe very strongly that we need to eliminate abortion. I and my wife, Cindy, are proud adoptive parents. We need to encourage adoption in America. We need to improve foster care dramatically. We can work together. We can have respectful disagreements on specific issues, and we can work together on this one.

"I have stated time after time after time that Roe v Wade was a bad decision, that I support a woman — the rights of the unborn — that I have fought for human rights and human dignity throughout my entire political career," McCain said. "To me, it's an issue of human rights and human dignity."

I am not quoting McCain to indicate I endorse him politically. I'm a Canadian at any rate. But at least he is trying to get to the broad and complex issue of full rights, and to the notion of working together to achieve same. I certainly endorse that.