WAVERING GROUND
THE SLIPPERY 'SLIPPERY SLOPE'

Much talk about the 'Slippery Slope' informs our cultural discourse. It is an important conceptual tool, and it works best if it is understood in its most precise meaning. The popular wisdom is that the slippery slope begins only at certain obviously crucial moments. In fact, it is the nature of human events that they occur on always shifting planes of reasoning, comprehension and desire. The 'slope', then, which must amount to the collective 'inclination' of these shifting planes, is itself constantly shifting. We must then also factor in the momentum of the shifting of these planes of human events. Only when considering all of the factors that shape the topography of human events can we begin to assert where the slope is or how slippery it might be.

With the combined effect of the potential combinations of human reasoning, action, reaction, and the macrocosmic shifting of these intersecting planes, we are dealing with a virtually infinite potential adjustment of the slope itself, of its slip, and of its falling away from wherever we stand. The terrain is constantly in flux, not in fact truly planar. Infinity cannot be a strictly planar phenomenon; a plane must have limits (exists in only two dimensions), and infinity within one plane is not strictly infinite. We must also remember what Christopher Columbus is said to have demonstrated about the continuity of the physical world. We don't live in a planar world; a plane is largely an abstract, intellectual invention... a geometric tool.

So we must, perhaps, re-imagine the nature of our sphere of interactions. It might be useful to envision the terrain upon or within which we live our trials and tribulations as a tidal space, a 'wavering ground' whose precise shape or layout cannot be assumed to be permanent or solid. The special places, activities, sounds and faces which hold the most meaning for each of us might then be said to be 'nodes', or entanglements, of human interaction and signification. The nodes within which we live might in some ways appear to proceed through time without much change, but the change that happens there is easily available to us, and we can watch the changes occur in our intimate surroundings. This same perspective is not often applied to the larger terrain within which our node of circumstance exists.

It is, therefore, necessary to note that whatever we experience, however private, however hidden the meaning and the effect of that experience within ourselves, is connected to the experience of others. As interests, immediacies, and the guiding desires of a given node of human circumstance within that shifting terrain, shift themselves, the momentum of whatever moves across that terrain is altered. That alteration is the passage where it is often asserted a descent down the slippery slope might begin. But rather than a passage over a flat, angular edge, and then down a planar incline, the movement is better portrayed as tidal. Whether because we deliberately descend a slope, or because the ground shifts and we are left planted somewhere on the slope, even before we act, the experience in full goes far beyond the best intentions of one individual.

Does this mean that the individual should not be held responsible for plunging down the slippery slope without regard for the broader effect of the decision? Does it mean that individual choice should be restricted for the sake of minimizing the shift of the collective 'ground' or slope? No, no. The individual is still the front line of any and all human social behavior... few things could be more self-evident... and the broader concerns of staving off a descent down the 'slippery slope' are designed precisely to defend and to protect the rights, freedoms, and dignity of the individual.

If properly understood, the metaphor of the slippery slope may be well served, in a certain light, by the notion that it represents an imminent and perilous decline, but it may be doing a disservice to the people who are meant to benefit from warnings about the slippery slope to ignore the issue of continuity of events. Cause and effect is not always the most relevant critique of recklessness or wrongdoing, because the effect engendered by a series of causes is most often conditioned by the circumstances within which those apparent causes take place.

If 'x', then 'y', is not usually the course of events... it is more aptly represented by a qualified conditional formula, i.e. If 'x', in conjunction with 'q' and 'b' and 'h', then 'y' if 'y' contains also or leads to 'z'. What this means is that a broader perspective is necessary in order to understand the meaning of a breach of the feared threshold of the slippery slope. One cannot place a unilateral conceptual ban any consideration for the ideas that run contrary to one's own, on the basis of a slippery-slope logic, without having sought and obtained extensive information about the implications of that presumably pernicious opposite perspective.

In fact, by extension of that very reasoning, and when considering the more apropos interpretation of the slippery slope metaphor, the slipperiest of all slopes is the descent one initiates when one plunges headlong down a given path without considering the tidal interpretation of the slippery slope. In doing so, in blindly following a principle without informed re-examination, one is likely to violate the very principle one has put forth, for instance making a better world. Many a tyrant have set out to make a better world, without considering the many logical and social tributaries of their actions.

One cannot improve the world by destroying it, but for those who have determined that a given social phenomenon is totally unacceptable, the destruction of everything associated with that unacceptable phenomenon is not so objectionable, and many perfectly acceptable realities will be damaged or destroyed by such reckless fundamentalism. Take for instance the hatred often characteristic of professional politics, which so easily and habitually ignores the very reason for its existence, the sincere and dedicated service of democracy. The parties involved are often given to wild and irrational speculations about the character and crimes of their opponents, to collusion against mutual foes, and to paranoiac secrecy.

Often, these same individuals vociferously warn their colleagues and the public about a dangerous descent into the abyss, as a result of taking one initial step onto the slippery slope. The warning is not in itself a bad idea, but if it uses the same facile disrespect for reasoned and informed debate as so much political activity does, it can be misleading and can generate a massive amount of misinformation and misunderstanding. That cultural dissonance, a magnification of intellectual differences which may in themselves not be severe enough to cause a literal gridlock in political discourse, can have its own negative effects throughout the society, beginning with the important programs and social responsibilities the government neglects through infighting.

The political forum is just one example, applied here because it tends to be the forum where the phrase 'slippery slope' is most often employed. The issue about expanding our concept of what really generates the slip of the slippery slope has to do with ensuring that such common metaphors, which tend to arise at important moments in the evolution of our society, which are used to influence the decisions that govern the activity of millions of people, if not whole societies, are understood and applied accurately, so that their effect will be to the greatest benefit of the most people.

There is also the consideration of the conscience of a culture: is it sincere, authentic in its tendencies and considerations? If the reasoning of social conscience is motivated by flippant claims against certain points of view, opposed as dangerous and informed by no research or intellectual examination, then no, that conscience is not authentic, and its judgements are likely to be skewed or arbitrary, and possibly cruel and self-defeating.

If the reasoning of social conscience is informed by a mutlitude of considerations, open to the possibility that the slippery slope is in constant flux, and that it is not always only the actions of others that might push us all too far... then yes, that social conscience is authentic, because it is sincerely pursuing the adequate fulfillment of its own goals, the defense of the rights and freedoms common to that society. It is necessary to understand the flux that is characteristic of human interaction, reasoning and understanding, if we are to consider and apply correctly the tools of ethics and social conscience, if we are to use these philosophical tools to protect the dignity and freedom of human individuals.