On Uncertainty

David Lambert

It is has become one of the truisms of this painfully kinetic; arguments are being framed
extraordinary year that we are living in a period and decisions being made by politicians day-by-
of chronic uncertainty. This is partly a matter of day in a restless and continually unfolding
practical uncertainty – for example, the ever- drama.
changing and increasingly baffling rules and
regulations being set down by governments. It is That the crisis has come at a time when faith in
also an emotional and spiritual uncertainty. The official narratives has been seriously undermined
props of everyday existence, so long taken for by populist politics and social media makes the
granted, are no longer there – work, travel, uncertainty particularly difficult. Uncertainty
recreation, meetings with friends and family. paralyses action, and it is in action that we
And in addition we are all being worn down by generally find solace for the pain we feel about
the uncertainty of where this period is taking us, the world. That inner paralysis has of course
the alarming idea of a ‘new normal’. been exacerbated by the outer paralysis of
lockdown – so many forms of action are
The future has always been uncertain, of course suspended either because of regulations or
– I could fall under a bus tomorrow etc.; but we because of peer pressure.
all learn strategies for managing that kind of
uncertainty, generally by simply putting it out of So how do we live with this particularly
our mind. The present, though, offers a uniquely aggressive and exhausting uncertainty? How do
intense and relentless uncertainty, of which we we still the anxious voice that says, ‘Give me
are reminded daily, hourly or even continually, answers, give me explanations, give me a story
depending on our news and social media habits; that I can understand, that I can fit into the
an uncertainty made far more problematic and schemata I use to make sense of the world’. We
emotionally challenging because it is framed by all have a need for a narrative that helps us feel
decision-making (that of politicians) in which we we still have some control and power. But is
feel we should have a stake. If existential there a way to resist its lure, and instead
uncertainty (the bus) is static and an immovable experiment with uncertainty? Uncertainty is,
given, then the uncertainty around the virus is after all, not just a product of this year’s events,

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 On Uncertainty

but of the human condition itself. Do we need to that he knew that the virus was a hoax, the
do more to explore it, rather than ignore it or beneficiaries being what he called, ‘the 1 per
belittle it, and is the virus offering us an cent, the elite’, which he told me was made up of
opportunity to do so? ‘paedophile billionaires’. When I asked him
whether he thought the doctors, nurses and
In conversations about uncertainty, I have careworkers who urge me to wear a mask are all
introduced several friends to the words of the systematically lying, he said that there is no
romantic poet, John Keats. In a phrase newly proof that masks are of any benefit: show me one
minted in 1817, familiar to literature students but peer-reviewed paper on the effectiveness of
otherwise little known, he stepped back from the masks, he said. His eyes shone with certainty. He
proclamations and certainties of the older is happy, he has the answers he needs, he has
generation of romantic poets, and posited instead ‘fact and reason’ within his grasp.
what he called ‘Negative Capability’, ‘that is,
when man is capable of being in uncertainties, We live in febrile times when suspicion that
Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching civic leadership is failing to protect us or treat us
after Fact and reason – Coleridge, for instance fairly is increasing and when, as a result,
[was] …incapable of remaining Content with desperation for the comfort of certainty-
half knowledge’ (letter to George and Thomas narratives is also growing. That is entirely
Keats, 22 December 1817). understandable: we seek a balm to the fear and
anxiety which the last year has introduced. The
In the course of 2020 we have all become problem is that such answers only channel fear
familiar, in ourselves and in others, with that into anger, not least because anger is more
‘irritable reaching after fact and reason’ – comfortable to live with than fear. Where fear is
desperate measures to find an explanation, a powerlessness, anger feels like (‘taking back’)
truth other than the official one. While the idea control. I can see too how, whether deliberately
of a conspiracy theory has indeed been or not, fear is being manipulated, as a way to
weaponised by the mainstream media to shut undermine solidarity and community. We see it
down counter-narratives, it is also true that many for example in the othering of people who wear
people have turned to such counter-narratives as or don’t wear masks, which became so bitterly
a comfort, as a source of certainty in a divisive in the USA during last year.1
maddeningly uncertain world. Such alternative
interpretations frame what is happening in a way That US discourse looks extreme, but there is
that is reassuring – there is a ‘they’ against clearly a way in which, while much government
whom our anxieties can solidify into anger or and mainstream media messaging has eulogised
hatred. solidarity and community – indeed, tried to
ritualise it with the ‘clapping for carers’ in the
In October last year, I was trying to strike up a UK last spring – in practice, those virtues are
conversation with one of the private security also being undermined. Compassion and
guards at Jones Hill Wood on the HS2 hit-list, kindness become harder as fear and anger about
trying to find some shared ground, and our talk others is subtly endorsed and reified, not just
turned inevitably to life in lockdown. He from the margins but also at the core of
identified himself as ‘a truther’ and explained

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 On Uncertainty

mainstream narratives – a drip-drip of suspicion knowing what we do not know. But this kind of
and paranoia. passivity is profoundly at odds with modernity,
with neoliberal culture. Modern people are
Maybe real compassion lies not in certainty but trained to expect answers at their fingertips, and
in uncertainty, in active listening and more, we are encouraged to have opinions on
engagement with other people’s feelings, every subject, however limited our knowledge.
however different they may be from our own. Ill-conceived plebiscites such as the Brexit vote
Real courage perhaps lies in being willing not to demand conviction, despite the elusiveness of
reach for a certainty-narrative with all the anger facts on which to base a decision; phone-ins,
against others that it entails. Instead of seeking social media and online reporting demand instant
out a dominant story, admitting no contradiction, reaction; information is packaged for ease of
perhaps we need to recognise, as Lucy Winkett, consumption; we are encouraged to binge on
Rector of St James’s Church Piccadilly, news, to hook up to a drip-feed of confirmatory
remarked recently, that paradox, creativity and stories. Reflection, ambivalence, doubt, do not
mystery are the soul’s native language. We carry sell; shades of grey do not fit in a world of
multiple truths within ourselves, but Covid and polarised black and white.
government responses to Covid are eroding our
capacity to remain open and receptive to that An instinct for certainty is natural. But in his
plurality of truths. Choosing to remain open to much-watched lecture ‘The times are urgent: let
plurality, to uncertainty, is a form of resistance us slow down’, the Nigerian academic and
to the colonisation of our community by fear and activist Bayo Akomalafe speaks eloquently
anger. about what he calls ‘post-activism’ – that is,
recognising how the way in which we respond to
This is what Charles Eisenstein has called ‘the a crisis can itself become part of the crisis, or
holy ground of uncertainty’2 when he urges us to part of the architecture and structure which is the
resist the ‘war mentality’ of a polarised society. problem. We need to realise, Akomalafe says,
In a similar way, Arundhati Roy, after a lifetime that the problems we face are not exterior to us.4
of active resistance to increasingly intolerant He suggests that where we are now, in the
certainty-narratives in her native India, has anthropocene, it is no longer possible to come up
written, ‘I believe our liberation lies in the with ‘solutions’; and in his re-telling of the 1973
negotiation. Hope lies in texts that can Ursula le Guin story, ‘The ones who walk away
accommodate and keep alive our intricacy, our from Omelas’, he posits not knowing the answer
complexity, and our density against the as a way forward.
onslaught of the terrifying, sweeping
simplifications of fascism.’3 Perhaps all our charts have failed us, and we
should now consider the legitimacy and
Accepting that we do not know, that we cannot creativity of being lost, of accepting that we do
know, has been part of many spiritual and not know, that we are uncertain. Rebecca Solnit
religious belief systems. The Tao te Ching, for has written a whole ‘Field Guide’ to getting lost.
example, is insistent on recognising that the In response to the challenge of the pre-Socratic
further one goes, the less one knows; on having philosopher Meno, who asked, ‘How will you go
patience to wait for clarity; and on the wisdom of about finding that thing the nature of which is

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 On Uncertainty

totally unknown to you?’, she replies, ‘Finding it About the contributor

is a matter of getting lost’. She traces the
etymology of the word ‘lost’ to the Old Norse, David Lambert is a
los, meaning the disbanding of an army, and historian and landscape
remarks that she worries that ‘many people never consultant. In 2016 he
disband their armies, never go beyond what they helped set up Politics
know’.5 Kitchen in Stroud, inspired
by the ideas of active
So the question this past year prompts in me is – listening and a new way of
Does embracing and exploring uncertainty offer doing politics. In 2018 he discovered the seriousness
of the climate emergency and became an active
a way forward, not least in allowing us to foster
member of Extinction Rebellion. David is still
the compassion and empathy we shall need more
coming to terms with the unfolding ecological
than ever, as we navigate this pandemic and the catastrophe and societal breakdown, and he continues
other existential threats which are now welling to seek ways to build resilience and understanding in
up around us? his local community.

References

1 See https://tinyurl.com/y2zfm8ym (accessed 14

January 2021).
2 Charles Eisenstein, ‘The conspiracy myth’, May
2020; available at https://tinyurl.com/yd64fcvf
(accessed 14 January 2021).
3 See https://tinyurl.com/y5qlxrto (accessed 14
January 2021).
4 See https://tinyurl.com/y3fwc32y (accessed 14
January 2021).
5 Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost,
Canongate, Edinburgh, 2006 (first published New
York, 2005), pp. 4–7.

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