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Hubert J. M. Hermans
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ENTERING THE MORAL MIDDLE GROUND

Many social and political groups consider each other as enemies
rather than opponents with whom one can openly disagree.
By introducing the concept of a moral middle ground, this bookaims to overcome the perceived separation between good and bad,highlighting the possibility that human actions are permissible,
understandable, and even valuable. To elucidate the nature of themoral middle ground and its psychological potentials, the author uses
his theoretical framework, Dialogical Self Theory (DST). On thebasis of these ideas, he portrays a variety of phenomena, including
healthy selﬁshness, black humor, white lies, hypocrisy, and theworldviews of some historical ﬁgures. He then demonstrates how
the moral middle ground contributes to the development of a humanand ecological identity. As a result, students and researchers invarious disciplines, including psychology, literary studies, moral philosophy, political science, history, sociology, theology, and cultural
anthropology, will beneﬁt from this book.
 . .  is Emeritus Professor at Radboud
University. He is internationally recognized as the founder of
Dialogical Self Theory (DST). He is also the Honorary President of
the International Society for Dialogical Science, and he was decorated
as Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion for exceptional
scientiﬁc achievements.

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More Information    
Edited by Vlad Glaveanu

Possibility Studies are an emerging, interdisciplinary ﬁeld of study with a long past
but a short history. The theme of human possibility is as old as our reﬂections
about human nature and our place in the world. For centuries, answers toquestions related to how we discover and explore possibilities have been oﬀeredby philosophers, theologians, and natural scientists. From the nineteenth andtwentieth centuries onwards, these interrogations came to be placed mostly at theintersection between the humanities, social science, and the arts. Nowadays, calls
to take into account themes such as the future, hope, anticipation, creativity, andimagination, among others, are frequent across psychology, sociology, anthropology, and connected disciplines. A paradigm shift is under way in all these ﬁelds,
built on the background of the multiple emergencies we are faced with, fromclimate crises to the challenge of “post-truth,” and accentuated by the impossibilities brought about by the COVID- pandemic.
The Cambridge Series on Possibility Studies welcomes books that aim to expand
our theoretical and practical understanding of how individuals and collectives
become aware of and explore new possibilities in the realms of the psychological,
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is particularly open to inter- and trans-disciplinary contributions with highpotential for cross-fertilization and, with it, for the development of new theories,
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ENTERING THE MORALMIDDLE GROUND
Who Is Afraid of the Grey Wolf?

HUBERT J. M. HERMANS
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To my beloved great-grandson, Damián,whose birth reminds me that giving and receiving is amost basic form of dialogue and a precious gift to becared for across generations.

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Contents

List of Figures
List of Tables
PrefaceAcknowledgments

page x
xii
xiii
xvi

IntroductionGood and Bad as Coalition
The Flexibility of Deﬁnitions of Good and Bad
What Can We Learn from Moral Psychology?
Dialogical Self Theory as a Bridging Conceptual Framework
The Moral Middle Ground as Part of a Multilevel Identity Concept
Contradictions in the Self and How to Deal with Them
The Moral Middle Ground and “the Possible” as a Field of Inquiry
Summaries of Chapters
The Central Thesis of the Book in a Nutshell
To Avoid Some Misunderstandings
How to Read This Book?
Readership
Similarities to and Diﬀerences from Some Previous Works Dialogical Self Theory and the Process of Positioning
Summary of Dialogical Self Theory
Historical Inﬂuences: William James and Mikhail Bakhtin
Individual Dominance Reversal: James’s Exposé on Falling
Out of Love
Collective Dominance Reversal: Bakhtin’s Description of Carnival
Dominance Reversal: Basic Similarity between James and Bakhtin
The Jester as Middle Ground Character
The Concept of Transpositioning: The Transfer of Energy
Recapitulation
Practical Implications
Summary

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Contents
Embracing Bad as Good via Internalization

Jean Genet and His Sainthood
Marquis de Sade: Over-Positioning of Sex
Sade and Genet from the Perspective of Dialogical Self Theory
Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan
Hypocrisy as a Challenge to the Mores of the Time
Moral Multiplicity and the Problem of Hypocrisy
The Danger of Acting on the Basis of Just One Moral Position
Practical Implications
Summary



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Rejecting Bad via Externalization



Hitler’s Worldview
Putin’s Worldview
Moral Psychology
Dialogical Self Theory and the Four Dead Ends
Does a Moral Middle Ground Exist?
Practical Implications
Summary



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


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The Vitality of the Moral Middle Ground

Healthy Selﬁshness
Enlightened Self-Interest of Moral Exemplars: Unusual but Possible
Go Ahead and Go Along: Machiavellian Youngsters
The Case of Oskar Schindler
Black Humor
The Grey Hacker
Transgressive Art
The “Wrong” Other in the Extended Self
Durkheim on the Pure and Impure
The Moral Middle Ground: How to Deﬁne and Understand It?
Practical Implications
Summary



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Contradiction as Intrinsic to the Multiplicity of the Self

Why Is Tolerance of Contradiction Diﬃcult?
Contradictions: Distrusted, yet Productive and All-Pervasive
Montaigne’s View on Contradictory Members of the Self
Why Is Contradiction a Problem in the Western Conceptionof Self?
Don’t Put All of Your Eggs in One Basket: The Problem of
Low Self-Complexity
Tolerance for Contradiction: Diﬀerences between Eastern andWestern Selves
Yokai: A Contradictory Figure in Japanese Folklore
The Risk of Removing Moral Bad from the Self





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Contents
Jung on Shadows
Shadows in Jungian Psychology and in Dialogical Self Theory:Diﬀerences
Dialogue and Contradiction
Some Crucial Features of Generative Dialogue
Practical Implications
Summary Multilevel Identity and the Moral Middle Ground:Toward a Human and Ecological Identity
What Do We Mean by Identity?
Toward a Multilevel Conception of Identity
Main Themes in Moral Psychology
Human Identity
Increasing Concerns for a Human Identity and Humanness
in Theology
Ecological Identity
The Moral Middle Ground as a Coalition of Identities
The Need for Dialogical Relationships between Positions as Partsof Coalitions
The Need for Dialogical Flexibility
Conscience
Jane Addams and Andrew Carnegie: Who of Them Is on theMoral Middle Ground?
Practical Implications
Summary

Glossary
References
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FiguresI. Akela, also called “Big Wolf,” a ﬁctional characterin Rudyard Kipling’s stories The Jungle Book ()and The Second Jungle Book ().
I. The Garden of Earthly Delights, triptych by
Hieronymus Bosch (c. –).
I. On the moral middle ground the energy converges
as a coalition of good and bad.
. William James (–).
. Mikhail Bakhtin (–).
. Roman saturnalia.
. Jester.
. French author Jean Genet (–).
. Portrait of Donatien Alphonse François de Sadeby Charles Amédée Philippe van Loo.
. Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey.
. The Sigil of Baphomet is the oﬃcial symbol of
LaVeyan satanism and the Church of Satan.
. Hitler with his “Heil” salute.
. Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) meets with
French President Emmanuel Macron in Moscow
on February , .
. Vladimir Putin in his masculine position.
. Moscow’s Patriarch Kirill.
. Men drinking from segregated water fountains in theAmerican South.
. Picture referring to the Abu Ghraib torture andprisoner abuse.
. Positions “I’m good” and “you are bad” and the moral
middle ground that interconnects them.

page 
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List of Figures. “La civilización occidental y cristiana” or “Western andChristian Civilization” by León Ferrari, .
. “The Holy Virgin Mary” by Chris Oﬁli, .
. Schrödinger’s cat is alive and dead at the same time.
. Yin and yang as a union of opposites.
. One of the many variations of yokai: nonhuman beings
with human forms.
. Jung’s archetype of the shadow.
. Positions “we are good” and “you are bad” and themoral middle ground that interconnects them.
. Example of the Nazca lines in Peru.
. Jane Addams writing.
. Andrew Carnegie.
. Meeting at the Peace Palace in The Hague.

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Tables. The four dead ends of social construction
by Hitler and Putin.
page 
. Identity levels and their responsibilities.
. Examples of coalitions between diﬀerent identity positions.


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Preface

On a memorable fall afternoon, my younger brother, Matthew, and I were
together in his garden. Sitting side by side, we looked at the sun slowly
sinking below the horizon. After some moments of silence, he said: “The
Grim Reaper came already around the corner.” I answered: “Can’t wethrow a stick between his legs, so that he falls ﬂat on his face and his pace isslowed down a bit?” Matthew smiled broadly, a sign that he liked
the remark.
A few months before, Matthew had been diagnosed with pancreaticcancer, and he knew that he would die. Yet, he continued to ride hishorses, play tennis, take care of his farm, and have fun with friends. Whensomeone, worried about his health, asked him: “Matt, how are you?” heanswered, annoyed: “Please, don’t ask me this, you draw my attention to
my illness!” He wanted, as much as possible, to spend his days actively andoptimistically and not worry too much about the sword of Damocles thatwas hanging over his head.
Some weeks before his death, he sent me a short video that showed anold man lying on a bed in an ambulance. A nurse dressed in a white
uniform was behind the steering wheel. The destination of the ride wasapparently unknown to the man. After some time, he turned his head tothe nurse and asked: “Where are we going?” The nurse replied indiﬀerently: “To the cemetery.” In a hoarse voice, the man protested: “But I’m
not dead yet!” The nurse replied imperturbably: “We are not there yet.”Apparently, Matt did not like to talk, in a serious way, about his disease
and his upcoming death but preferred to keep it light and tell jokes thatmade us smile and laugh together. He found a way of addressing the topic
of death indirectly, as doing otherwise would feel “too heavy” for him andwould make him sad. Instead, laughing together allowed him to address
the fate of his death in a way that was bearable to him, and, at the sametime, it created a strong sense of intimacy and close contact between us.
I had the strong impression that talking about his death with humor gavexiii

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Prefacehim a sense of vitality that helped him to go on, with courage, through thisﬁnal and diﬃcult period of his life.
The conversations with Matt instigated my interest in what is known as“black humor,” which treats sinister subjects like death, disease, deformity,
being disabled, or warfare with bitter amusement and presents tragic,
distressing, or morbid topics in comic terms. I realized that this kind ofhumor has two sides. It is morally questionable to make jokes about events
that touch a person’s most personal sensitivities and vulnerabilities because
we have learned to assume an attitude of respect for death and dying.
At the same time, joking together feels morally acceptable as it provides
social support, expresses concern, and stimulates bonding. Apparently,
black humor is a kind of behavior in which good and bad come closely
together to form a combination that, depending on the moment andcontext, has the potential of having a vitalizing inﬂuence on participants
who share the experience.
Black humor is just one of the many topics I want to address in thisbook as examples of phenomena that occur on the moral middle ground,the area between good and bad: healthy selﬁshness, Machiavellianism,
transgressive art, and many others. I mention black humor only as theﬁrst experience that instigated my interest in the topic and motivated me
to explore its scale, variety, and energizing impact. I discovered that on thisground moral good and bad form a combination that has its own uniqueness and has, moreover, the potential of contributing to the vitality of selfand society.
During the preparation of this book, I discussed the topic with somefriends and colleagues. I noticed that many of them were hesitant to bringmoral good and bad together and to allow that they can function, in
speciﬁc situations, as “allies.” Many of my conversation partners preferred
to keep them separate and wanted to know whether a particular behavior
was morally good or bad. I got the feeling that, in their view, good and badfunctioned like two magnets that repel each other. I noticed an irresistible
tendency on their part to respond with a “thumbs up” or a “thumbs
down,” with nothing in between. I wondered where this hesitation comes
from, and I posed this question to some of my conversation partners.
Some of them thought the distinction and separation of moral good andbad to be deeply entrenched in our education and upbringing. Fromchildhood onward, we have learned to be rewarded for “good” behavior
and to be punished for “bad” actions. From an early age, we are classiﬁed
Willinger et al. ().

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xv

Preface

as a “good girl” or “good boy” or, as vice versa, as a “bad girl” or “bad boy.”
If we would persist in clinging to unacceptable behavior, we would be atrisk of losing the love and aﬀection of our parents and educators, and thiswould make us feel unsafe or hurt. The most we could do would be to “testthe limits,” but we should not cross any red lines.
Looking at the topic from a broader perspective, I realized that good andbad are deeply associated with the opposition between the clarity of the
day and the danger of the night. From the beginning of life, we have cometo fear the night as the realm of evil, where light is absent and where wefeel unsafe. It is the playing ﬁeld of thieves, monsters, and witches and alandscape where the law disappears. In Tolkien’s work, the orcs are a
brutish, aggressive, ugly, and malevolent race of monsters who hate thesunlight. In J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter book series, Lord Voldemort, or
alternatively the “Dark Lord,” is feared as the most powerful and dangerous dark wizard of all time.
I realized that the separation between good and bad, and its deep
connection with light and darkness, was already exposed in the book ofGenesis: “And God saw that the light was good. And God separated thelight from the darkness.” So, good was associated with light and bad withdarkness. These associations received explicit form in the tradition of
Manichaeanism as founded by the Persian prophet Mani (c. – ),who believed that the cosmos is involved in a permanent struggle between
a good, spiritual world of light and an evil, material world of darkness. Thisdualistic theology of good versus bad had, via the church father Augustine, a
far-reaching inﬂuence on the moral groundworks of Christianity.
Initially impressed by the experience and eﬀect of black humor,
I became fascinated by phenomena where, in contradiction to moral
dualism, good and bad come closely together and form hybrid combinations. Studying a variety of sources in the literatures of the social sciences
and philosophy, I decided to explore, in biographies and social research, avariety of phenomena under the label “moral middle ground.” I made it
my task in this book to discuss phenomena and processes on this fundament and demonstrate their vital possibilities. In the area in between goodand bad there are potentials for self and society that would be lost in any
form of moral dualism or toxic polarization where good and bad arethought to be mutually exclusive.

Gerlach ().



Genesis . (English standard version).

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van Oort ().

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978-1-009-43200-9 — Entering the Moral Middle Ground
Hubert J. M. Hermans
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Acknowledgments

This was the most diﬃcult book for me to write in my whole career.
Sometimes I had the feeling that it was “loaded with dynamite” as it
evoked heated debate with my readers who were willing to provide theircritical comments during discussion of the book proposal and, later, thewriting of the book. One of them jokingly said: “What is left for you towrite, now you have brought God and the Devil together?” Given the
explosive nature of the text, I’m extra grateful to my friends and colleagues
who discussed its content with me – their comments often occupied mymind until late at night. They were masters of bringing me into a stateof inner questioning, doubt, and struggle, sometimes liberating eureka
moments.
My ﬁrst thanks go to Anti Bax, who, as my personal editor, carefully
and in a creative way inspected all my texts and gave numerous suggestions
that enriched the content and structure of the book. Rens van Loon andPeter Zomer read all chapters of the book and gave their critical and highly
useful comments that signiﬁcantly improved the text. Some other colleagues and friends read selected parts of the text and were willing to give
their valuable suggestions: Agnieszka Konopka, Reineke Lengelle, Toonvan Meijl, Tim Magee, Cees van der Staak, Durk Stelwagen, and Frans
Wijsen. I’m deeply grateful for their commitment and critical remarks thatsigniﬁcantly widened my horizons during the struggles and inspirations of
the writing process.
I’m also indebted to four very helpful anonymous reviewers, whoprovided me with many valuable literature suggestions, and to Vlad
Glaveanu, who, as the series editor, functioned as my perfect guidethrough the submission stage of my book proposal.

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