Introduction
If blog post 131 is correct, meaningful coexistence remains possible because human beings possess a degree of leeway: the capacity to encounter an ontology they do not share without immediately experiencing it as a threat or as irrelevant.
Leeway as a capacity
Leeway is not agreement, tolerance, or empathy. It is more fundamental. It is the possibility of temporarily suspending the assumption that one’s own ontology exhausts reality.
Curiosity
This capacity alone, however, does not create encounter. It merely makes encounter possible. Following observations in our classrooms, curiosity seems to be the element that activates leeway. Curiosity motivates individuals to remain engaged with a difference rather than dismiss it. It can prolong the encounter long enough for alternative experiences and interpretations to become meaningful rather than merely noticeable.
Time
Our observations suggest that this process may possess a temporal dimension. Initial curiosity toward people outside one’s continuity system often lasts only fifteen to twenty seconds, also in Interdemocracy settings. During this period, individuals may primarily evaluate what they encounter through their existing ontology: Is this familiar? Is it safe? Does it confirm what I already believe? Does it offer me anything tangible?
With sustained engagement, curiosity can deepen. When the other person is speaking from lived experience, the encounter may gradually shift from immediate evaluation toward exploration. The other person ceases to be merely an object of judgment and begins to emerge as a person whose experiences and interpretations possess their own internal coherence.
At some point – somewhere between sixty and ninety seconds in our observations – a qualitative shift seems to become possible. The encounter no longer consists merely of comparing ontologies. A new space emerges. This space resembles the Japanese concept of ma.
Ma
Ma is neither my ontology nor yours. It is not agreement, compromise, synthesis, or consensus. It is a relational space in which both ontologies remain present while neither completely determines the encounter. In this space, reality can exceed the categories through which either participant initially approached it.
A possible sequence
One possible interpretation of these observations is that a sequence emerges: leeway, curiosity, ma. Leeway creates the possibility of encounter. Curiosity sustains the encounter. Ma emerges when the encounter remains open long enough for reality to become larger than the ontologies that initially entered it.
Significance
From this perspective, the democratic significance of leeway may extend beyond preventing hostility or reducing polarization. Leeway appears to preserve access to experiences that would otherwise remain inaccessible. It creates the conditions under which reality can continue to surprise us.
Interestingly enough, as we experience in our classrooms, this seems to hold good not only for encounters with other ontologies but also for encounters with one’s own ontology. We ask our students to formulate their answers individually, autonomous, without consultation – and within a limited timeframe of roughly ninety seconds - and then enter their answers into a digital form during a second ninety-second interval. Only when topics are more complex or divisive do we extend the exercise to two intervals of roughly one hundred and eighty seconds. The resulting answers very often feel unexpectedly fresh.
Exceeding our ontologies
Perhaps this is why ma feels wondrous. It is a space in which reality remains capable of exceeding our ontologies, whether we are encountering another ontology or are reflecting on our own, if only for a short while.