Raymond Klassen – Ideals and Identities

The central issue is not simply what is happening. It is how what is happening is being made intelligible. Because events, on their own, do not arrive with meaning already attached to them. They must be interpreted. They must be narrated. They must be placed within some kind of framework that allows people to say not only “this is occurring,” but “this is what it is.”

And that second step is where the real struggle takes place.

We are not only dealing with events. We are dealing with the construction of meaning around those events. And very often, that construction happens so quickly, and with such apparent coherence, that it becomes invisible. It no longer appears as an interpretation. It appears as reality itself.

This is why certain phrases become so important. Not because they are descriptive in any neutral sense, but because they carry with them an entire framework of understanding. “The right to self-defense” is one. “The escalation ladder” is another one. They do not simply name a situation; they organize it. They tell us what kind of situation this is, what kind of response it demands, and what kind of outcome is to be expected.

Among these phrases, one in particular stands out: the language of inevitability.

We begin to hear that something had to happen. That there was no alternative. That given the conditions, the outcome could not have been otherwise. And once that language takes hold, something shifts in the way people relate to events. The question is no longer whether something should happen, but only how it will unfold.

This is a subtle but profound transformation. Because when inevitability is accepted, responsibility begins to dissolve. If something could not have been otherwise, then no one is truly accountable for it. It simply occurred. It unfolded. It followed from forces that were already in motion.

But inevitability is rarely as solid as it appears. More often, it is constructed after the fact. It is a way of organizing events into a narrative that removes contingency, removes uncertainty, removes the sense that things might have gone differently.

And this matters because the perception of alternatives is essential to moral and political life. Without alternatives, there is no real choice. And without choice, there is no meaningful responsibility.

So when inevitability becomes the dominant frame, what is lost is not only the sense of possibility, but the very conditions under which judgment can take place.

This process does not happen all at once. It unfolds gradually, through repetition. A phrase is introduced. It is repeated by different voices, in slightly different forms, but with the same underlying structure. Over time, it begins to feel familiar. And what is familiar often comes to feel true.

At the same time, emotion is aligned with narrative. Fear, in particular, plays a central role here. Because fear creates a demand for clarity. It creates a desire for simple explanations and decisive action. When people are afraid, they are less tolerant of ambiguity. They are less willing to entertain multiple perspectives. They want to know what is happening, why it is happening, and what must be done.

This creates the perfect conditions for the language of inevitability to take hold. Because inevitability offers certainty. It tells a story in which everything fits together, in which the present situation is the necessary result of prior causes, and in which the future is already, in some sense, determined.

But the cost of this certainty is the narrowing of perception. Complexity is reduced. Contradictions are smoothed over. Elements that do not fit the narrative are pushed aside or ignored.

In this way, the imagination itself begins to change. Not in a dramatic or immediately noticeable way, but gradually, almost imperceptibly. The range of what people can conceive as possible begins to shrink. Certain options no longer appear viable. Certain questions no longer seem worth asking.

And this is where the deeper transformation occurs.

Because what is being reshaped is not only opinion, but the very framework within which opinions are formed. It is not simply that people come to believe one thing rather than another. It is that the field of possible belief is reorganized.

This is why the question of language is so important. Words do not simply reflect reality. They participate in its construction. They highlight certain aspects of a situation while obscuring others. They create connections between events, establish sequences, and assign causes and effects.

And when a particular set of words is repeated often enough, it begins to define the limits of what can be thought. At that point, interpretation disappears into the background. It becomes invisible. What remains is the sense that things are simply the way they are.

But this sense is itself produced. It is the result of a process that involves selection, emphasis, repetition, and exclusion.

To see this process is to begin to recover a certain kind of distance. Not distance in the sense of detachment or indifference, but distance in the sense of being able to step back and ask how a particular understanding has been formed.

Where did this narrative come from? What assumptions does it rely on? What possibilities does it exclude? And who benefits from its acceptance?

These are not easy questions. And they are often uncomfortable because they disrupt the coherence that the narrative provides. They reintroduce uncertainty. They reopen the space of possibility that the language of inevitability had closed. But without this questioning, something essential is lost.

People no longer deliberate. They react. They no longer weigh alternatives. They move along paths that have already been laid out for them. They begin to experience their own actions not as choices, but as responses to necessity.

And this is how power operates most effectively. Not only through coercion, and not even primarily through coercion, but through the shaping of perception. Through the construction of a reality in which certain actions appear unavoidable, certain outcomes appear predetermined, and certain questions no longer arise.

When this happens, the most significant decisions are made before anyone is aware that a decision has been made. They are embedded in the way the situation is defined.

This is why the struggle over interpretation is so fundamental. It is not secondary to events; it is constitutive of them. The meaning of an event is not an afterthought. It is part of the event itself.

And once a particular meaning has been established, it becomes very difficult to dislodge. Because it is reinforced not only by argument, but by habit, by emotion, by the desire for coherence and stability.

To resist this does not mean rejecting all narratives or retreating into skepticism. It means maintaining an awareness of how narratives function. It means recognizing that what appears as necessity may in fact be the result of prior interpretations. It means, above all, holding open the space in which alternatives can be imagined.

Because the moment that space closes, the future begins to feel fixed. What once could have been otherwise begins to seem inevitable. And what seems inevitable is rarely questioned.

This is the deeper danger: that certain actions will be taken, and they will be taken within a framework that renders them unquestionable. Events will unfold, and they will unfold in a way that feels beyond human control.

At that point, the distinction between action and inevitability begins to blur. People participate in processes that they experience as external to themselves. They become agents of outcomes that they no longer perceive as chosen. And this is why it is so important to return, again and again, to the question of how we are understanding what is happening.

What is happening is never settled. It is never finally resolved. It remains open, as long as we are willing to keep asking it.

And in that openness, there remains the fragile possibility of seeing things differently, of imagining alternatives, and of acting in ways that are not simply dictated by the narratives we have inherited. Without that, the world contracts. Action disappears. With it, there is at least the chance that it might expand again.