Month: July 2018

Freedom, what to lean on & who to believe

It can seem in life that we’re always looking for someone to turn to, to defer to as the more informed expert in whatever it is we’re grappling with. In many ways it’s as if we’ve unhooked society from all that once defined, constrained or regulated it and now we’re just doing as we see fit. Which I guess is the freedom of the Western world? Freedom to do as we please.

And it’s interesting in the sense that then we arguably need to be extremely well-informed about the complex nature of all the systems we’ve set in place (see Notes One). If we, as individuals, are to be able to correctly judge the right course of action in any given field then we really need to know how it all fits together and where potential problems might arise. Ploughing ahead blindly doesn’t seem the wisest option.

But then we end up in a situation where we need to maintain a great deal of knowledge, including monitoring the constant debates and re-evaluations of that collective body of understanding. All while society itself is proceeding at this astonishing pace, facilitated and driven by technology. This never-ending flow of opinions, trends, novelties, decisions, events, and so forth.

Maybe that’s simply the cost of freedom? That we’re responsible for all our decisions. But as Huxley disconcertingly observed in “Brave New World Revisited”, echoing the words of Dostoevsky, “in the end they will lay their freedom at our feet” – effectively wishing to relinquish that burden.

In many ways, Western society is built on this notion of individual freedom and responsibility. Within the marketplaces of society, culture, technology, lifestyle, or economy it’s generally down to us to understand enough to make the best decisions. Decisions for ourselves, of course, but also ones that reshape the global realities surrounding us.

Within that, the incredible significance of education, information, media, journalism and general awareness stands out in fairly stark contrast to the novelty, carelessness, and calculation that’s going on in those fields (Notes Two). While industries stretch the definition of what’s worthwhile and essential to human existence, we seem to be pulling at some fairly indispensable threads in terms of social cohesion.

Of course, many of these institutions are struggling to redefine their position within society and adapt to new realities. Beneath the many attempts to capitalise on opportunities and capture markets, I do believe there are many genuine people concerned about the place these essential functions need to maintain for a healthy society.

While that’s playing itself out, where do we stand? Clearly society as much as its individuals face considerable risks as our infrastructures respond to the challenges of technology. Clearly many parties, for whatever reason, are intent on distracting or influencing us for other ends. Clearly finding reliable information and being sure of what we’re doing isn’t as easy as we might’ve thought.

Who to trust within it all, where to place our hope for the future, is something we each answer for ourselves.

Notes and References:

“Brave New World Revisited” by Aldous Huxley, (Random House, London), 2004 (originally 1958).

Note 1: Power in what we believe
Note 1: Need to stand alone & think for ourselves
Note 1: Concerns over how we’re living
Note 2: Desensitised to all we’re told?
Note 2: Why listen to media that exists to profit?
Note 2: Technology & the lack of constraint
Note 2: Able to see what matters?

For a more beautiful take on a similar theme, Emerson’s views were explored within The idea of self reliance.

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What’s neutral?

Is there truly such a thing as neutrality? An even, objective middle-ground where nothing really carries weight and we can judge cleanly? Or, in reality, does everything, in some way, carry with it a sense of evaluation, intention and causality?

We might claim things to be neutral – knowledge, facts, technology, even opinions – but it’s all a little questionable perhaps. If we were to view those things as tools, then as soon as we pick them up and seek to use them for our own purposes do they conceivably lose any neutrality they once had?

As with anything, the nature of reality can quickly become pretty complex. All our words, conventions, ideas, scientific and technological solutions essentially carry with them a way of looking at the world and a sense of what’s justifiable in navigating that relationship from the human perspective. Within that, all we have stands on the shoulders of what’s gone before, growing out of paths we’ve taken (see Notes One).

Yet, these days, so much is simply placed in our hands: knowledge, power, and a reach far more easily attained than previously (Notes Two). It’s fairly straightforward now to engage with those complex realities, using modern tools to our own ends with consequences we may or may not intend throughout our wider social, societal, economic environments.

In that light, while the tools might theoretically be neutral our application of them can carry immense, possibly irreversible, generally invisible weight. As in Entertaining ideas & the matter of truth, there’s arguably this sense that our ability to think rightly about reality and what matters most within it is quite an important and underrated factor in life.

I mean, as soon as we take hold of anything we’re generally assigning it meaning and applying it with the intention of achieving certain aims. Those aims and meanings may be true, partially true, or completely mistaken. Time may well judge the results harshly, regardless of what we thought we were doing or hoped to achieve.

From another perspective, there’s also the way we might speak of something in neutral terms when it may need the colouring of judgement, evaluation, praise or condemnation. To convey something neutrally, rationally, objectively when in reality it merits a strong positive or negative slant is surely an incomplete representation of reality? Some things are simply “wrong”, and to not present them as such seems highly dangerous.

It’s interesting as, in both senses, once we ‘pick something up’ it seems we might need to assign it the weight it deserves in order to apply it rightly from the human perspective. It’s this sense of how everything – facts, opinions, words, actions – sits within a bigger picture of complex ideas, people and agendas we somehow need to navigate (Notes Three).

And, within that picture, neutrality may well be this ideal state of balance that doesn’t actually exist. Could it be that everything needs this overlay of understanding, interpretation or context in order for us to respond wisely to all we’re encountering?

Notes and References:

Note 1: “Response Ability” by Frank Fisher
Note 1: What if it all means something?
Note 2: The potential of technology
Note 2: Value in visible impacts
Note 3: Responsibility in shaping this reality
Note 3: Strange arrogance of thought
Note 3: What we bring to life

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Strange arrogance of thought

It’s strange to think how thought can just sweep in and cause so many problems. It’s almost too easy to spin together some convincing narrative around any sequence of events, casually brushing things aside to move in a new direction without giving much thought to what that might mean.

Thought can fairly easily downplay some things and prioritise others without much concern for consequence. But in life’s realities, such expressions of logic often risk being at least a little careless as we ‘pick up’ complexities, string them together as we see fit, then pronounce our judgements. Surely reality doesn’t quite work that way?

Obviously, it’s how we’re generally taught to operate within the world of ideas: dispassionately fighting our corner, wielding reason as a weapon we somehow feel causes no harm (see Note One). And in a way it’s true that in the abstract world of thought we ‘can’ act that way: within the realm of pure concepts we could argue nothing’s to be taken personally.

But in real life nothing’s entirely impersonal. Opinions on government, history, injustice, prejudice, or inequality might ‘just’ be words, but they’re weighty. As are many others. Words carry with them our personal, social, emotional, intellectual past, present or future. Anyone with direct or indirect experience of any situation rightly bears their response to it, their hopes or wounds (Notes Two).

We might happily wade into weighty discussions, waving words around more-or-less intelligently or considerately, but it’s likely someone’s going to get hurt. And while we might insist there’s only one solution, it’s also likely almost any such attempt may entail some very human realities getting swept away without due recognition.

Which approaches the question of how thought meets reality (Notes Three). We see what’s going on around us and, naturally, form ideas of how life and society fit together: what it means, what’s good or bad, what’s considered acceptable in the short or medium term in order to realise ideals we or others have about longer-term social and global outcomes.

But, in reality, ideas chart their path through our lives. Whole generations or groups might effectively be being asked to sacrifice any hopes they may’ve had for advancement, respect, or equal recognition so others might reap benefits and pave ways toward a future they’re hoping to create. Is it OK to ‘fold’ people’s lives like that into some other form of ‘progress’?

And while we might get impatient at ideas we see as ‘obvious’ not gaining traction with those around us, reality often moves much slower than the mind: logic might be able to deconstruct patterns of behaviour and conclude we should act otherwise, but that thinking still has to work its way gradually, insistently into human nature before it’s one day considered ‘normal’.

That said though, surely thought is what’s needed? As intelligent beings it’s arguably our responsibility to understand the life that sustains us in natural, social or economic forms, then operate as wisely and considerately as we can within it all.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Pick a side, any side
Note 2: Living as an open wound
Note 2: We’re all vulnerable
Note 3: Dealing with imperfection
Note 3: What if it all means something?
Note 3: David Bohm, thoughts on life
Note 3: Plato & “The Republic”

Navigating flawed realities or ideas was also the subject of Dystopia as a powerful ideal, How things change & Is anything obvious to someone who doesn’t know?

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“The Measure of a Man”

When it comes to being human, how exactly we go about it is a strangely difficult question: what we’re doing here, how to act, what’s best for social or personal welfare, are everyday concerns that really don’t seem to have simple answers (see Notes One).

It’s been written or spoken of countless times, as people have sought core principles, values or ideas to help things run more harmoniously. One such offering, succinct and deeply insightful, being “The Measure of a Man” by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Gently leaving aside the issue of using “man” as a term for discussing humanity as an inclusive whole, this text draws together some powerful and challenging imagery around what it is to be human: “The question “What is man?” is one of the most important questions confronting any generation. The whole political, social, and economic structure of a society is largely determined by its answer to this pressing question.”

That we can be viewed as purely physical beings, with needs and drives on that level, yet also as so much more than that is interesting to contemplate: “There is something within man that cannot be explained in terms of dollars and cents… that cannot be reduced to chemical and biological terms, for man is more than a tiny vagary of whirling electrons.”

The sense of what sets us apart from nature, while we undoubtedly stand within it, is curious to pinpoint: “Man has rational capacity… And so, somehow man is in nature, and yet he is above nature.” “He is not guided merely by instinct. He has the ability to choose between alternatives, so he can choose the good or the evil, the high or the low.”

Those kinds of thoughts, seeking to focus in on what exactly it means to be human, are surely valuable at a time when we’re frequently referred to in quite different terms (Notes Two). The idea of affirming our worth rather than speaking of people in somewhat careless, calculating, dismissive ways seems to me much more suited to the dignity, responsibility, and respect due to human existence.

Moving on to explore life’s “length, breadth, and height” – being your best; caring for others’ experiences; and relating yourself in some way to what might be the meaning of life – carves out this fairly comprehensive picture of the scope our lives may have and all the ways we contribute to our human and natural environments (Notes Three).

Attaining a view of life that sees how things interrelate seems so important given how many systems underpinning modern society now appear to be struggling: “there is still something to remind us that we are interdependent, that we are all involved in a single process, that we are all somehow caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. Therefore whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”

Ultimately, we all have to make our own choices. But this idea that we’re capable of holding ourselves to higher standards might be an incredibly valuable perspective on life.

Notes and References:

“The Measure of a Man” by Martin Luther King, Jr., (Fortress Press, USA), 1988.

Note 1: What is acceptable?
Note 1: Zimbardo & the problem of evil
Note 1: Plato & “The Republic”
Note 2: What we bring to life
Note 2: Worthless, or priceless?
Note 3: What if it all means something?
Note 3: The human spirit

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Cycles of mind & matter

At times I can become quite philosophical here, wondering at what’s going on beneath the surface of life and our interactions with it (see Notes One). Because it seems to me that there is meaning behind how we’re living, there is something being ‘said’ by the picture we’re painting with our actions. And, often, money seems the point where that’s appearing most clearly.

The degree to which economic realities have always been part of life and ways our current take on that might actually be quite different may be questions for another day, but it’s interesting to think what these things ‘mean’ and what they create socially, personally or environmentally (Notes Two). We might tell ourselves it’s forever been this way, but arguably the scale and intensity of modern ways are something very unusual.

In those posts and others within the theme of Economy & Values, I’ve talked of economic activity claiming to meet needs while simultaneously acting to create such demand by tapping into the delicate realms of human psychology: our desire to belong, feel good about ourselves and also emotionally or socially secure apparently having become valuable assets within the field of marketing.

Across the whole of life, there’s now this constantly rolling narrative saying precisely why we’re never enough: age, gender, appearance, image, style, health, social connections, life choices, communication, relationships, views, interests, everything’s now repackaged into this commercial conversation about how best to be.

As humans we clearly live within that reality, attempting to find our bearings within it: looking around us then trying to make sense of the world, of society, of what all these symbols, codes and conventions mean in terms of status, approval, and so forth. We’re essentially – at least in part – social creatures who seek to participate within community, culture, and other shared constructs.

And there’s a certain logic, I suppose, to adverts fabricating needs to create demands and markets; a circular reasoning that ties up cause and effect, providing reasons for its own existence. It’s also an interesting picture in that it’s plugging the fathomless demands of the human psyche into the rather limited world of natural resources.

It seems cultural participation, social status and personal worth often now come down to this economic scenario we’ve created where everything deemed valuable has been given a price tag. This sense of markets needing to tap into human culture and psychology to fuel growth – our search for meaning and fundamental insecurities dovetailed neatly into economic thinking.

How can that be sustainable ecologically, or even socially? Will we ever be satisfied by the pursuit of ‘goods’ or just kept in this never-ending state of anxiety, where even our economic stability as a society is built upon foundations of human inadequacy or worthlessness? (Notes Three)

The sense of it all, and the surety of using this formula as the basis for society, seems so questionable; it’s appearing to be this convoluted consumption of self, meaning and natural resources almost entirely in the pursuit of wealth.

Notes and References:

Note 1: What is real?
Note 1: Power in what we believe
Note 2: Business defining human life
Note 2: Culture selling us meaning
Note 3: “Small is Beautiful”
Note 3: “Paradox of Choice”

Thinking more of ways forward from darker takes on life, Responsibility in shaping this reality looked at our roles in finding other paths.

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What’s a reasonable response?

In terms of how we’re living and all the problems currently facing individual societies as much as the global community we’re all existing within, the sense of what might be realistic, practical, empowering responses is a question affecting us personally as much as systemically. Charting that powerful and emotive set of reactions, values and ideals in order to hopefully lead to lasting improvement seems this incredibly complex task.

Because we all have our sense of what’s normal, right, and expected. Everything we see and hear is presumably run past our own set of judgements, filters, and ideas as to what’s acceptable or would be better. So many conversations seem to run along that track of expressing our own opinions on what’s going on around us, whether we’re watching TV, absorbing news, or commenting upon the lives of others.

We’re often actively taught to approach life that way: forming our response, lining up arguments, and presenting them somewhat definitively to others (see Note One). As thinking creatures we’re being encouraged to pass everything through the reasoning of our own mind, with all its personal, cultural, social, moral conditioning of experience and affirmation. We’re shaped by our world, then pass judgement on that basis.

Which seems to have the effect of making everything quite personal: we feel things as an affront to our very existence and all we’ve been taught to see as right; we might expect our finest efforts at reasoning to meet with immediate agreement, approval and change; we may battle on, hoping to win people over, with our sense of self and what matters effectively on the line.

The idea of how best to apply our mind, our ideals, our words and actions in order to bring about greater awareness and constructive action isn’t easy to resolve. Then there’s the tools we’re using, the ways of going about things that we’ve inherited from the past and repurposed for new ends; including the voice, role and responsibility of modern media and the wider cultural conversations that all sits within (Notes Two).

With thought, we might expect our reasoned responses to be universal – we might think them compelling, obvious and beyond doubt – but, in reality, everyone else’s views are likely to be as firmly held as our own (Notes Three). Logic might be fairly neutral, but how we apply it, the meaning we assign to links in the chain, and the overall picture we see emerging does seem capable of varying for some reason.

So, given all we can now be aware of and the relentless pace of updates and trends appearing on a global scale, filtering all that down into actionable conclusions capable of keeping up with the waves of novelty must be almost verging on the impossible. And not adding fuel to the fires through potentially unhelpful responses stands apart from that as a quite separate challenge.

Somehow, though, we have to navigate this and find ways to communicate about collective courses of action we’re all inclined to sustain.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Pick a side, any side
Note 2: Apparent difficult in finding a voice
Note 2: Desensitised to all we’re told?
Note 2: Concerns over how we’re living
Note 3: Is anything obvious to someone who doesn’t know?
Note 3: The philosopher stance
Note 3: Dealing with imperfection

Ideas of imperfection, change, and the pursuit of ideals were considered in a slightly different light in Dystopia as a powerful ideal.

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Business defining human life

Thinking about “life”, in a way it’s just this limited span of time filled with interests and activities; the choices we make, things we pursue, and relationships we form within the world around us. With that, we can go with the flow or decide to chart our own paths through the options available and what that journey might ultimately mean.

And, these days, those options and their meanings seem to be frequently shaped by business, money, and the economics of life. So much is framed in those terms: image, personal branding, industries we support, all we choose to put ourselves behind and construct our identities around. It seems to just be how things are, what modern life’s about, the form perennial human activities are now taking (see Notes One).

Which is what it is: humans have these basic needs for shelter, belonging, security, and whatever else for them is now seen as essential. We each live our lives as best we’re able, contributing towards and drawing from our communities in various ways. That’s simply life, as we make our way from youth through to older age.

Along that path we leave our mark, letting others know what they mean to us as we relate ourselves to them socially, emotionally, economically etc. We’re all leading these lives, this dance of interaction as we effectively communicate which people, opportunities, structures matter to us and how much we care about them. Choices that fit together into this complex, often slightly fractured, picture of life.

And, within that, there’s industry. All these commercial entities that take a look at society, decide what to offer it, then spin stories around how our lives will be better if we buy into what they’re saying. Often, stories that seek to undermine us so we feel that psychological need; chipping away at our humanity, in countless ways, until we’re increasingly dependent on products, services and brands to feel good about ourselves.

It’s strange how human industry and economic activity now seems to feed off us – creating addictions, imbalances, and insecurity – in order to secure a stable customer base. Also, how so many valuable and worthwhile areas of human society, civilisation and culture are apparently seen as fair game in that pursuit of profit (Notes Two).

Maybe modern society ‘is’ built on such things – the profits and companies this sustains fuelling employment and contributing funds through taxation – but at what cost? What does it mean for humanity if these are the activities, principles, values at its foundation? What does it mean if our lives are enveloped by products, the ways of thinking that accompany them, and social or environmental costs they entail? (Notes Three).

Of course, it’s how life is and large sections of our societies are organised around approaching the practical challenges of existence this way. But, surely, the question of what life’s really about and who should get to define, shape, and set the standards we wish to live by are slightly different – and essentially human – concerns.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Money as a pivot of matter & intention
Note 1: Can we overcome purely economic thinking?
Note 2: Privacy and our online existence
Note 2: Culture selling us meaning
Note 2: Language and values
Note 3: At what cost, for humans & for nature?
Note 3: Created a system we seek to escape?

Whether asking such questions might ever lead to meaningful change was explored in Right to question and decide.

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Letting go of “who you are”

The question of identity is surely a fascinating one. Are we the product of our past, of the things we’ve done, opportunities we’ve had, people we’ve encountered? Are we as we appear on the outside, the image we’ve created over our natural genetic inheritance? Or the sum of our interests, abilities, and all those expressions of the personality that resides within?

It’s probably something we all think about, or have thought about, a great deal at some stage: this sense of who we are, how we compare, where we fit into society, and how much ‘worth’ we have for others (Notes One). This idea of crafting an identity – creating a personal brand, if you will – seems quite a powerful modern preoccupation; a strange concoction seemingly born out of technology, marketing and business.

The idea of our worth wasn’t something I’d planned to touch on here but, as it’s come up, hopefully it’s clear from my writing by now that I believe we are all, without a doubt, extremely valuable (Note Two). Much of what I’m often trying to do here is unravel all the ways that’s challenged, undermined, or covered up by other things within modern society.

Leaving that aside though, there is this sense in which we have a constructed identity: a self we’ve being building around us our whole lives out of our skills, interests, inclinations, and our place within the various systems and communities encompassing the globe. A self we’ve then built our life and relationships around; hopefully creating a degree of security socially, emotionally, psychologically, financially, and professionally.

But then, of course, we pass through life and things change. At this point, the ways Western society prizes youth and sees little value in other phases of life are fairly commonplace and often quite unchallenged; much as that sets us up to battle against the very nature of our existence and constantly casts into doubt our sense of personal, social or absolute worth.

Aside from that though, our sense of identity must almost inevitably be challenged by the very process of living. As we age our looks, interests, concerns, activities and energy levels often shift. It’s a physical thing, but also part of the paths we’ve chosen to walk in terms of family or career: choices we’ve made that mean we may not have the time or freedom to live as we once did.

If, in youth, we create a picture of ourselves and who we hope or expect to become, then we’re presumably carrying along with us all these hopes and expectations around ‘who we are’, what life’s about and what matters to us. This mental overlay – a narrative of identity and meaning – that forms the storyline we’re creating about our lives.

Some bodies of thought suggest detaching from the illusion of self as the purpose of life (Notes Three); but, even without going so far, loosening our grip on ideas of identity and true worth does indeed seem a very real challenge we all face.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Intrinsic worth over social identity
Note 1: How it feels to be alive
Note 1: Masks we all wear
Note 2: Worthless, or priceless?
Note 3: Krishnamurti’s “Inward Revolution”
Note 3: Spiritually committed literature
Note 3: The ideas of Eckhart Tolle

Beyond this, what’s maybe really being highlighted is the need for independence; as in The idea of self reliance.

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Will novelty ever wear off?

Thinking about novelty, it seems this strange notion of something being new but also not worth that much. Why those two things ‘go together’ is a question for another day, as presumably new things could also be valuable and have longevity. Anyway, for now I’m mainly concerned with how ‘novelty’ is apparently this endless stream of constant and fairly frivolous change.

In that light, it seems we might never get tired of it; this perpetual rippling of variations, slight differences, unusual combinations, provocative or impractical suggestions. Given the global resources we have in terms of cultural, historical, social, conceptual, artistic reference points there’s arguably a limitless pool of ideas we could draw from in fresh and ‘original’ ways. We’re creative creatures; all with our own unique views.

But then what might it mean for culture, society or economic activity to be built upon that sense of novelty? Where might it lead if we’re forever pumping out ‘something new’ and surrounding it with ‘industries’ that effectively feed off that process? What is that churning tide, and is there anything truly value-able within it? Those are completely open questions; as I really don’t know, but often like to ask.

It’s just interesting, in that it’s viewed as a ‘product’: a product of the human mind, of our desire to belong and create and celebrate the richness of life; but also a product within a marketplace of attention, commercialisation and profit. And it clearly applies on many levels, within technology, news, entertainment, culture, fashion (see Notes One).

And that is what it is really, it’s how modern life’s evolved and the forms things are currently taking. ‘Things’, in that context, being the function that human ingenuity, expressiveness, creativity, and originality have within our communities; the value all that might hold for the lives we share.

Maybe that’s a strange way of looking at things? Maybe we’re supposed to just accept novelty as a way of life and go with the flow. But, as I’ve said, I’m just wondering where it leads and if there’s an end in sight that’s worth pursuing. I wonder if it’s not a misappropriation of our creative and social instincts – diverting them towards endless novelty and the status we’re assigning it, rather than putting it to better use elsewhere.

To my mind, modern culture’s a little strange in that I don’t quite see the meaning or purpose within it all (Notes Two). I know, not everything has to have meaning and some things we just do for fun, to join in and be part of that conversation. But I’d have thought there must be some reason behind these things, some substance there, something we could be adding to the wealth of human civilisation beyond a trail of discarded artefacts.

I don’t know. It’s just a thought really, attempting to circle in on the value of what we’re doing. I might be wrong in looking for more; but it also might be worthwhile drawing things into question, just in case.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Fashion, self & environment
Note 1: Is sustainable design an impossibility?
Note 1: Living in luxury, on what grounds?
Note 1: Culture selling us meaning
Note 2: Entertaining ideas & the matter of truth
Note 2: Cultural shifts & taking a backseat

In all of this – in the tone of my writing, the questions I raise, and topics I address – here, as anywhere else, there’s The need for discernment.

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Pick a side, any side

As humans, why is it we argue quite so much? Maybe it’s simply because we’re thinking beings, wielding logic within the confines of our brains then drawing others into combat to test the strength of our ideas compared with theirs. That sort of competitive mindset of wanting to see if we’re right; which, of course, generally means having to make another person wrong on some count.

Whether it’s intrinsic to ‘thought’ that we would seek to argue, or whether our social or cultural lives have cultivated that tendency over the years is possibly too difficult a question to answer. Either way, it seems we have to live with it and make the best we can of the situation.

But it does seem we’re trained to think in terms of conflict: to pick a side, make it ours, defend it, and conquer the position others have taken up (see Notes One). It’s a contentious topic, but given its importance I do at times attempt to write about it as best I can. The nature of ‘truth’ and extent to which it might be bigger than any one person’s viewpoint seem such important things to consider.

Encouraging people to think, view situations, and approach them with this sense of a battle troubles me in many ways. If we’re tending to see conversations as arguments then our basic gesture’s quite aggressive I’d imagine? As if we’re trained to walk around looking for the next thing we might disagree with. As if others and their thoughts are adversaries more than friends or people we might learn from.

It’s this framework of argument where we’re taught to construct our line of reasoning, convey it in the most compelling manner, then attempt to somehow defeat our opponent so our ideas – we – emerge the winner. Conversations where we arrange all our thoughts, facts and opinions neatly along certain lines then see how well it all plays out.

Whether we particularly believe in our line of thought or choose our own side because it serves us some other way is another issue, of course. It seems some people like to make a sport of disagreeing as an intellectual, interpersonal or power-related activity; the satisfaction of victory, of having ‘won’ that human interaction.

Whatever the reason, the psychology, or the educational merit of this way of thinking, in practice it seems to cause these fracture lines between people and between the causes they care about. Conflict seems almost inevitable in a world where we’re taught to argue more than converse with one another (Notes Two).

And, to me, it’s also not quite realistic. I mean, are we applying our thoughts to people or to things? There’s surely a difference between reasoning on the level of ideas and observable realities, or talking about what they ‘mean’ within the intricacies of our social or personal lives. Making every topic a battleground for logic doesn’t seem very inclusive, very understanding of what might be working itself out in and through our lives.

Notes and References:

Note 1: How arguments avoid issues
Note 1: Does truth speak for itself?
Note 2: Listening, tolerance & communication
Note 2: Conversation as revelation
Note 2: Seeing, knowing and loving

Looking from another angle, there’s clearly great room for improvement in how we’re living, as explored in People wanting change.

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