I'm Right! Right?
Often we get into discussions or arguments with other people who don't see things as we do. While it is always possible that one or both of you are wrong, it is more often true that both of you are right to some extent.
Positions have three elements:
1. Point of view
2. Data
3. Passion or energy
Positions are used to achieve endpoints:
1. Goals
2. Desires and wants
These endpoints can be viewed on a timeline, with short to long term endpoints.
A point of view is from what perspective you view a problem or a situation. You may consider many points of view or just a few or just one. Every issue has many points of view. The data you consider will be adjusted by your mind to support your point of view. This is one of the problems with the way we think: we use logic and data to support points of view rather than using logic and data to develop points of view. This is just how we are built.
Consider the story of the completely logical and data driven goat standing half way between two equal piles of hay. The goat is hungry, desires to eat and has as his goal satiety and not wanting to starve to death. However, being completely logical and data driven, there is no reason to start in one direction over the other, so he stays put and eventually starves to death.
Passion or energy is applied to a position to energize our support for the position. Indeed, we may have in our minds multiple positions concerning a situation, but the ones with the most passion or energy behind them get the bulk of our support. We imbue our positions with passion depending upon multiple factors including how we see ourselves, how it fits with our other beliefs, how we want others to see us, etc.
It would be wonderful if our system of using positions supported by passions satisfied our goals and desires. Sadly, they often don't.
The solution is not to change another person's mind, but to open minds to allow different points of view in, and then look at the goals and desires and let them guide where the energy and passion should go.
A simple example: Many people passionately believe that the rich should be taxed to help the poor. Indeed this seems to be a way of easing suffering. Just look at a starving child who is no longer starving after receiving a government supplied meal. We have had a war on poverty since 1965 in the USA and yet the percent of those living in poverty has not changed. One would expect that there would be some improvement, but there has been none. Yet, the passion for taxation of the rich to solve this problem remains in spite of the failure of both short and long term (45 year) results. This should tell us that we need to consider other points of view, other options to reduce poverty, that taxation of the rich, while emotionally satisfying, did not lead to the desired goal of reducing or eliminating abject poverty. And yet, given this information, those who have great emotional energy behind taxation of the rich will not be able to open their minds or de-energize that position in spite of the failure of results. A reply might be "we just haven't done enough of it yet".
When we have great emotional energy behind a position and are not moving towards our short, intermediate and long term goals, we owe it to ourselves to reconsider where we are investing our emotional energy and need to consider other points of view and our data in other patterns. Indeed, this is one of the highest levels of intelligence: to be able to step back from one's passions to consider other points of view in light of goals and desires.
Positions have three elements:
1. Point of view
2. Data
3. Passion or energy
Positions are used to achieve endpoints:
1. Goals
2. Desires and wants
These endpoints can be viewed on a timeline, with short to long term endpoints.
A point of view is from what perspective you view a problem or a situation. You may consider many points of view or just a few or just one. Every issue has many points of view. The data you consider will be adjusted by your mind to support your point of view. This is one of the problems with the way we think: we use logic and data to support points of view rather than using logic and data to develop points of view. This is just how we are built.
Consider the story of the completely logical and data driven goat standing half way between two equal piles of hay. The goat is hungry, desires to eat and has as his goal satiety and not wanting to starve to death. However, being completely logical and data driven, there is no reason to start in one direction over the other, so he stays put and eventually starves to death.
Passion or energy is applied to a position to energize our support for the position. Indeed, we may have in our minds multiple positions concerning a situation, but the ones with the most passion or energy behind them get the bulk of our support. We imbue our positions with passion depending upon multiple factors including how we see ourselves, how it fits with our other beliefs, how we want others to see us, etc.
It would be wonderful if our system of using positions supported by passions satisfied our goals and desires. Sadly, they often don't.
The solution is not to change another person's mind, but to open minds to allow different points of view in, and then look at the goals and desires and let them guide where the energy and passion should go.
A simple example: Many people passionately believe that the rich should be taxed to help the poor. Indeed this seems to be a way of easing suffering. Just look at a starving child who is no longer starving after receiving a government supplied meal. We have had a war on poverty since 1965 in the USA and yet the percent of those living in poverty has not changed. One would expect that there would be some improvement, but there has been none. Yet, the passion for taxation of the rich to solve this problem remains in spite of the failure of both short and long term (45 year) results. This should tell us that we need to consider other points of view, other options to reduce poverty, that taxation of the rich, while emotionally satisfying, did not lead to the desired goal of reducing or eliminating abject poverty. And yet, given this information, those who have great emotional energy behind taxation of the rich will not be able to open their minds or de-energize that position in spite of the failure of results. A reply might be "we just haven't done enough of it yet".
When we have great emotional energy behind a position and are not moving towards our short, intermediate and long term goals, we owe it to ourselves to reconsider where we are investing our emotional energy and need to consider other points of view and our data in other patterns. Indeed, this is one of the highest levels of intelligence: to be able to step back from one's passions to consider other points of view in light of goals and desires.
posted by DocBrain at
5:07 AM
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