| “Logic, my dear Zoe, merely enables one to be wrong with authority.” |
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| Blog |
| Tuesday, 01 December 2009 14:00 |
Just because people ”inform” you, just because people come to “reasonable” conclusions, doesn’t mean they are right. Information, knowledge, conclusions tend to be manipulated - sometimes with deliberate intent to deceive, other times because the context and framework of presentation distort it, personal bias is a big factor. What has been omitted is as important as what you have been presented. Why some things are “facts” and others are not is very important. Always question the facts. Why is it a fact? How was it gathered? What are possible sources of bias and error? Why is the conclusion the obvious one? Why should I trust you even if I have already determined you to be trustworthy? I notice that when people explain the “facts” to me, they are not explaining the facts at all, they are explaining the context in which the facts make “sense”. Well ... I happen to have my own contexts. |
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The real fact is that they hope I won’t question them. Once I call a person on what they said as truth, then someone (me, you, the guy in the corner) has to show them it wasn’t the truth, or they prove us wrong…
People have gotten use to nodding, saying, “Ah-ha” and not really listening. We need to have real conversations. Which pulls out real thought….Which takes time…
Gerardine
I also think people have to question everything. Nothing should be sacrosanct.
The problem is that most people are very xenophobic and refuse to come out of their world, preferring to defend it to the death.
even when i'm wrong, i'm right
and nothing you can say
will convince me otherwise.
Personally, I want to know about the steak. I want to know ALL about it. I don't care about the sizzle. If all you want to sell me is the sizzle and not the steak than I am not interested, because it is not the sizzle I'll be eating, but the steak.
There was a shift somewhere along the way where it became all about what the product could do for "me", rather than what it could do in general. That's where the fantasies and stories become more effective, I think.
The broader shift occurred in the 1920s... that's when mainstream products and commodities started to take on their own personalities. Edward Bernays, etc.
So, it's the same as it's always been? Well, the same artefact of human nature has always existed, but not to the same degree. In this case, the justifiably marginal invaded the centre. As with so many other "just the same as it's always been"s....