Looking on various social media platforms, the number of people who don’t appear to actually THINK, in any meaningful sense, but merely regurgitate views & information from politically biased sources that confirm their existing views, is staggering.
Remember, we're
supposed to be a highly literate, highly educated, intelligent society!
For example, I’ve seen a comment on a post I was following which said that to
get accurate news you need to watch Channel 4 News.
Now, however we
vote, anyone with even a fraction of neutrality and objectivity knows that of
all the broadcast media in the UK, the most blatantly biased in favour of
Left-wing Progressive views, is Channel 4!
This begs the
question, ‘do we ever think about our socio-political views, where they come
from and why we hold them?’
I mean think about
them critically, with some genuine honesty & self-awareness? Really,
challenge ourselves on WHY we think what we do? Not merely rationalising our
views but forensically challenging them to see if they need any adjustment.
How did we come to
the conclusions we did all those years ago? Most people have closed-mindedly
held their views for so long, they can’t even remember. Was it their parents?
Was it a school teacher or University lecturer? Was it a close-friend who they
admired and looked-up to? Was it something they read? It doesn’t matter – they
just KNOW – end of discussion, no self-awareness, no critical thought. Just
closed-minded, often smug, but frankly, societally unhelpful, certainty.
The people to be most afraid of are those who have absolute
certainty about how society should be organised. They deem themselves not only
'right' but 'righteous' and will stop at nothing to achieve their ends.
Our society & culture is too complex and too precious for closed-minded
zealots and their shallow simplistic ideological answers to be allowed to hold
sway.
This is how we get
to the situation where so many, often well-educated people who think of themselves
as ‘nice’ (whatever that means), are happy to describe people of differing
views as ‘stupid’, or worse, ‘evil’.
Hey, why not
‘stupid AND evil’, just to cover all your bases?
Do you know, I was
actually part of a conversation at a Christian Church meal, where someone said,
in all seriousness, that they regarded people who voted for Brexit as
‘sub-human’.
This is a
Christian (apparently in name only) calling people who disagreed with them
about the best way forward for our country, ‘sub-human’.
I’m not a close
friend, so I kept my counsel. But I DO know this person well-enough to know
that they would have absolute confidence in describing themselves as ‘good’,
‘honest’ ‘decent’, ‘reasonable’, ‘kind’, 'tolerant', ‘considerate’ etc etc.
So you see how a closed-mind and lack of self-awareness can allow us to fool
ourselves into seeing people who disagree with us not only as stupid &
evil, which is bad enough, but sometimes as barely part of the human race!
With these ways of
thinking, you have given yourself permission to ignore them, shut them up or
openly disregard & disrespect them – you know, exactly what the Nazis did
to the Jews - and we know where that ended up!
The point is that,
outside their coterie of like-minded friends, for anyone to expect to be taken
seriously as a decent reasonable person, you have to stop yourself being merely
dismissive of alternative viewpoints, and be prepared to re-examine your
thoughts & beliefs on a fairly regular basis.
This means
reading, listening to & discussing important issues calmly and in good
faith with those of a differing view; not merely contriving to be patted on the
back by your ideological soul-mates.
Refusal to engage
with any idea or argument that casts doubt on socio-political beliefs often
formed 30, 40 or more years ago is NOT the sign of a self-aware person; it’s
not the sign of someone acting in good faith; and it’s not the sign of someone
seeking truth, because a closed-mind isn’t seeking anything but confirmation of
its unassailable biases.
Now you surely
have to acknowledge that unthinking closed-mindedness & the attitudes and
behaviours to which it leads is not ‘good’, not ‘decent’, not ‘reasonable’, not
'tolerant' and certainly not ‘nice’.
And it’s so
liberating when you free yourself from feeling that you have to regurgitate or
defend a certain belief or position at all costs. It makes you a much calmer
and, frankly, better person to look at issues from all angles and see where
areas of agreement can be found before deciding what you think is a reasonable
way forward.
So, we all need less hubris & more humility; less partisan
anger & more open-minded good-faith dialogue; to stop ourselves reacting on
emotional triggers rather than taking time to consider our words & their
consequences.
It’s a weakness of character, not a strength, to refuse to
re-think your positions, or to refuse to say, ‘you know what? I’ve changed my
mind’.
To quote from Quentin Tarantino’s film, Pulp Fiction, “that’s your
pride f***ing with you”.
We should relish the idea that we can have our mind changed by new
information or by someone explaining a differing viewpoint in a way that
resonates with us; not be fearful of it.
Other than pride, what is it you think you have to lose by being
more open-minded & receptive to other views in this way? The approval of
your closed-minded friends? Pfft!!
Instead, too
often, we fall back on our pre-disposed world views and aggressively defend
them and anyone in our ideological tribe at all costs.
This has to change or our society is doomed and we will
eventually become a dystopian dictatorship because, after all – if we insist on
a socio-political ideological war without compromise, then one side has to win
it - and of course, one side has to lose it.
The winners become tyrants and the losers become slaves - until
the slaves are erased (as in the USSR and China) or rebel as in many countries
that were once European colonies.
We can and we MUST do better than that but it starts with us as
individuals being brave enough to step outside our closed-minded certainties
and engage with alternative views with openness, honesty and good faith
There are some fundamental truths about human behaviour but there are not many. The above article is close to some of them. To have an opinion and express it is a wonderful freedom but with that comes a responsibility. A responsibility to validate what you say before you say it. To have evidence to support your opinion and most of all to listen to arguments against your position. Listening and responding appropriately to objections to your view is not enough alone. The imagination to walk in someone else's shoes and to empathise gives an essential perspective into others feelings. Understanding feelings and understanding how emotion can constrain critical thinking begins to provide an insight into why most discussions do not end in agreement. You can persuade anyone to cease an activity they don't like, but try to persuade someone to cease something they are passionate about and they will first say you are wrong without listening repeating platitudes of others or providing questionable evidence as firm facts and dismissing your evidence as questionable. If you persist they will say you are stupid, belittle your view and may even insult you, if you persist further they will deem you to be evil at worst or have devious or personal motives at best. So we need to recognise peoples passions and understand why they have them before we engage with our opinions which may incite closed minds rather than provide closed minds with insights.
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, I agree with your article in all except the concept that people hold a single "World View". People hold many sets of views at the same time, many even hold contradictory views and "keep more than one set of books". (e.g. Certain types of evidence are accepted when they support your opinion and rejected or disputed when they don't) I wont give further examples as its easy to shoot down a specific example, but you can think of them yourself. Recognising, there is rarely a person with a single world view and the understanding of possible variants begins to open the possibility of understanding.
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking the time to reply so fully and I agree with what you say. I think, when I say. 'world-view' I was really thinking 'socio-political ideology'.
DeleteNot much I would disagree with there. Re ‘pride’, I think a big part of the problem is that, in Western society at least, having a firmly held, unwavering viewpoint is seen as strong, positive (maybe slightly macho as it seems more prevalent in men), whereas being open to listening to and considering opposing views is often regarded as a sign of weakness. Nonsense of course, but I believe it is firmly ingrained in our society and hence very difficult to change, in the short term anyway - in the longer term of course society’s view of what is acceptable can change. Just look at views held commonplace in the 1970’s that are (rightly) considered unacceptably sexist, racist etc now.
ReplyDeleteThere is also the fact that views and perspectives creep into our subconscious without us even realising it. In my late teens / early 20’s I often espoused the view that the Lib Dems were great at a local (city council) level, but were not a serious option to vote for in a general election. I repeated it for years until once challenged as to why I thought this. I then realised that it was a view my parents articulated quite regularly, and that I had (unknowingly) adopted. As it happens I think my parents were right, but it shows how easily you can hold quite strong views without ever realising why. It therefore takes a certain level of self awareness / reflection to recognise and hence avoid this, a characteristic I would suggest is not prevalent in a large proportion of the human race.
Finally, it is healthy (though potentially uncomfortable) to engage with people with opposing views; in a discussion with some staunchly pro-Brexit friends over a few beers some time after the referendum, it transpired that we actually had a lot more in common than we differed on, but reached different conclusions. I doubt either ‘side’ would have changed their overall stance (for or against) but it did prove that taking a right -v- wrong / good -v- bad stance is unhealthy and over simplistic. Obvious really!
Unfortunately divide and conquer is a well established and proven concept that gets used by unscrupulous politicians and the media to get desired results. It works, and the result is the ‘them and us’ blinkered mentality that unfortunately seems to prevail.
Many thaks for taking the time to reply Giles. Agree with all you say.
DeleteCan i ask about your username in these blogs ?
ReplyDeleteCan you define a "Radical Centrist" ?
I have this impossible image of a enthusiastic fence sitter with both ears to the ground
I can make quite a few anagrams out the name you chose but most are blasphemous so i doubt you intended any hidden meaning.
There is a lot of meaning in a name. It can be a flag to rally around or a knife to cut through a barrier ..
Whats the difference between a Radical and activist? are they both positive to the same degree. Whatever, i like the name and i would your thoughts on why you chose it as a separate blog please.