Having meaningful and honest discourse
The other person is probably not wrong.
In my past one year at school, my experience has been quite dynamic, from the conversations I had in and out of class to my brief interactions with other people. It is a great place for most people and maybe not the best for some but that is beside the point of this writing. I have, in the past few months been trying to analyze the atmosphere in social media and at the school, mostly from an intellectual point of view and not social (that is another long discussion).
The world is not starving from lack of conversations, they are actually too many. What is lacking is honest and open discourse. Keeping in mind that this is an essential building block of a healthy civilization, we aren’t doing ourselves any good.
What does honest discourse look like?
Honest discourse is where someone has the freedom to lay forward his/her ideas without fear of intimidation and/or judgement. That is the perfect scenario, which in fact rarely happens anywhere — but being ‘intelligent beings’ we should be doing better, shouldn’t we? Turns out we aren’t doing any good actually, we might actually be doing very badly.
In one of my previous writings, “A Manifesto for free speech”, I explore the idea of how speech can be truly free and how honest discourse can be built( I hope to publish soon). I will not try to lie that all ideas are equal because that is not true. What I do say most, if not all, of the time is that every idea should be given an honest and fair assessment so that the most logical proposition is adopted or a better proposition developed. For this to happen there are certain habits that have to change pertaining to how people have ‘conversations’ and how people treat information in general.
I came up with a few guidelines to help promote honest discourse.
No idea is too good to be challenged
This rule is very important. We should head into conversations knowing that our ideas are not always(or ever) airtight. This means that new flaws will always be discovered, ideas might merge with time, others might appear and others might disappear. An idea being flawed doesn’t mean you are foolish — keeping this in mind can prevent you from taking things personally. If you find yourself finding it hard to tolerate a challenge, it may be because you subconsciously know that your idea is deeply flawed, a person who builds a house well isn’t afraid of a storm.
Do not place labels on people
This is one of the things that make people block off important information. Labels create a way for you to disregard information from certain people/ sources. There is never a reason to disregard information, there are only excuses. Most of the labels are created in a bid to prioritize your idea or proposition, however incomplete, over anything else that comes your way. Labels also help to enforce bias. Examples of labels are misogynistic, bigoted, denialist, ignorant, privileged, etc. Rarely are these labels ever true in any way, and even in the few instances when they are, they still prevent you from learning since it gives you a way to belittle the person giving the information and prevent yourself from listening to them and/or a way to radically generalize the information.
Do not use or seek to use authority — either yours or someone else’s — to put one idea on top of another.
Never use authority to justify your point of view. If you are in a position of power in an institution, it is advisable that you never take sides in discussions amongst those you have authority over. Institutions should also generally not take ideological stances, no matter how ‘good’ those stances seem or how ‘obviously beneficial’ they seem. I don’t really have to explain the reason for this because it is quite obvious. One of the reasons is that people who hold opposing views are most likely to end up being ostracized, even if that wasn’t the goal. You end up silencing a group and creating a false sense of acceptance.
As a person that values honest discourse, never seek help from higher authority to prioritize your proposition.
Learn to thrive in complexity
Thinking is not easy and it is draining — sometimes even painful. Bringing lots of information together and building ideas from them isn’t a walk in the park. However, the world is a complex space and if you do not learn how to process complex information then you will end up not learning from what you consume, pushing away complex information or even pushing away people who are bearers of information. Not everyone is gifted in this area, so try and talk to a friend who you think is.
Read actual books as sources of information — blog posts, news and YouTube videos are the worst sources of information available
This is one of the biggest problems facing us today. Most people would rather watch a 20 minute YouTube video than commit to go to the library. This creates a cloud of mostly incomplete information that leads us to make wrong inferences. News agencies are also not a source of information, especially scientific information. We are living in an age where it is more important for a news agency to support and justify certain stances rather than give objective information.
Furthermore, people who write books take more time to develop more detailed, complete and concise ideas than those who write blog posts or make YouTube videos.
Consume root information/ foundational ideas and before their children.
When you come across an idea or proposition, try finding how the idea came about and when it came about. Read about the ideas that gave birth to that idea before even reading the current form of the proposition itself. This is because if the observations or foundation from which the idea is developed is wrong, then by default the idea becomes stale (no matter how nice or undeniable it looks). It becomes guesswork.
Be wary about feeding yourself with information that you are comfortable with
How much time do you spend listening to people who agree with you? Do you spend time reading what you do not necessarily agree with? Do not shut off conflicting information, report posts you do not agree with or unfollow people you do not agree with. Remember the analogy of a house builder? Maybe you know your house isn’t strong enough to withstand a storm. Actually, you should follow those people you do not agree with more because they will force you to explore new waters and think — however painful that is. What new thing will someone who completely agrees with you teach you?
Listen and read with the goal of understanding and not with the goal of criticizing
When you explore new information, do it with the goal of learning and understanding and not validation or invalidation. Consuming information with the purpose of either validating it or criticizing it prevents you from absorbing it. Sometimes, it even prevents you from getting the point of the information as you become so immersed in finding flaws in it.
These are just but a few fundamental guidelines. There are plenty of others. The most important thing is to practice. The more you engage in such, the better you become. Some people are naturally talented, but even if you are not, you can always learn.
For me, the most important rule is the first rule. The rest are also very important. The importance of a society where people have honest conversations cannot be overstated. Above all, do not be afraid to speak your mind. Say what is in your head no matter how stupid you think you sound, that is the way you will be able to formulate better propositions.
Do not be compelled to choose amongst what exists, whatever exists was once non-existent.
Till next time! Give honest communication and be prepared to receive it. Bye!
