Listen carefully, before speaking recklessly
An attempt to beat the cancel-culture
This short essay tries to offer a solution to the mess we have created with modern forms of communication. Wokeness and cancel-culture are a threat to the fundamental structure of our society, and therefore a threat to our very being. There has arguably never been a time more important to listen carefully before speaking recklessly in both meanings of the word carefully; listen with care and listen fully.
Why is diversity of opinions not allowed anymore?
Seemingly, we live in a time where controversial thought isn’t allowed anymore. It appears to be a problem that derives from the inability to accept different opinions. Cancel-culture has found its way into all centralized media platforms. But how did we end up in a situation in which it is more important to follow the common narrative, rather than thinking critically? The unwillingness to try to understand different opinions is like a virus that has taken over the immune system of our society. A crucial development seems to be the lack of personal connectedness while digital conversation, which often involves personal insults without any of the real-world repercussions, has immensely increased. Restricted number of words, the need for immediate recognition, and short attention spans further magnify this issue. We need to do everything we can to bring the human element back into our communication.
Our lives are a collection of millions of moments. Unique moments define our paths, our thinking, and our being. Those are moments of joy and sadness, moments of happiness and fear, moments of strength and weakness, moments in which we are able to provide guidance, and moments in which we need guidance. We have countless presuppositions based on our unique experience in life so it’s exceptionally strenuous for us to sufficiently open our minds to completely opposing views. Having someone challenge our beliefs breaks down a part of us that identifies with the rightfulness of that belief. Carl Jung said we are made of many different sub-personalities who build their own identities, have goals, take actions, and create rationalization to justify their belief. It’s simple to prove this is true. Just remember the last time you did something in rage that you didn’t want to do. We all experienced this kind of situation at one point or another. But only if we reflect sincerely on our own behavior and feel injustice inside our psychophysiological being, will we eventually be able to make a change.
Why listen carefully?
Sincerely trying to understand another person’s perspective, without judgment, and genuinely putting ourselves into their position is an unbelievably important skill. How did a certain set of beliefs so different to mine come to fruition? Under what circumstances could I have come to believe the same? If we truly want to make progress and influence someone else’s view, we first need to understand them fully. Although we need to remember that no one, no matter how persuasive he or she is, can make changes happen from the outside. No change can happen if an individual doesn’t want it to happen. Marylin Ferguson stated it very well, “No one can persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from inside. We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument or by emotional appeal.”
No single human being has got the answer to all the questions all the time. No individual does everything right, for everyone, every time. Furthermore, “we must pay attention to the beam in our own eye before we point out the splinter in our brother’s eye.” (Mathew 7:3). It takes humility to know that each of us has numerous flaws before pointing out the minor mistakes that someone else acts out. It takes courage to admit that our thinking is inevitably ignorant because by virtue of our limited conscious capacity we can’t process all the possible eventualities. The individual’s conscious attention span is 120 bits per second. The combined collective human conscious attention span is 120 bits per second times 8 billion (people on earth). Once we understand the importance of this point, we understand that each of us is ignorant to an infinite amount of possibilities all the time.
Why not speak recklessly?
Above all, we must acknowledge that open-minded conversation is a two-way street of listening carefully and not speaking recklessly. We have a responsibility to thoroughly think through our arguments and learn to articulate them effectively. (at least as far as we possibly can, given the ignorant nature of our limited conscious attention span). Therefore, it’s crucial that we attack our viewpoints from many different angles. We need to try to invalidate them and make sure they hold up against the arguments that can go against them. At least we should try if we ever want to be taken seriously and rise to an adequate level of communication. What has led me to believe this is true? How and by whom was I influenced on my path to believing this? What sources, promote this way of thinking and why? What sources stand in opposition to this view and why? How credible are those sources? Do I have evidence that my or the other’s belief is true? There are countless questions we can ask ourselves to challenge our beliefs. Doing so will allow us to articulate our beliefs logically and specifically.
Specifically, is the keyword because vague arguments are dangerous. There is an infinitesimally small chance that there is ever a one fits all solution. In fact, I don’t think there has ever been one-solves-everything argument. The devil is in the detail, so we must make sure we attend to the details. Nothing is worse than having a strong opinion on something which the first averagely well-articulated and knowledgeable person pulls apart while pointing out the countless mistakes we have made in our thinking. It shows a lack of accountability and the inability to think thoroughly. Make no mistake, it is our responsibility to think things through properly and allow the ideas of other people into the sphere of possible truths. After all, individually we know nothing compared to the knowledge of the greater whole, so we shall humbly accept the probability that we are wrong, sometimes, most of the time, all the time in one way or another. Listen carefully before speaking recklessly. Speak truthfully, embrace the logos and you shall find a way to beat the cancel-culture to create a finer, less restrained world for all of us.
