Those Who Disagree Can Make Us Smarter

Do you go out of your way to read/listen to people who disagree with you? If not, consider doing so. It can make you smarter.

Not only can it make you smarter, but it can help you to sidle up a little closer to the truth.

You know "truth" right? It's the opposite of "false." These days it's important to bring up the distinction. Too many of us not only pay no attention to it, but outright reject it. Rather than true/false, they prefer "whatever" will give them the upper hand.

This upper hand thing sometimes begins at the beginning: when children lie. A child lying isn't the end of the world. Rather, it's natural for them to do so. After all, when they're very young, just emerging from infancy/toddler-ism, they start to get inklings of right and wrong. But just inklings. Right and wrong don't just appear out of thin air, crystal clear. They need help in understanding right or wrong.

And so a child gets an inkling that when he broke that thing, there's something that just "feels" like it's not good - i.e., wrong. But that's more an inkling. What may not be an inkling is knowing that Mom or Dad may not react well to breaking stuff. So they deny they did it. And while they're not as culpable of this lie as an adult with a fully formed conscience, nonetheless, they can't just be left hovering in some gray cloud of not being held accountable for their actions. So the parent needs to address the fact of lying for what it is. And there must be insistence on speaking the truth, and not lying. 

Now it's better to temper one's reaction to the lying tyke. Yelling (or worse) must be held in check (if you've got a bad temper). Take the time to explain the difference between telling the truth and lying. Take more time to emphasize how important telling the truth is, and how bad it is to lie.  If you don't, then lying becomes an acceptable behavior, one that slowly but fervently will embed itself into the the tyke's brain and remain firmly ensconced as they grow into adulthood.

If you think this is exaggerated, just look around. How many times do we see/hear folks lie - even if it's only a "little," or "white" lie (a subject for another time). Indeed, perhaps look in the mirror. Ever think you're not "a liar" but then catch yourself - for convenience - lying about something - either outright lying or just exaggerating.

Anyway, lying seems to be everywhere, when you take the trouble to consider this.

And don't worry, we'll not get diverted into commentary about our politicians, Wall Street's penchant to sell anything that makes a buck, or corporate leaders promoting their latest story to sustain or drive up their company's stock price. Again, a subject for another time.

But what's this got to do with entertaining the opinions of those who disagree with us?

Only this: If you develop this practice, just be sure you're not entertaining those who are clearly lying. What you want to find are those who sincerely hold views that are different, even oppose your own, who believe that what they say is true.

Oh, and it helps if said person or people are civilized, who can temper their views so as not to unnecessarily offend or outright injure others.

With that said, we find that entertaining such views helps us to arrive at the truth more expeditiously. This practice extends over all those areas: business, professional, personal. And when we take some time with those who disagree, sometimes we even change our minds. It's just the way things work when you have an open mind.

Why today's subject? It's because of all the lying that's taking up so much space these days. Not that lying is anything new, of course. But with our media - particularly so-called "social" media - there are simply oodles ot opportunity for liars to lie, lie, and lie some more and to greater and greater audiences. 

It's almost like a daily Tsunami hits and washes away yet another large chunk of truth and slaps together a cobbled construct of lies designed to bamboozle us into accepting lies as truth.

Then again, since there's no truth, then it's something like "faux" truth.

Why the "faux" truth? Maybe it's because there are still a chunk of us who really do think there's a difference between true and false, right and wrong. 

A hopeful thought to end yet another week.