Arguing

A dusty and rusty skill for lots of people. Completely unheard of for others. Oh they may think that their shouting matches and name calling qualifies as arguing.. but I disagree. This is why...

Wendy McElroy's

Arguing -- the Other Side of Listening

To be absolutely clear on what I mean by words like 'argue' and 'argument', allow me to repeat myself. By 'argue' I mean a verbal exchange between two or more people which involves a disagreement. An 'argument' is a purposeful intellectual exchange between people who disagree and base their disagreement on evidence. The purpose of a good argument is to resolve whatever conflict exists or, at least, to reach an understanding of where the irresolvable difference lies. The ideal argument is a co-operative venture, in which both people attempt to arrive at the truth. This is far from the view of arguments many of us have, or of the view of arguing upheld by our society. For most of us, arguments are loud shrill exchanges, in which there are winners and losers. As in physical contests, the winner of such an argument is assumed to be the intellectual victor when, actually, nothing much intellectual has occurred. To a large extent, we live in an anti-intellectual culture which places a low value on reasoning. Yet we also live in a culture where, to use Henry David Thoreau's phrase, most of us are living lives of quiet desperation. We are cut off from what most philosophers throughout the ages have considered to be our defining characteristic as human beings: the ability to reason. No wonder the art of arguing has been reduced to a slugfest in which you pummel an opponent into defeat. This is a strange way to view arguments. After all, the so-called 'loser' is the one who actually benefits the most from the exchange. Presumably, the 'loser' is the one who gained knowledge and eliminated an error so that his beliefs are more solid than before. The 'winner' may well walk away from the argument no richer -- with no more information or insight -- than when she entered it. Being good at arguing doesn't mean never having to concede a point, or never losing the exchange. Quite the opposite. A skilled arguer will always admit when she is wrong, and will listen closely to opposing viewpoints, not merely to detect their flaws but to honestly evaluate them. Arguing well means respecting reason and evidence.

Read more here

For the upcoming political events...

I like to remind myself about this fabulous excerpt..... getting her book.. definitely on my agenda.

The Rules of Intellectual Etiquette

Excerpted from The Reasonable Woman: A Guide to Intellectual Survival (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1998). For ordering information and more sample material, see <http://www.wendymcelroy.com/reason/.

by Wendy McElroy

"A man's own good-breeding is his best security against other people's ill manners"
Lord Chesterfield, Letters, 15 January, 1753

Everyone Has the Right to Be Uninterested

When you are trapped in an unpleasant or boring conversation, you are well within your rights to state, "I don't care to talk about this (or to you) further." Make the statement without hostility, as a matter of fact, then simply walk away.

No one has an unconditional claim on your time or on your attention. And the assumption that you should care about every issue and event in the world at all times is a ridiculous one. It leads to the intellectual equivalent of what the media has termed "compassion fatigue" -- the emotional state of being overwhelmed and short-circuited by the demand that you care about every injustice committed on the planet. Don't allow yourself to be intellectually overwhelmed by the unrealistic demand that you find everything and everyone interesting.

Everyone Has the Right Not to Understand

Most of us spend a lot of time trying to avoid uttering the sentence, "I don't understand what you are saying." Too often, people see this statement as an admission of ignorance or inadequacy on their own part rather than considering the likelihood that the other person is either not explaining things well or holds a position that makes no sense.

Even if the intellectual ball is being dropped on your side of the discussion, what of it? No one understands everything, and it is folly to pretend you do. There is a vast difference between being confused about a line of argument and being stupid. The fear of appearing stupid frequently underlies our reluctance to admit that we simply do not understand what is being said.

Do not apologize. Just ask whoever is peaking to repeat or to rephrase what has been said. Ask them to clarify what they mean. Most people are more than happy to expound at length in front of an attentive audience.

Everyone Has the Right to Be Uninformed

This point of intellectual etiquette is closely related to, but distinct from, the preceding one. Rather than feeling unable to understand what is being said -- either because the terminology is technical or the arguments are tangled -- you are confronted with an issue you know nothing about.

Again, what of it? No one can know everything. In fact, in a world exploding with information, there are certain to be vast areas of human knowledge about which you are absolutely ignorant. There will always be books you have not read and events you have not heard about. The worst thing you can do is to become embarrassed and fake knowledge you do not possess. Instead, exercise the intellectual right to say, "I am not familiar with that. Why don't you explain it to me?"

Everyone Has the Right to Make a Mistake

This is far more than a right. It is an inevitability. You will commit errors, and frequently. If this upsets you, then curse human nature. As a human being, you are a fallible creature without the godlike automatic knowledge of what is true and false, right and wrong. Yet many people will argue themselves (and everyone else) into the ground or into absurd intellectual corners rather than admit to the other person, "You're right. I'm obviously mistaken about that one point."

There is no shame in admitting "I made a mistake." Indeed, there is great strength in being willing to acknowledge your errors and to learn from them. This one trait alone, if developed as a habit will give you an amazing advantage over most of the people you deal with intellectually.

Everyone Has the Right to Change Her Mind

Changing your mind or your stated position on an issue is not a sign of intellectual indecision or weakness. Changing your mind is part of the learning process by which you discover errors and correct them. Yet, like the person who will be reduced to absurdity before admitting a mistake, many of us will never admit to adopting a new position. The more publicly the former position has been stated, the more psychological resistance there is to retracting it.

Yet if someone convinces you on an issue, it is no more than a mark of intellectual honesty and courtesy to say "You've persuaded me to your point of view." After all, what is the alternative? Holding onto an untenable position just because that is what you believed yesterday? This would be childish behavior, like holding your breath until you get your own way.

Everyone has the right to say without shame, "Obviously I am wrong on that point," and not to feel diminished by this act of intellectual honesty.

Everyone Has the Right to Disagree

Whenever you hear a statement or argument with which you disagree, you have the right to say so. Often we are in situations where our opinion would be unpopular if stated. Perhaps a group of male co-workers are complaining about some unpleasant characteristic that women are supposed to embody. Perhaps a family gathering has turned into a discussion of abortion, and you hold the only dissenting opinion. Your alternatives are wider than either stewing in silence or getting involved in an intellectual brawl. Simply, but firmly state, "I disagree." You don't need to justify yourself. You needn't become either hostile or apologetic. Simply state "I disagree" and walk away. Or stay and argue. The option is yours.

At this point, many people will ask themselves "Why bother? Why cause trouble?" In some cases -- such as the family gathering -- you may reasonably decide that speaking out is not worth the price you might pay for doing so. But showing discretion is different than allowing silence in the face of offensive opinions to become a habit. Such silence is destructive to the most important aspect of your intellectual life: your own self-esteem.

Breaking the silence and saying "I disagree" is important. If it were not, most people would not feel such resistance to making this statement.

Everyone Has a Right to Her Own Opinion

Everyone has the right to so weighty a thing as an opinion, and to express it. You do not need a diploma, permission from your spouse, a dispensation from the church: simply by being a human being, you have a right to reach your own conclusions and publicly state them.

It is true: the more you know about a situation, through reading or direct experience, the more likely your opinions are to be correct. But this does not mean that you should not reach a conclusion right now based on what you know about the situation. In fact, that is all anyone ever does: form opinions based on their current level of knowledge. After all, as noted above, you also have the right to change your mind if more or better information arises.

Being alive

I am that.. and I promised myself I would post here today.. so I am. Though I cannot currently think of something worthwhile to say. :p

Silence

Holy Week has started today, Palm Sunday. I was reading a newsletter I get from a Carmelite Monastery in Colorado Springs. They practice the old Latin Mass. This letter was about how the Sisters celebrate Holy Week. They do so with silence, prayer and darkness. On Good Friday, early in the morning before the sun arrives to break the night, the hour of Matins, the Sisters enter the chapel and light a large candelabra, then as they chant the psalms and prayers they extinguish each candle until only one remains. "The last remaining candle is hidden behind the altar, and in the darkness we pound on our choir stalls to make a din of noise. This final moving part of the Tenebrae ceremony, reminiscent of the upheaval of nature on Good Friday, expresses vividly the confusion and disorder caused by the death of the God-Man. The single lighted candle is then replaced on the hearse (candelabra) for all to contemplate."

This whole article made me think that though silence is a rare commodity around our house I often hear the whispers of the Divine in the din of noise our children produce. It is a treasure of great worth and one I, on occasion, have to remind myself of. :p My thoughts while reading this article was an inner yearning for some moments of silence and some bit of irritation at the constant stream of chatter in the house, the jumping, running, dishes, etc. Then I thought to myself, but what treasures do I possess in *this* space of my life? That din of noise.

That was my Holy Week thought for the day.

What is your treasure?

Wow.. this is so cool.

I know that there are a lot of things that are being fazed out of need.. like petroleum. Fazed out by it becoming more of a detriment to our society in its production and use, fazed out by it's increasing lack. But I've never worried about it. I'm totally and serenely confident that something else will become available to replace our current dependence on it.

Bugs Could Be Key to Kicking Oil Addiction

New Orleans

This whole situation in New Orleans just makes me sad and mad.

The looting and firing at rescue workers and cops. Grrr!! Jeez people, yes this is a terrible tragedy, yes this is awfully difficult to live through. And how exactly is being part of the problem going to help? Be the change you want to see in the world. Work together, stop being every person for themselves and get together and work for the solution. Help the helpers that are there. Help each other!

Sigh, rant over.

Though this brings to light a really good reason to be prepared for disasters. A good to go pack...that would have been a help, yeah? Good to go packs for one person for 3 days should have a water filter (Katadyn is one of the best ), water purification tabs, canteen, 2 sets of extra clothes – include gloves, scarf and hat (real wool), bandana, good boots, goggles, poncho, extra pair of glasses if you wear them, water-proof matches (easily made with strike anywhere matches and dipped in beeswax) , food for 3 days - like MREs, honey sticks, candy – survival candy is a good idea, trail mix, First Aid Kit that has pain relievers and bandages (feminine hygiene – cause you know it's gonna happen at the worst possible time – plus they soak up blood from wounds really well), we also include cayenne pepper in powder – it helps staunch bleeding wounds and is good for shock, some Bach's rescue flower remedy and arnica salve for bruises and strains, squeeze bottle of castile soap, tooth-brush, comb/brush, travel pack of baby wipes, some toilet paper, beg repellant, deck of survival playing cards, any necessary meds and list of any allergies or medical conditions, camp stove, Mess kit supplies, flashlight (wind up dynamo is a great idea or the shakeable ones) , light sticks, small radio – best with shortwave band capacity (batteries)...especially good with the wind up dynamo, phone card, some cash (gold is a very good idea), box-link gold chain worn in a parachute cord shell, identification, phone numbers, note book and pencil, couple of heavy duty-fragrance free large plastic bags, compass and thermometer combo that can hook to a jacket, binoculars – small/compactable, good knife (hunting type like the Buckmaster and Spyderco are excellent choices), Swiss army type knife (make sure you have a can opener on it one of these is a wonderful idea) and Leatherman type multi-tool, sharpening stone of some kind, whistle and signalling mirror, parachute cord 550– several hundred feet...you can easily get this by wrapping a knife handle with it and (also be sure to use the one with the several strands...this way you can peel them apart and use the separate strands and shell for fishing, snares, etc.), using it for boot laces and braided key chains, Ranger survival handbook, good first aid book, fishing kit...just some line and hooks will do, survival hatchet and an Army E-tool and e-tool cover, a HAM radio if you are licensed – getting licensed is a really good idea, emergency blankets, sleeping bag in a waterproof stuffsack. Putting a lot of these items into ziplock bags will give you nice sealable containers as well. This should all be in a backpack (these are really good deals, tough and dependable GI ALICE packs that you can leave near a door or hall closet or keep in your car...someplace easily accessible.

The number one thing you should always have with you? YOUR BRAIN!!!! Seriously. Lets start using the gray matter between the ears people and work this survival stuff out! Think! Be creative! Don't rely on being rescued, be your own rescuer and help others along the way. Then we all win.

Thoughts about Intelligent Design

Intelligent Design.

Seems like that phrase leaves an awfully bad taste in the mouths for an awful lot of folks. In pondering that, it strikes me that what is so apparently annoying, is that there seems to be little 'evidence' for it that makes sense to one who aspires to have a scientific grasp and view of the world.

Hmm...that seems an operative phrase. View of the world. World view. It seems that, for some, a scientific world view is the only Truth out there. That this is so obvious, that any other world view seems stupid, inane and too ridiculous to be considered. That's interesting to me, considering that an awful lot of brainy types out there in the quantum physics field basically have no idea how to explain simple things like, oh, how an atom is put together and how the particles that make up an atom do what they do, and what those particles that make up the particles that make up atoms are made of or how they work. How about their explanation of probabilities and where do those itty bitty particles and such disappear to when they disappear? Their answer....”ah...somewhere, we don't really know, but they do.” *nod * Sounds an awful lot like the explanation of Transubstantiation to me. So, there are all these extremely brainy folks out there, winning Nobel Prizes and such for their theories of how the Universe is put together and what things are ultimately made of, but when you get down to it, a lot of their explanations pretty much depend on an Article of Faith that at least rivals the explanation of Transubstantiation.

Yeah, the attitude annoyed me. Hence my spending the last 3 or so hours reading about quantum physics, leptons, quarks, antiparticles, Quantum chromodynamics, lattice gauge theory, fundamental interaction, Quantum field theory and such.

Well, I have since decided that instead of being all annoyed, I'll just respect this physical scientific world view as being as valid as say, the Judeo-Christian creation theory, the Cree creation theory, the evolution theory, the Turtle theory, the Hindu theory, quantum physic theory, etc. I mean really, when you get down to it, it is all about observational view point anyway. One Truth can be quite as valid as any other. It wasn't so many years into the past that it was a 'scientific fact' that dunking a woman until she drowned was a valid test for being a witch or not.

I'll just hold myself in a space of being open-minded about it all, especially in view of the fact that 100 years from now what is currently seen as 'scientifically valid fact' may be considered provincial superstition as we continue to advance in tools and understandings to explain things in greater depth tomorrow than we can today.

Belief in your potential

"The confidence you need is belief in your potential. If you see
world class potential in yourself, you'll put in the effort. If you
don't see the potential, you won't put in the effort and you'll wait
for the performance, and the performance always follows the belief in
self." -- Denis Waitley

This is one of those ah-ha type statements. You know in your gut this makes absolute sense, the fun part is in the implementation.

This, I believe, goes along with the BE, DO, HAVE paradigm. One must become and through that, find and realize one's potential. So how does one 'become'? Some do so through religion and prayer life, others through study and philosophy, some just seem to know their potential all along. I believe all of these avenues are valid expressions of the art of becoming. It does seem that at times we bog down in avenues of becoming and throw up barriers to communication.

At any rate, I really see that we all have massive and as Denis says, “world class potential”. I firmly believe that of everyone I know and meet. I find it unfortunate that we don't all reach for that world class potentiality, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. More to the point, what blocks us from achieving our greatness? This is truly the crux of understanding our potential and becoming all that we are meant to become.

Randy Gage talks often of what he coins, lack mentality. A state of thinking that assumes that we will always lack in one form or another. A lot of times it will be the mentality of; “I will always be poor. Nothing ever works for me. I'm too stupid to make a lot of money. I was born in the wrong neighborhood. I didn't attend the right school. No one likes what I do anyway.” All these and many others. They become a self-fulfilling prophecy. They wire our brains to even hunt for reasons and situations to make this come true for us.

So what to do? Re-wire the brain. It is being seen over and over in science that it is possible to do so. That our neural paths can and do change over time, it is the mechanism of creating a habit in the first place, but new ones can be created and old ones can be left to fade away.

This is where becoming really comes into play. Sitting down and writing out: What do I really want to be? What do I really want to accomplish in my life? What one thing is important enough to make the effort to achieve? Then we get to do our personal development. Working on our 'being' through reading materials and listening to teachers that encourage us and give us skills to move beyond where we are today, taking the integrating process of prayer and/or meditation, then taking the action to go from being...to doing.

Just thoughts. I think I'll go answer those questions for myself again.

Be ~ Do ~ Have

Act like the person you want to become. For as Goethe, the German philosopher, once wrote, "Before you can do something, you first must be something."
Bob Proctor

This has to be one of the most profound quotes I have ever read. Not just this specific quote, but this whole idea of 'being' before 'doing'.

We so often run about the world in a tizzy of activity, rushing hither and yon attempting to pack in absolutely every 'something' under the sun into our day. Yet, at the end of it, we often ask ourselves, “What am I doing this for?” We end up longing for anchor, for a quiet stillness within that says, “this is why my activity has purpose and function”. When we 'do' before we become, we can often find ourselves adrift on this ocean of activity.

How do we become first? Inner growing, reading, writing, meditating, praying; there are many avenues to this and it has been found to be vitally essential to 'doing' in a way that makes a greater impact on the doer and the activity as a whole.

Be

Do

Have

What is it you wish to become?

What are you saying?

"The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when an individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner contradictions, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposite halves." - Carl Jung



"Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility: For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen." - Kahlil Gibran



"The attempt to escape a problem is the problem. See the logic of this. When a man tries to escape, when he moves away from the problem, he divides himself into one man with a problem and another man who will escape the problem. In reality, there is no such division, so the escape must always fail, as the man sadly experiences. But when seeing that he is the problem itself, that he and his problem are one, he stops trying to escape because he sees there is no other course. In this state of intelligent acknowledgment of reality, he will not have the problem." - Vernon Howard



"The aphorism, "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he," not only embraces the whole of a man's being, but is so comprehensive as to reach out to every condition and circumstance of his life." - James Allen



"Whether you believe you can or you can't - either way you are right" - Henry Ford
So, what are you believing?



This is the reason we work very hard on our own self-talk and even what we write. It is a creating and powerful force...words. Because by our words we form our intentions, by our intentions we engage with the creative force of the Universe. This is a large part of our lack mentality that we discuss so often. We say... we *need * money or that we * have* bills...and guess what? We are right. In mentoring with the different friends that we have that are successful in their various disciplines, we have consistently found that they did not gain and stop being in * need*, they trained themselves to stop thinking in terms of * need* then gained. The Universe constantly supplies us with what we ask for...exactly. “I have all these bills.” “I'm so sick.” “I'm broke.” And it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Every single successful person we interact with never, never says something like that. Never. And all of them are self-made successes, they all had to learn this same truth, change your self-talk, change what you say, how you concentrate on your future, Rearrange your worries into “I'm so glad our bills are always paid.” “I feel great!” “I am a successful person!”

It has made a tremendous difference in our lives.