Trail Blazing

Sometimes things just happen in an unpredictable way. 

I am exposed to an idea, or a conversation that hatches an opinion, and it takes seed. In this particular case my process was lengthily.  I tried; I really did try, to carve it down to a single blog entry.  It wouldn’t let me do it, so I’m going to do something different and commit the next three blogs to this topic.  If nothing else, it’s a departure from ordinary, and in that spirit is instilled the very character of exploration in and of itself ~ trail blazing.

So then, this notion of arguing got to me; in particular how often discussion is mistaken as the same thing, but it’s anything but. 

   The idea of discussion, I think, is a spirit of sharing, as in sifting through possibilities when considering merits in several presented opinions.  Arguing on the other hand enlists reasons or evidence to support a conviction of righteousness; that seems to be the difference to me.  In short, a discussion tends towards a solution or improvement of situations and are absent of a need to prevail the way an argument does; Argument is adversarial, where attacking is the method to gain the cherished position of authority.  I’ve noticed so many times a discussion evolves into an argument, but rarely the other way around.

    While making this distinction I think it interesting to identify how convictions serves an argument more than say, a simple discussion.  Now I’d admit in a philosophical context, conviction provides the engine for enterprise; it is the well of innovation fueling options to negotiate obstacles. 

   Yet, conviction, as in ‘belief’, can become toxic and eclipse reasoning, facts even, particularly in argument. In the struggle for claiming ‘righteousness’ a stance supported by a ‘belief’ is presented- and expected- to go unchallenged; by anything except an equally passionate belief.

And, well, so what?

  I think it important to explore this pathway towards incivility, the precursor to violence. I think by invoking an accepted disclaimer of “I believe what I believe’ as license to be hostile and perform unsocial behavior is to invite a continuance to a very negative aspect of our collective nature.  War-making. This practice of emotionally attaching to a premise, that is a belief as the ultimate trump card, risks esteem when being proven wrong.  Because of that danger, because it then becomes a question of survival of the all consuming ever fragile and insecure ego, it’s all the more crucial to understand how our reasonable disposition during discussion can be high-jacked and we become emotional juggernauts looking for instruments to crush the skulls of our enemies. (Both figuratively and actually).

   In a world where more and more people are feeling disenfranchised, powerless, and marginalized, the more zest for being in command of the situation arises. Just as we compensate for drift from our intended course in a vehicle, so we try to inject more ‘feeling’ of control in our every day environment.  We invest more effort to convince others, (and perhaps ourselves) of a correctness to our choices and mostly, in our hope that we matter.   So then the purpose, initially to discuss with others who may help choose the best course of any action, dissolves into a hasty grab at feeling powerful….