Truth is More Forgettable than Fiction

[ursangnome]

I was sent to a professional conference recently, in part to listen to one of the keynote speeches. In that speech, I was reminded of the following truth:

Whenever a person does something bad - makes an error, screws up, behaves poorly, there's almost always some reasons they can identify. There's a rational set of events, circumstances, pressures, and the like that lead to the end result. Whenever someone else does something bad, it is far more likely to be blamed on a flaw in character.

You have reasons. They are stupid, incompetent, mean, evil, avaricous, egotistical, etc.

When you're a little snippy at work, it's because you're under a lot of pressure. When someone else is mean, it's because that's their personality. When someone cuts you off on the highway, they're an idiot, rather than simply working from a different (perhaps incomplete, but understandably so) view of the situation on the road. When someone supports another election candidate, they're dumb partisan rednecks, and you're the rational, reasonable one.

How much better would things be if the first assumption was instead that the other guy is behaving in what, for him or her, is at least an understandable (probably even rational) manner given their circumstances? Treat them as if this were the case, so that you actually work to find out what the real issues at hand are, so you've got a chance to deal with them...

Of course, the last guy who got a lot of people to accept this got nailed to a tree. Maybe I should shut up...

Comments

[madamruppy.livejournal.com]

I do try that on the road. I try to wish the butthead who cuts me off a safe journey to wherever they are going in such a damnable hurry. It isn't easy but it is a small step.

[jdulac.livejournal.com]

You've somewhat stated Miller's Law: "In order to understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true and try to imagine what it could be true of." In "Giving Away Psychology in the 80's: George Miller Interviewed by Elizabeth Hall," Psychology Today for January 1980, pp. 38-50 and 97-98; on page 46.

ozarque (Suzette Haden Elgin, the linguist and science fiction author) has a post on it, (http://ozarque.livejournal.com/302423.html) and there are others in her journal, I just can't find them right now.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

When I started in software, I said (too often) "That's stupid" whenever something was done in a way I didn't understand or expect.

It wasn't long before I realized that "That's stupid" was a synonym for "I'm ignorant"...

[new-man.livejournal.com]

There's a little game that we sometimes play of "I/You/They", where the positions of three viewpoints (internal, known, and unknown) are represented. In this case, for humour value. It works something like...

I... look good!
You... are all dressed up!
He's... probably gay.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

It would be wonderful if more people took that attitude, but sadly it seems to require too much effort.