coberst
09-24-2009, 06:12 AM
Is negativity critical, cool, and courageous?
‘To be negative’ is not the same as ‘to be critical’.
The dictionary has many definitions for the word “critical”, but I would choose the critical (decisive) meaning, as regarding learning, to be—exercising or involving careful judgment or judicious evaluation.
A negative persona is an attitude of non-acceptance.
I think that part of the problem is that too many of us have only an accept button and a reject button.
Accept or reject are not the only options one has. The most important and generally overlooked, especially by the young, is the option to ‘hold’.
It appears to me that many young people consider that ‘to be negative is to be cool’. This leads them into responding that “X is false” when responding to any statement that “X is true”.
When a person takes a public position affirming or denying the truth of Y they are often locking themselves into a difficult position. If their original position was based on opinion rather than judgment their ego will not easily allow them to change position once they have studied and analyzed Y.
The moral of this story is that holding a default position of ‘reject or accept’, when we are ignorant, is not smart because our ego will fight any attempt to modify the opinion with a later judgment. Silence, or questions directed at comprehending the matter under consideration, is the smart decision for everyone’s default position.
By hold I mean ‘not making any decision until due diligence has been executed’.
Our options are reject, accept, and hold. I claim that ‘hold’ is the most important and should be the most often used because everyone is ignorant of almost everything.
Do you accept, reject, or hold judgment regarding my claim?
‘To be negative’ is not the same as ‘to be critical’.
The dictionary has many definitions for the word “critical”, but I would choose the critical (decisive) meaning, as regarding learning, to be—exercising or involving careful judgment or judicious evaluation.
A negative persona is an attitude of non-acceptance.
I think that part of the problem is that too many of us have only an accept button and a reject button.
Accept or reject are not the only options one has. The most important and generally overlooked, especially by the young, is the option to ‘hold’.
It appears to me that many young people consider that ‘to be negative is to be cool’. This leads them into responding that “X is false” when responding to any statement that “X is true”.
When a person takes a public position affirming or denying the truth of Y they are often locking themselves into a difficult position. If their original position was based on opinion rather than judgment their ego will not easily allow them to change position once they have studied and analyzed Y.
The moral of this story is that holding a default position of ‘reject or accept’, when we are ignorant, is not smart because our ego will fight any attempt to modify the opinion with a later judgment. Silence, or questions directed at comprehending the matter under consideration, is the smart decision for everyone’s default position.
By hold I mean ‘not making any decision until due diligence has been executed’.
Our options are reject, accept, and hold. I claim that ‘hold’ is the most important and should be the most often used because everyone is ignorant of almost everything.
Do you accept, reject, or hold judgment regarding my claim?