In a Facebook conversation yesterday, I pointed out to a Trump supporter that believing Trump means that you have to discount the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, our courts, the media and scientists. For starters. His response was that I couldn't know who was right because I didn't actually see whatever it is that Trump is talking about this time.
This is how members of a cult talk. There is no objective reality that can be tested with observation or theories. There are no facts. Really, you have just two choices: either believe the leader or don't. You can be part of the conspiracy against him or you can be part of the group that supports him.
R World (Ron Davison muses aloud)
Showing posts with label reality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reality. Show all posts
03 January 2020
23 January 2010
Obama Finally Gets His Experience Just as His Support Dries Up
Leadership does not just begin with vision. It begins with getting people to confront the brutal facts and to act on the implications.
- Jim Collins, Good to Great
Again, I feel like a Martian. I’m not sure whether to feel comforted by that or not.
When Bush invaded Iraq, I was aghast twice. Once that he’d do it in response to 9-11 and then that so many people – from media to everyday citizens – would so blithely cheer him on.
A year ago, when Obama was sworn in, I was, like so many Americans, so relieved that Bush was gone and happy to have a new president who seemed so intelligent, thoughtful, and carefully optimistic. The one big concern I expressed at the time was that Obama had no real experience. A year ago, I felt like a part of the majority. It was a little heady.
After peaking in the summer, Obama’s approval ratings have steadily dropped. They are now below 50%. And this is the part that I don’t get.
Obama’s one big weakness last year was a lack of experience. He now has it. And he’s done pretty well. I’ve got criticisms of the man, but he’s largely the cautiously progressive, boldly moderate candidate we elected. He’s kept his calm. He’s put money into infrastructure and education, showing his commitment to making long-term improvements in this country. And he’s shown genuine respect for other countries and won back our standing in the world community. He’s changed tactics, strategy, and even specifics about his goal on health care but has yet to sacrifice direction (moving towards more coverage for more Americans).
I’m still hopeful about this man who writes about the audacity of hope, but now I feel a little less uneasy about him. In my book, he’s proven that he can translate his potential into results. He has experience and the experience is not that bad, in spite of the bad economy and wars he’s inherited.
Bush had a great imagination. I’ll give him that. He wanted to transform a dictatorship in the Middle East into a beacon of democracy within a couple of years. Given such a thing has never happened in the history of humanity, such a goal showed great imagination. But he showed little acceptance of the world as it is.
By contrast, Obama has yet to show much imagination but he has seemed to show a real acceptance of the world as it is. He seems very realistic.
And to me, this explains why Obama’s approval ratings have steadily slipped. He hasn’t promised that anything will be easy. He has not claimed that in reality we’re well positioned. There is nothing exciting about confronting a reality that is full of issues as difficult as climate change, two wars (well, occupations really), the worst recession in a century, and health care costs that are steadily eroding salaries and competitiveness.
Yet the potential that comes from honestly addressing reality as it is, well that’s a potential for great achievement.
For me, Obama is addressing the real issues with real solutions. There is nothing easy, exciting, or quick about this. Drucker once said something to the effect of, “even the grandest strategies eventually devolve into real work.” And yet it is work that, finally, works.
I actually feel better about Obama now than I did a year ago. I guess this puts me back into the minority. But you know, after 8 years of watching Bush, I get some comfort from that.
- Jim Collins, Good to Great
Again, I feel like a Martian. I’m not sure whether to feel comforted by that or not.
When Bush invaded Iraq, I was aghast twice. Once that he’d do it in response to 9-11 and then that so many people – from media to everyday citizens – would so blithely cheer him on.
A year ago, when Obama was sworn in, I was, like so many Americans, so relieved that Bush was gone and happy to have a new president who seemed so intelligent, thoughtful, and carefully optimistic. The one big concern I expressed at the time was that Obama had no real experience. A year ago, I felt like a part of the majority. It was a little heady.
After peaking in the summer, Obama’s approval ratings have steadily dropped. They are now below 50%. And this is the part that I don’t get.
Obama’s one big weakness last year was a lack of experience. He now has it. And he’s done pretty well. I’ve got criticisms of the man, but he’s largely the cautiously progressive, boldly moderate candidate we elected. He’s kept his calm. He’s put money into infrastructure and education, showing his commitment to making long-term improvements in this country. And he’s shown genuine respect for other countries and won back our standing in the world community. He’s changed tactics, strategy, and even specifics about his goal on health care but has yet to sacrifice direction (moving towards more coverage for more Americans).
I’m still hopeful about this man who writes about the audacity of hope, but now I feel a little less uneasy about him. In my book, he’s proven that he can translate his potential into results. He has experience and the experience is not that bad, in spite of the bad economy and wars he’s inherited.
Bush had a great imagination. I’ll give him that. He wanted to transform a dictatorship in the Middle East into a beacon of democracy within a couple of years. Given such a thing has never happened in the history of humanity, such a goal showed great imagination. But he showed little acceptance of the world as it is.
By contrast, Obama has yet to show much imagination but he has seemed to show a real acceptance of the world as it is. He seems very realistic.
And to me, this explains why Obama’s approval ratings have steadily slipped. He hasn’t promised that anything will be easy. He has not claimed that in reality we’re well positioned. There is nothing exciting about confronting a reality that is full of issues as difficult as climate change, two wars (well, occupations really), the worst recession in a century, and health care costs that are steadily eroding salaries and competitiveness.
Yet the potential that comes from honestly addressing reality as it is, well that’s a potential for great achievement.
For me, Obama is addressing the real issues with real solutions. There is nothing easy, exciting, or quick about this. Drucker once said something to the effect of, “even the grandest strategies eventually devolve into real work.” And yet it is work that, finally, works.
I actually feel better about Obama now than I did a year ago. I guess this puts me back into the minority. But you know, after 8 years of watching Bush, I get some comfort from that.
16 February 2009
Art as a Getaway Vehicle
Art used to be a representation of reality. Now, in this age of digital sound and video, we are inundated with reality. Or at least we think we are. So art has a new role: the escape from reality.
When Adam Smith described the division of labor in a pin factory, he told the story of how productivity would soar. This turned out to be a kind of prophecy but it is even more true of information than products. The almost cliche, probably true tidbit that a single edition of the Sunday New York Times has more information than a medieval peasant absorbed in a lifetime seems to make this point.
So, what is the protection for the psyche of a curious animal suddenly confronted with gigabytes of information at any moment? Information that provides no information about what to do next, what you should do, what you could do? You opt for information (for surely meditating on nothing can hardly compare with focusing on something in this information age) that takes you away from reality rather than plunges you into it.
And if the escape gives you some moments of vicarious bonding with a superhero while you are at it, all the better. Not only are you faced with fictional situations that require no response, you feel equipped with special powers with which to deal with this situation.
Art has morphed from a vehicle that brings art to us into a vehicle that, like a getaway car, takes us away from reality.
When Adam Smith described the division of labor in a pin factory, he told the story of how productivity would soar. This turned out to be a kind of prophecy but it is even more true of information than products. The almost cliche, probably true tidbit that a single edition of the Sunday New York Times has more information than a medieval peasant absorbed in a lifetime seems to make this point.
So, what is the protection for the psyche of a curious animal suddenly confronted with gigabytes of information at any moment? Information that provides no information about what to do next, what you should do, what you could do? You opt for information (for surely meditating on nothing can hardly compare with focusing on something in this information age) that takes you away from reality rather than plunges you into it.
And if the escape gives you some moments of vicarious bonding with a superhero while you are at it, all the better. Not only are you faced with fictional situations that require no response, you feel equipped with special powers with which to deal with this situation.
Art has morphed from a vehicle that brings art to us into a vehicle that, like a getaway car, takes us away from reality.
02 February 2009
The Purpose of Teams
Last week, working with a development team, I had this thought.
The purpose of managers is to remind teams of goals.
The purpose of teams is to remind managers of reality.
The purpose of managers is to remind teams of goals.
The purpose of teams is to remind managers of reality.
13 December 2007
The Voices in My Head
From Overheard in New York
Female #1: You know when you think something and then a voice in your head is like, 'Yeah, yeah, say that out loud! That would be a good thing to say!' and then you do it and you're like, 'Well, that was a mistake...'?
Female #2: Yeah.
Female #1: Yeah, I think I just did that.
The biggest mistake we continually make is simply this: we confuse the narrator with the event. Specifically, we confuse the voice in our head with reality. "He is such a dweeb," the voice says, and we file that commentary away as a fact. "I can't do that," we tell ourselves, and, again, file that away as a fact. Talk radio plays the role of affirming the distortions of consensus reality. The voice in our head plays the role of bounding personal reality within the distorted but manageable frames of our personal narrative.
Facts are hard to get to. It took civilization about 10,000 years before it arrived at the empirical method, at science. Not all people are scientists and very few of us seem capable of seeing the facts about ourselves. The first step towards that may be as simple (and as hard) as merely acknowledging that one's internal narration is not the same thing as reality.
People have a mistaken notion about miracles - that it involves levitating bodies and walking through fire. But the facts of our existence are miraculous enough. The very odds of your conception - the ludicrously small ratio of successful to unsuccessful sperm, even - are outrageous to the point of miraculous. Think of the vast number of improbable meetings and timely conceptions that trace back thousands of years to your very life - how preciously improbable is your very life? Coming to grip with facts needn't be like a cold splash of water on you and your appreciation of life. It might even sharpen your appreciation for it all.
Until you can turn off the voice, you may want to do what the good folks at Landmark Education suggest. Next time the voice in your head narrates, just say, "Thank you for that."
Oh. And those of you who are saying, "Voice in my head. What does he mean, voice in my head. That is the most stupid thing I have ever heard." That is the voice I'm talking about.
Female #1: You know when you think something and then a voice in your head is like, 'Yeah, yeah, say that out loud! That would be a good thing to say!' and then you do it and you're like, 'Well, that was a mistake...'?
Female #2: Yeah.
Female #1: Yeah, I think I just did that.
The biggest mistake we continually make is simply this: we confuse the narrator with the event. Specifically, we confuse the voice in our head with reality. "He is such a dweeb," the voice says, and we file that commentary away as a fact. "I can't do that," we tell ourselves, and, again, file that away as a fact. Talk radio plays the role of affirming the distortions of consensus reality. The voice in our head plays the role of bounding personal reality within the distorted but manageable frames of our personal narrative.
Facts are hard to get to. It took civilization about 10,000 years before it arrived at the empirical method, at science. Not all people are scientists and very few of us seem capable of seeing the facts about ourselves. The first step towards that may be as simple (and as hard) as merely acknowledging that one's internal narration is not the same thing as reality.
People have a mistaken notion about miracles - that it involves levitating bodies and walking through fire. But the facts of our existence are miraculous enough. The very odds of your conception - the ludicrously small ratio of successful to unsuccessful sperm, even - are outrageous to the point of miraculous. Think of the vast number of improbable meetings and timely conceptions that trace back thousands of years to your very life - how preciously improbable is your very life? Coming to grip with facts needn't be like a cold splash of water on you and your appreciation of life. It might even sharpen your appreciation for it all.
Until you can turn off the voice, you may want to do what the good folks at Landmark Education suggest. Next time the voice in your head narrates, just say, "Thank you for that."
Oh. And those of you who are saying, "Voice in my head. What does he mean, voice in my head. That is the most stupid thing I have ever heard." That is the voice I'm talking about.
09 April 2007
The News Reality Show
The Project Censored topic - the 25 top "censored" stories of last year - has provoked an idea for a reality show. What if we had a news reality show that actually took us through the backroom discussions in the newsroom? It might be like an on-going All the President's Men.
Thomas questioned the credibility of the stories, suggesting that Project Censored's list of 25 might better be pared down to 10 really credible stories. One story in particular (the claim that Halliburton sold nuclear technology to Iran), seemed to rely on one reporter with anonymous sources. Given the propensity of many to believe the worst about Halliburton and the Bush administration, there would be demand for such a story and a clever reporter would obviously know that. So, the story may or may not be real but it certainly needs more substance before it ought to break out into the big time. This raises a larger question of what goes on in the background of such stories. The stories about why certain stories don't become news are stories that would, themselves, be worth hearing.
Think about how many investigative reporting stories either start or end with more uncertainty than substance. Rumors, leaks, unsubstantiated reports ... all need to be sifted through in order to find something credible that can be included in the news. Witnessing this process itself would be both fascinating and informative. Imagine a reality TV show that showed how our reality is reported. "The meta-reality of reality," they could call it. Or, "The stories they aren't telling you on the nightly news," or, "Why you don't know what you don't know."
Thomas questioned the credibility of the stories, suggesting that Project Censored's list of 25 might better be pared down to 10 really credible stories. One story in particular (the claim that Halliburton sold nuclear technology to Iran), seemed to rely on one reporter with anonymous sources. Given the propensity of many to believe the worst about Halliburton and the Bush administration, there would be demand for such a story and a clever reporter would obviously know that. So, the story may or may not be real but it certainly needs more substance before it ought to break out into the big time. This raises a larger question of what goes on in the background of such stories. The stories about why certain stories don't become news are stories that would, themselves, be worth hearing.
Think about how many investigative reporting stories either start or end with more uncertainty than substance. Rumors, leaks, unsubstantiated reports ... all need to be sifted through in order to find something credible that can be included in the news. Witnessing this process itself would be both fascinating and informative. Imagine a reality TV show that showed how our reality is reported. "The meta-reality of reality," they could call it. Or, "The stories they aren't telling you on the nightly news," or, "Why you don't know what you don't know."
20 March 2007
Is Objectivity on its Death Bed?
Markets aren't magical. They simply bring together supply and demand. This can be frightening in the world of media as there is demand for certain kinds of opinions that people are happy to supply. There is demand for stories about conspiracies, extraterrestrials, heroes, and villains. While I am not saying that none of these things exist, I am saying that the supply of such stories has more to do with demand than supporting data.
There is an argument that blogs are the worst offenders in the supply of "demand-for" opinions. An intriguing post by Bruno Giussani, "Medialess Culture / Cultureless Media," explores a variety of topics. One is the claim (reported, rather than made, by Giussani) that "A key phenomena is that one of the central classic notions of journalism, objectivity, is nowhere to be found on the blogs."
Has a market-driven media and the free-for-all blogs brought us into the world defined by deconstructionists - a relativistic chasm into which any voice can shout out bizarre claims and hear them echoed in the form of shared delusions and confirmed opinions? Has nuance become a foreign language? It is easy to become pessimistic about the future of informed discourse if we accept these claims, believing that the media and Internet have fragmented into self-referential opinion factories.
And yet, I remain stupidly optimistic. Why? Because along with the market for opinions, there is a market for efficacy, for what works. People who are making a difference will force a confrontation between reality and the many opinions and theories about it. Bloggers can swap opinions, but they can also challenge conventional views that have muddled our perception of reality. And in the end, reality will prevail. It always does. Eventually.
There is an argument that blogs are the worst offenders in the supply of "demand-for" opinions. An intriguing post by Bruno Giussani, "Medialess Culture / Cultureless Media," explores a variety of topics. One is the claim (reported, rather than made, by Giussani) that "A key phenomena is that one of the central classic notions of journalism, objectivity, is nowhere to be found on the blogs."
Has a market-driven media and the free-for-all blogs brought us into the world defined by deconstructionists - a relativistic chasm into which any voice can shout out bizarre claims and hear them echoed in the form of shared delusions and confirmed opinions? Has nuance become a foreign language? It is easy to become pessimistic about the future of informed discourse if we accept these claims, believing that the media and Internet have fragmented into self-referential opinion factories.
And yet, I remain stupidly optimistic. Why? Because along with the market for opinions, there is a market for efficacy, for what works. People who are making a difference will force a confrontation between reality and the many opinions and theories about it. Bloggers can swap opinions, but they can also challenge conventional views that have muddled our perception of reality. And in the end, reality will prevail. It always does. Eventually.
02 January 2007
The Voice in Your Head - Or Why It's Difficult to Live Your Life as an Experiment
In keeping with the Welcome to the New Year! posts, I'd like to build on the notion of living your life as an experiment. Before delving into that, I'm going to argue that it is difficult to conduct your life as an experiment when you don't get data on reality - or perhaps more accurately, when all the data you get is so heavily narrated that it scarcely breaks through.
Your access to reality is obscured by the running commentary of the voice in your head. You have likely experienced reality only rarely since you’ve been about two years old. Babies are all possibility and potential. They can learn any language, assimilate any culture, or manifest about any personality. They learn more rapidly than a lecture hall full of students. As we age, the voice in our head matures and bombards us with questions, criticisms, commentary and meaning. It reaches particular conclusions and begins to filter out reality that doesn’t support those conclusions. As we age, our way of being is more prescribed, less malleable, and more defined. Why? I’d argue that it has nothing to do with the host of possibilities in the world around us. Reality has not changed. The voice in our head has changed. Or, rather, the voice in our head has increasingly taken the place of reality.
This may sound abstract, obtuse, or even odd. It might be all that, but it also aligns pretty well with research on cognition, on how the mind works.
It is true that you perceive the world around you, processing what comes in from your senses in the way of sounds, sights, and tastes. You are aware enough of the world outside of your head that you can drive down the street and safely stay off of people’s lawns. So how could the voice in your head really change your perception of reality? It can do this because the flow of data from the world to your senses is a fraction of the flow of information from your consciousness to your senses. Let me explain.
Research indicates that we process incoming sensations in layers. If something is before you, for instance, the brain first processes a blur of white, a crude shape. It next matches that color and shape to a database of shapes and determines it is a flower. At the next level of processing it determines that the flower is actually an orchid. Next, you determine that an orchid would please your Grandmother but not be particularly effective if you wanted to signal romantic interest. And then you start to think about relationships and the failure you had the last time you tried to turn a friendship into a romance, and how mortified you were that you were rejected. And suddenly you don’t see the orchid at all – you are lost in the ugly memory of rejection, of failed love and the voice in your head may even go so far as to conclude that you have no hope for romance. All of this because you saw an orchid. Your consciousness is informed by the flower – but it is filled even more with the memories, feelings, and conclusions that the flower triggered.
“The neurotic person distorts reality, makes demands upon it, imposes premature conceptualizations upon it, is afraid of the unknown and of novelty, is too much determined by his interpersonal needs to be a good reporter of reality, is too easily frightened, is too eager for other people’s approval, etc. It may be expected that as a culture improves, thereby improving the health of all its citizens, truth seeking should improve.”
- Abraham Maslow
There “are 10 times as many nerve fibers carrying information down [from higher to lower levels of the brain] as there are carrying it up [from lower levels to higher levels].”[1] The implication is that what we perceive does impact our consciousness, but that the impact of our consciousness on what we perceive is even greater. We have a mental construct that interprets a confusing set of data, making sense of it and calling that reality. Do you perceive orchids or rejection?
One well known but rarely reported fact of consciousness is this: “every single second, millions of bits of information flood in through our senses. But our consciousness processes only perhaps forty bits a second – at most. Millions and millions of bits are condensed to a conscious experience that contains practically no information at all. Every single second, every one of us discards millions of bits in order to arrive at the special state known as consciousness.” “A million times more bits enter our heads than consciousness perceives.” [2] Your perception of reality is, at best, filtered. Worse, and all too commonly, it is distorted.
If you have ever seen a hypnotist at work, you know that our senses can be overridden by suggestion, by consciousness. Have you ever considered that a state of hypnosis might be closer to your normal state than simply perceiving reality for what it is?
So, why don’t we embrace reality? One reason is that we are simply compelled to make meaning, to assign interpretation, and make judgments. That’s what it means to be human. Another reason is that reality can seem overwhelming, the facts can seem too harsh. We retreat from accomplishment, which lives in the domain of reality, into reason, which lives in our mind. More specifically, we retreat from accomplishment and goals into reasons why we can’t accomplish our goals. Consider the possibility that you can’t face facts without faith that those facts are not a prison but are, rather, stepping stones. Reality is abuzz with possibilities. It is only the voice in your head that has already defined and bounded your life.
[1] Sandra Blakeslee, “Hypnosis gains respect, helps to see brain work: Those susceptible to suggestion see change in ‘truth,’” New York Times News Service, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Thursday, November 24, 2005, A25.
[2] Tor Norretranders, The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size (New York: Penguin, 1999) p. 125 – 6.
Your access to reality is obscured by the running commentary of the voice in your head. You have likely experienced reality only rarely since you’ve been about two years old. Babies are all possibility and potential. They can learn any language, assimilate any culture, or manifest about any personality. They learn more rapidly than a lecture hall full of students. As we age, the voice in our head matures and bombards us with questions, criticisms, commentary and meaning. It reaches particular conclusions and begins to filter out reality that doesn’t support those conclusions. As we age, our way of being is more prescribed, less malleable, and more defined. Why? I’d argue that it has nothing to do with the host of possibilities in the world around us. Reality has not changed. The voice in our head has changed. Or, rather, the voice in our head has increasingly taken the place of reality.
This may sound abstract, obtuse, or even odd. It might be all that, but it also aligns pretty well with research on cognition, on how the mind works.
It is true that you perceive the world around you, processing what comes in from your senses in the way of sounds, sights, and tastes. You are aware enough of the world outside of your head that you can drive down the street and safely stay off of people’s lawns. So how could the voice in your head really change your perception of reality? It can do this because the flow of data from the world to your senses is a fraction of the flow of information from your consciousness to your senses. Let me explain.
Research indicates that we process incoming sensations in layers. If something is before you, for instance, the brain first processes a blur of white, a crude shape. It next matches that color and shape to a database of shapes and determines it is a flower. At the next level of processing it determines that the flower is actually an orchid. Next, you determine that an orchid would please your Grandmother but not be particularly effective if you wanted to signal romantic interest. And then you start to think about relationships and the failure you had the last time you tried to turn a friendship into a romance, and how mortified you were that you were rejected. And suddenly you don’t see the orchid at all – you are lost in the ugly memory of rejection, of failed love and the voice in your head may even go so far as to conclude that you have no hope for romance. All of this because you saw an orchid. Your consciousness is informed by the flower – but it is filled even more with the memories, feelings, and conclusions that the flower triggered.
“The neurotic person distorts reality, makes demands upon it, imposes premature conceptualizations upon it, is afraid of the unknown and of novelty, is too much determined by his interpersonal needs to be a good reporter of reality, is too easily frightened, is too eager for other people’s approval, etc. It may be expected that as a culture improves, thereby improving the health of all its citizens, truth seeking should improve.”
- Abraham Maslow
There “are 10 times as many nerve fibers carrying information down [from higher to lower levels of the brain] as there are carrying it up [from lower levels to higher levels].”[1] The implication is that what we perceive does impact our consciousness, but that the impact of our consciousness on what we perceive is even greater. We have a mental construct that interprets a confusing set of data, making sense of it and calling that reality. Do you perceive orchids or rejection?
One well known but rarely reported fact of consciousness is this: “every single second, millions of bits of information flood in through our senses. But our consciousness processes only perhaps forty bits a second – at most. Millions and millions of bits are condensed to a conscious experience that contains practically no information at all. Every single second, every one of us discards millions of bits in order to arrive at the special state known as consciousness.” “A million times more bits enter our heads than consciousness perceives.” [2] Your perception of reality is, at best, filtered. Worse, and all too commonly, it is distorted.
If you have ever seen a hypnotist at work, you know that our senses can be overridden by suggestion, by consciousness. Have you ever considered that a state of hypnosis might be closer to your normal state than simply perceiving reality for what it is?
So, why don’t we embrace reality? One reason is that we are simply compelled to make meaning, to assign interpretation, and make judgments. That’s what it means to be human. Another reason is that reality can seem overwhelming, the facts can seem too harsh. We retreat from accomplishment, which lives in the domain of reality, into reason, which lives in our mind. More specifically, we retreat from accomplishment and goals into reasons why we can’t accomplish our goals. Consider the possibility that you can’t face facts without faith that those facts are not a prison but are, rather, stepping stones. Reality is abuzz with possibilities. It is only the voice in your head that has already defined and bounded your life.
[1] Sandra Blakeslee, “Hypnosis gains respect, helps to see brain work: Those susceptible to suggestion see change in ‘truth,’” New York Times News Service, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Thursday, November 24, 2005, A25.
[2] Tor Norretranders, The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size (New York: Penguin, 1999) p. 125 – 6.
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