Tip #6 Your Religion and History
Feb. 19th, 2015 08:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeastI promised another 1984 reference, so here goes. "He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past."
It's tempting for a number of reasons to rewrite the past. One of the most obvious reasons being to control people. Other reasons include seeing oneself or those one identifies with in a positive light, seeing others in a negative light, and just plain philosophical comfort.
Not only is it tempting, it's easy to do. People rewrite history all the time, often without even being aware that they're doing so. Memory, itself, is more reconstruction than recall. One of the easiest ways to fall into that trap without even realizing it is to have a narrative all set up and then organize the facts accordingly.
A theoretical example: Imagine a manager in a business who holds a self-image of a good leader. Next, imagine that said manager receives report that none of the employees agree, that they even take issue with poor instruction ability, poor ability to acknowledge or adapt to new information, and a habit of making excuses.
There are two ways said leader could go about responding to this new information. I think we might prefer that the manager look at the criticisms and look at personal actions and see if the criticisms match up. Or, the leader could simply organize the facts so that the criticisms mean nothing more than that good leaders are not always liked by those they lead.
In the future, recalling the complaints, a manager that takes the latter route might lose some details, reconstructing those complaints in such a way as to make them seem like compliments from the wrong perspective.
Now, let's imagine a different narrative at play. Let's say that the narrative is that Christianity makes people morally better. And, let's ply that against something a bit farther back than one's own memory. One might be tempted, with such a narrative, to believe that, in America, Christians were solely and uniquely on the side of the abolition of slavery.
The problem is that Christians were neither solely on the side of abolition, nor uniquely so. Robert Ingersoll, for instance, was a self-identified agnostic and an abolitionist. And, those who favored the institution of slavery had references to a Christian bible to bolster their side.
One has to challenge one's narratives, particularly when one brings history, either personal or otherwise, to bare in a conversation. I've been asked why Christianity spread throughout Europe so thoroughly, if not due to the weight of its truth. I've been told that America's law and constitution is based upon Christianity. Both betrayed a poor understanding of the very history in question.
These kinds of errors sacrifice credibility. They create an image that you are either dishonest with the non-Christians with which you converse or that you are dishonest with yourself. Neither makes it reasonable to trust you.
So, one thing you might want to do is just make a practice of researching history, from secular resources (remember last tip), before you bring them to bare. Another is to simply refrain from comment on pieces of history of which you're unaware.
Admitted ignorance is much more knowledgeable than pretending to know.
It's tempting for a number of reasons to rewrite the past. One of the most obvious reasons being to control people. Other reasons include seeing oneself or those one identifies with in a positive light, seeing others in a negative light, and just plain philosophical comfort.
Not only is it tempting, it's easy to do. People rewrite history all the time, often without even being aware that they're doing so. Memory, itself, is more reconstruction than recall. One of the easiest ways to fall into that trap without even realizing it is to have a narrative all set up and then organize the facts accordingly.
A theoretical example: Imagine a manager in a business who holds a self-image of a good leader. Next, imagine that said manager receives report that none of the employees agree, that they even take issue with poor instruction ability, poor ability to acknowledge or adapt to new information, and a habit of making excuses.
There are two ways said leader could go about responding to this new information. I think we might prefer that the manager look at the criticisms and look at personal actions and see if the criticisms match up. Or, the leader could simply organize the facts so that the criticisms mean nothing more than that good leaders are not always liked by those they lead.
In the future, recalling the complaints, a manager that takes the latter route might lose some details, reconstructing those complaints in such a way as to make them seem like compliments from the wrong perspective.
Now, let's imagine a different narrative at play. Let's say that the narrative is that Christianity makes people morally better. And, let's ply that against something a bit farther back than one's own memory. One might be tempted, with such a narrative, to believe that, in America, Christians were solely and uniquely on the side of the abolition of slavery.
The problem is that Christians were neither solely on the side of abolition, nor uniquely so. Robert Ingersoll, for instance, was a self-identified agnostic and an abolitionist. And, those who favored the institution of slavery had references to a Christian bible to bolster their side.
One has to challenge one's narratives, particularly when one brings history, either personal or otherwise, to bare in a conversation. I've been asked why Christianity spread throughout Europe so thoroughly, if not due to the weight of its truth. I've been told that America's law and constitution is based upon Christianity. Both betrayed a poor understanding of the very history in question.
These kinds of errors sacrifice credibility. They create an image that you are either dishonest with the non-Christians with which you converse or that you are dishonest with yourself. Neither makes it reasonable to trust you.
So, one thing you might want to do is just make a practice of researching history, from secular resources (remember last tip), before you bring them to bare. Another is to simply refrain from comment on pieces of history of which you're unaware.
Admitted ignorance is much more knowledgeable than pretending to know.
