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(a.k.a. a post I typed up last week thinking about how people think about themselves)
I'm always rather curious about people and how they think of themselves.
Do they think of themselves as good people - whatever that definition may mean to them? Maybe they're good people with a few bad habits, yeah, but nothing that needs consideration or work? Or perhaps they're doing just fine where they are, thanks, and, okay, so they're not perfect but the neighbours are even less perfect and so there's no real need to change?
This last week while in Adelaide and fighting user attitudes and reading news blogs, I've been thinking about the idea that the way people think of themselves tends to affect how they behave when someone challenges their perception of themselves as "good".
The original thought was more about complacency in work behaviours than in personal behaviours, but I think it's the same thing in several ways - complacency of opinions and beliefs and the innate entrenchments that mean we refuse to examine ourselves and our thoughts and our practises.
When someone holds up a (metaphorical) mirror and we don't like the reflection we see? Sometimes we punch the person holding the mirror. Sometimes we punch the mirror. Sometimes we turn away and just don't look. And sometimes we grimace and take a closer look.
But my experience is that people tend to react to challenged perceptions based on how they think of themselves. The more they think of themselves as "good people" or "in the right" or "better people than the neighbours", the less likely it is they're going to self-examine. And I think that holds no matter what you believe or where you come from. If someone intrinsically believes that zhe's right, or okay, or doesn't need to change, zhe's not going to rethink zir's position and zhe isn't going to take criticism well - why would zhe? Zhe's right!
The users of the old system here are accustomed to their thought patterns, to the way they do things - they don't like having to change their behaviours or challenge their assumptions. Nobody ever does. But some accept being challenged with better grace than others.
And let's just say, I'm kind of tired of being punched this week.
I'm always rather curious about people and how they think of themselves.
Do they think of themselves as good people - whatever that definition may mean to them? Maybe they're good people with a few bad habits, yeah, but nothing that needs consideration or work? Or perhaps they're doing just fine where they are, thanks, and, okay, so they're not perfect but the neighbours are even less perfect and so there's no real need to change?
This last week while in Adelaide and fighting user attitudes and reading news blogs, I've been thinking about the idea that the way people think of themselves tends to affect how they behave when someone challenges their perception of themselves as "good".
The original thought was more about complacency in work behaviours than in personal behaviours, but I think it's the same thing in several ways - complacency of opinions and beliefs and the innate entrenchments that mean we refuse to examine ourselves and our thoughts and our practises.
When someone holds up a (metaphorical) mirror and we don't like the reflection we see? Sometimes we punch the person holding the mirror. Sometimes we punch the mirror. Sometimes we turn away and just don't look. And sometimes we grimace and take a closer look.
But my experience is that people tend to react to challenged perceptions based on how they think of themselves. The more they think of themselves as "good people" or "in the right" or "better people than the neighbours", the less likely it is they're going to self-examine. And I think that holds no matter what you believe or where you come from. If someone intrinsically believes that zhe's right, or okay, or doesn't need to change, zhe's not going to rethink zir's position and zhe isn't going to take criticism well - why would zhe? Zhe's right!
The users of the old system here are accustomed to their thought patterns, to the way they do things - they don't like having to change their behaviours or challenge their assumptions. Nobody ever does. But some accept being challenged with better grace than others.
And let's just say, I'm kind of tired of being punched this week.
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http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/09/jackie-at-the-crossroads.html
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I think of myself as a good person. I get up every day and try to be the best Thothmes I can. My intentions are pure. I try to live a life where I give back more than I take and leave this world better than I find it.
On the other hand, I realize that this makes me no better than literally billions of others. I'm nothing special. Others are trying just as hard, and some are succeeding more often.
Many are less intrinsically lazy. And that's just for starters. I'm nice, but I have a long, long, long way to go before I achieve perfection. I don't expect to ever get close. I'm not sure I'd like myself if I did. You know the old joke about choosing to go to hell because that's where the interesting people will be!
I think that one of the decisions that best explains where I lie on the scale of humble to proud is this: We have 4 children. We wanted a large(r) family. We thought that we had the right to reproduce ourselves, because we are good folks. But in a world stressed by overpopulation and human over-use of the ecosystem, we didn't think we had the right to do any more than leave one child to replace each of us. So we have two biological children and two adopted children. We adopted from foster care to avoid turning eco-cheap third world kids into eco-draining American kids.
If we were truly humble, we would have simply adopted from foster care. If we were convinced we were God's greatest gift to the world, we would have had 4 (or more) biological kids. We lie in between. We like ourselves, but we want to leave room for others to like themselves too.
[An aside:
One of my daughter's biological parents had two more kids, also now soon to be adopted into another home, and the other's mother had four further kids with a man who had an additional four other kids. All of them were taken away except their youngest. We'll see whether the other shoe drops on him. Evolutionarily speaking, my adoptive kids' parents are doing better than we are, if one just looks at sheer spreading of DNA!]
The whole "Do unto others" thing was a basic tenet of both our homes, and we both think that this includes meeting the people around us by engaging in dialogue, and this requires both listening and speaking. We try to be flexible and open to learning new ways of thinking and approaches.
Isn't this the ultimate goal of a liberal education?