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"Black and White" Thinking


MarRister

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Why is it that we as humans seem so prone to polarized black and white thinking? Us vs. them, good vs. bad, left vs. right, smart vs. dumb, etc. 

 

Why do we need to put things in nice little dichotomous categories? Does it bring some sense of comfort or control in life? Is it partly cultural or just part of the human condition? Where does all the stuff in between go?

 

It might bring some simplicity to our own life, but overall I think it brings a lot more complications to society. How do we break out of this type of thinking and see and appreciate all the grey in between?

 

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Lord Jade Cross

For the same reason as why calculus was invented. To gain a sense of illusionary control over things that have none

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9 minutes ago, Marsa said:

Does it bring some sense of comfort or control in life?

Yes. There are more than seven billion people in the world--which is a number we can't really conceive of in practical terms. Trying to understand the fact that there are seven billion unique experiences which we'll never share is somewhat scary and intimidating. For instance, every single person experiences sexual attraction in a unique way. But saying that makes each of us feel rather alone, since no one can share our experiences and understand us. So instead, we break ourselves up into categories which are broad enough to include a large community, but small enough to not be entirely inaccurate. Asexuality is a good example. The adverse effect of this organization is the sort of tribalism "us v. them" thinking which you're concerned about. I think the answer is not that we need to escape this paradigm altogether, but rather that we just need to change the "versus" to a "with." There will always be us and them, but it should be "us with them" instead.

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9 minutes ago, Salmakia said:

Yes. There are more than seven billion people in the world--which is a number we can't really conceive of in practical terms. Trying to understand the fact that there are seven billion unique experiences which we'll never share is somewhat scary and intimidating. For instance, every single person experiences sexual attraction in a unique way. But saying that makes each of us feel rather alone, since no one can share our experiences and understand us. So instead, we break ourselves up into categories which are broad enough to include a large community, but small enough to not be entirely inaccurate. Asexuality is a good example. The adverse effect of this organization is the sort of tribalism "us v. them" thinking which you're concerned about. I think the answer is not that we need to escape this paradigm altogether, but rather that we just need to change the "versus" to a "with." There will always be us and them, but it should be "us with them" instead.

Though sometimes I think that if were far less prone to this style of thinking we wouldn't need such labels, as we would just appreciate individuals for who they were rather than try and fit them in some box to make sense of them. Then there is no real us vs. them, it is just all of us. We are not all the same and that is a-okay. I very much understand the comfort in these labels, but I think part of why we need to seek out that comfort is because people (including ourselves) see our experiences as other, or wrong, because they don't fit in with the black and white absolute idea of everyone is sexual and everyone wants sex. 

 

I don't know haha, sometimes I think I am far too much of an idealist and need to stop thinking about this stuff so much 😅

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I think us vs them is wrong, as it's been with many things since early civilization, since the idea of being better than another person.

Crusaders v Muslims

French Peasants v late 1700s French Royalty

Republicans v Democrats

Colonists v Natives

 

But there are times that discriminating between thought based on cultures, is important to better understand a culture.

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Do you think we are taught black and white thinking in some way? Is it easier to learn and teach in more black and white terms? Can we teach people to think in grey?

 

In Denmark they have classes teaching students empathy (which I love the idea of), I think grey thinking could be rolled well into something like that.

 

I also liked the quote from this article:

 

"It’s only once you can begin divorcing yourself from good-and-bad, black-and-white, category X&Y type thinking that your understanding of reality starts to fit together properly. [...] Because truth always lies somewhere in between, and the discomfort of being uncertain is preferable to the certainty of being wrong."

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1 minute ago, GingerRose said:

But there are times that discriminating between thought based on cultures, is important to better understand a culture.

I'm not sure I get what you mean by this. Can you give me an example?

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Just now, Marsa said:

I'm not sure I get what you mean by this. Can you give me an example?

Let me clarify, do you mean black and white by metaphor, "Like this issue isn't black and white, it's grey" Or do you mean "Like Black people think this way and white people think this way"?

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7 minutes ago, GingerRose said:

Let me clarify, do you mean black and white by metaphor, "Like this issue isn't black and white, it's grey" 

This one! Sorry, that's probably not super clear from the title 

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13 minutes ago, Marsa said:

I'm not sure I get what you mean by this. Can you give me an example?

Then I retract my statement , I thought you were talking about something else.

But as far as black and white thinking and us vs them. I think they are different issues. They do overlap slightly though, in the sense of how open someone's mind is.

 black and white thinking to me is like how many possibilities there is for an opinion. And the outlook and perspective on that opinion.

 

Then us vs them, is more to the psychological thought of having and open mind or not, beginning that mindset of who is better than who, who is more right, who deserves what. I think this issue can be used with discriminating between thoughts of culture, because if we don't look at different cultures and how they think and behave then we won't understand why they do what they do so we will just continue to have that us vs them mindset.

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1 minute ago, Arodash said:

black and white is, its easier on the surface. Thats why I think people prefer to think that way

Just like good and evil, right and wrong, up or down, opposite are easy, everything in between gets messy!

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Rainy Robin
2 hours ago, CBC said:

Simplifying things that way in our minds helps us cope with the complexity and uncertainty of the world and perhaps the resulting insecurity and fear that we experience. It's easier to avoid cognitive dissonance that way, at least for a while.

 

My theory, anyway.

Totally agree with this. There are whole subsets of psychology that focus on studying how people form these simplified understandings of complicated issues (called "heuristics") to make the world easier to understand within an individual's set of life experience and knowledge. There are a ton of interesting articles on this topic that are published by the Association for Psychological Science if anyone wants to learn more.  

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Gifted With Singleness
1 hour ago, Marsa said:

Though sometimes I think that if were far less prone to this style of thinking we wouldn't need such labels, as we would just appreciate individuals for who they were rather than try and fit them in some box to make sense of them. Then there is no real us vs. them, it is just all of us. We are not all the same and that is a-okay. I very much understand the comfort in these labels, but I think part of why we need to seek out that comfort is because people (including ourselves) see our experiences as other, or wrong, because they don't fit in with the black and white absolute idea of everyone is sexual and everyone wants sex. 

 

I largely agree with this. To me, sexual identity labels are basically a way of acknowledging the ways in which you feel trapped by society. No one should want to be trapped in a prison, but if you happen to already be trapped in a prison, it's good to be aware of it.

 

For example, I grew up feeling like I was expected to get married and have sex within that marriage. And for a long time, I kept thinking, "How on earth am I supposed to do that?" I actually remember asking about dating advice, and the main answer I got was: just be yourself. But I could never make sense of that. I can be myself, or I can go on a date. But I can't do both, yet I have to do both. That's the prison, and it existed before I realized I was asexual and aromantic. Using those terms helps me recognize the prison I was trapped in, and the ultimate goal is for me to be free from that prison. To live a life free from the expectations of sex and romance without adverse side effects.

 

I fail to see how microlabels fit into this framework, which is why I generally don't like them. I keep seeing people coming up with labels to describe every single minutiae of their sexual feelings, and that feels like the exact wrong approach. We're supposed to free ourselves from our prisons, not create more of them!

 

Unless, the goal of these microlabels to overwhelm people with a massive mountain of unfamiliar vocabulary so that they'll stop making harmful assumptions about people due to confusion. Not sure how well that would work, though.

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Aquatic Paradox

I prefer black and white thinking (to an extent) because it’s easier to comprehend without overanalysing anything (and overanalysing is a sin for me).

 

That doesn’t mean I disagree with grey-scale thinking or new ideas outright. It just means that I can’t do it internally.

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quickness in judgment kept us alive as we learned to do all this thinking. irrationality isn't an individual's folly, it was a matter of survival.

now that we are beginning to leave matters of survival behind, in what ways can we choose how to grow?

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what the face
7 hours ago, Marsa said:

How do we break out of this type of thinking and see and appreciate all the grey in between?

"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery,  

  none but ourselves can free our minds, "        Bob Marley

 

Humans have developed enormous brains which most of us barely use.

Abstract  is harder than concrete thinking as we must utilize more and different parts of our minds

 

To see beyond the black  and white into the gray,

Bob says it well

"Emancipate yourself  . . ."

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18 hours ago, Marsa said:

Why is it that we as humans seem so prone to polarized black and white thinking? Us vs. them, good vs. bad, left vs. right, smart vs. dumb, etc. 

 

Why do we need to put things in nice little dichotomous categories? Does it bring some sense of comfort or control in life? Is it partly cultural or just part of the human condition? Where does all the stuff in between go?

 

It might bring some simplicity to our own life, but overall I think it brings a lot more complications to society. How do we break out of this type of thinking and see and appreciate all the grey in between?

 

It's natural to have a simplistic understanding of the world; i.e. a dichotomy mindset. Truth is, the world is far too complex and nuanced for that to generally be the case. 

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1 minute ago, Mackenzie Holiday said:

49f0bf.jpg

Yass, let's all be a little more like the Jedi 😋 or actually what are the neutral force users called?

 

Oh I just googled it. They are literally called Gray Jedi 😂

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Fraggle Underdark

Another possible factor, especially in politics, is that people decide that some policy (or party, or politician, etc) would be best. So they naturally want to have that policy adopted. But what if there are arguments against the policy? If people believe them then they're less likely to accept the policy, and that would be worse. So they argue against the reasons against the policy. A kind of "end justifies the means" approach. Which I'm not entirely against, in general, if I'm honest. But when it comes to discourse I think it's extremely important to be honest. Otherwise we blind others, who aren't yet familiar with the issues, and perhaps worse we blind ourselves. Perhaps all those arguments against a policy would eventually add up and change our own minds, but we can't see that if we keep shooting them down like they're an enemy.

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Deep down, we want to always be right. Never be wrong. We consider criticism as a negative, we consider debates as a negative, and thus it is easier to make a black and white narrative to justify why we will not listen to the other team.

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Aquatic Paradox
21 minutes ago, Jusey1 said:

Deep down, we want to always be right. Never be wrong. We consider criticism as a negative, we consider debates as a negative, and thus it is easier to make a black and white narrative to justify why we will not listen to the other team.

There's a difference between listening to the other team and copying them though, which many people don't understand.

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I think complicating things, is a headache. Best to trim off the fat and keep things simple.

 

If people had to list every single sub-genre and gray area when making a point or an opinion, nobody would ever say anything.

 

I don't think black and white thinking is always bad.

 

In business and politics, especially.

 

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I think the only sin is to rule out a methodological approach before hand. Sometimes things are pretty black and white. Plus trying to humanize or rationalize something doesn't change the underlying oppositional dynamic. 

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20 minutes ago, Perspektiv said:

I think complicating things, is a headache. Best to trim off the fat and keep things simple.

 

If people had to list every single sub-genre and gray area when making a point or an opinion, nobody would ever say anything.

 

I don't think black and white thinking is always bad.

 

In business and politics, especially.

 

Haha that is where I find it to be the most dangerous. Day to day things, black and white thinking make things relatively simpler and that makes it easier to make quick decisions on things that don't really matter and I get that. 

 

But when talking business and politics I especially find it important to dig through the issues to understand the impact decisions can have. Right-wing = good and left-wing = bad (or vice versa) is a horrible way to think politically, but it is common practice it seems today. Money = good, but then ignore employees and the environment. These are issues that have greater impact than black and white thinking gives them. White americans = good, immigrants = bad. This kind of shit gets thrown around far too often, but people don't understand the full scope of the issues because they see no need to when their black and white thinking pattern puts things into nice and neat categories. 

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In business to me, its common sense to ensure both employees and staff are happy.

 

This means fair pay, good hours, secure job, benefits etc.

 

These are all things that are common knowledge, in a changing business environment in western society, especially. Want them loyal? Take care of them.

 

But to sit there, and dissect every single sub-genre, is ridiculous.

 

I.E I put up christmas decorations at my branch. Christmas is an offensive word to some. If I delved into every sub-genre, I'd be prone to renaming things "X-mas" or "happy holidays".

 

To me, this is white and black. I celebrate Christmas. Our business, celebrates Christmas. If you don't, that's fine and dandy, but we shouldn't have to sit there, and wish you a happy "insert every single celebration there is". We shouldn't have to re-word everything to try to make every person happy.

 

 I agree that faulting one side, or praising the other in politics is wrong.

 

I do however, think things politically are rather simple. Trying to needlessly over-complicate things, usually results in nothing getting done.

 

 

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