I See You II: On lenses and conflict

In response to my last post on lenses and rationality I received an excellent follow-up question: Is it more productive to learn how to effectively communicate my lens or to apply others? I began to compose some knee-jerk response tweet, but as my fingers hovered uncomfortably above the keyboard, I realized I had misunderstood the question. What was actually being asked was much more complicated than I had appreciated (a statement repeated so many times on this blog that the fact that I needed to be re-"struck" by it doesn't speak too kindly to my skills of cognition. But I digress).

I See You: On lenses, rationality and argument

In graduate school, my social psychology professor began our first class with a real-time experiment. He asked us to get into pairs and then designate one person in the group A and the other B. He then instructed all the As to think about what it took for them to get into undergraduate schools with a focus on the role of circumstance and other people. After a moment's thought my partner delivered a stirring tale. Fate, the generosity of mentors, family and strangers and an impressive legacy weaving together a veritable Cinderella story, with her Stanford degree as the prized glass slipper. The professor then invited the Bs to share their stories but to take a moment to think about the role that hard work and perseverance had played in our stories. I described numerous extracurriculars, honors classes and the late nights that they required; independent research and hours on the Internet daily researching colleges on continents I had never set foot on; hunting down recommendations from teachers who had never written them and guidance counselors who knew nothing about University in the United States. When I was done, I had the strange feeling of telling someone else's story. I wanted to find him and congratulate him on a job well done!