The Allegory of Contrary Thinking
Investment barons, combat commanders, genuinely effective politicians, and market- dominating CEOs all stess the importance of thinking like a contrarion. They use the cliche about thinking and a box, but it has become so commonplace, I cannot publish it here on this page. Constantly, we, as the hapless, ignorant sheep that we are, hear the necessity to change our convention, embrace change, to break the limitations of our feeble minds in order to lead successfully. Some of those espousing this thinking have tidy gimmicks to demonstrate how unconventional thinking solves problems.
But how do we condition our minds to think unconventionally? I can look at some diagram that requires an unorthodox solution, and either solve it, or in most cases, not solve it because my mind does not bend. The gurus want us to think differently, but the gurus do not tell us how. I learn nothing from the diagram and cheap seminar tricks.
Only a philosopher can help. Plato's Republic details the dialogue of Socrates and two of his students in their quest to understand the world around them. And let us be clear: investing, war fighting, voting in Congress, selling products in the market, the functions of the conventional and unconventional leader, are about understanding people and environment. Socrates carries the students through the Allegory of the Cave to condition them how to think of people and environment. Forgive the brief paraphrase: if you chained a baby to a wall in the cave at birth so that the baby could only see straight ahead, and if that baby grew up with other babies in the same awful predicament, and if men, standing near a fire and casting shadows on the wall of the cave, moved to and fro behind the babies, the chained prisoner babies, who can only see the shadows on the wall, would believe those shadows to be real figures moving. The prisoners could see each other, so they would know that the shadows were different than they, but nonetheless, they would believe those shadows to be living, moving forms of life. The babies would grow into maturity believing these shadows are true.
So Socrates asks what would happen if one of the prisoners was released, so that he could "stand up, turn his neck around, to walk and look up toward the light, and who, moreover, in doing all this in pain, and because he is dazzled, is unable to make out those things whose shadows he saw before. What do you suppose he would say if someone were to tell him before he'd seen silly nothings... while now he sees more correctly?" (515c, translated by Allan Bloom). Here is the essence of contrary thinking: the truth surrounds you, but it is only in craning the neck backwards that the new thinking can occur. The pain of turning your head is the pain of breaking your conventional thought.
The changed prisoner, after intial confusion and bewilderment, uses his reason to understand that the shadows were not true at all. Now he understands a new, more correct world around him. His fellow prisoners have yet to be freed, so he must return to the darkeness to tell them, and what, do you suppose, might be their reaction? After all, those shadow images had been all the babies had ever known!
The freed prisoner, the leader, now knows right not by perception but by absolute. His enlightenment originated from looking around to find a truth, an absolute, not relative one. Now he must show his fellow prisoners the shadows for them to understand.
But how do we condition our minds to think unconventionally? I can look at some diagram that requires an unorthodox solution, and either solve it, or in most cases, not solve it because my mind does not bend. The gurus want us to think differently, but the gurus do not tell us how. I learn nothing from the diagram and cheap seminar tricks.
Only a philosopher can help. Plato's Republic details the dialogue of Socrates and two of his students in their quest to understand the world around them. And let us be clear: investing, war fighting, voting in Congress, selling products in the market, the functions of the conventional and unconventional leader, are about understanding people and environment. Socrates carries the students through the Allegory of the Cave to condition them how to think of people and environment. Forgive the brief paraphrase: if you chained a baby to a wall in the cave at birth so that the baby could only see straight ahead, and if that baby grew up with other babies in the same awful predicament, and if men, standing near a fire and casting shadows on the wall of the cave, moved to and fro behind the babies, the chained prisoner babies, who can only see the shadows on the wall, would believe those shadows to be real figures moving. The prisoners could see each other, so they would know that the shadows were different than they, but nonetheless, they would believe those shadows to be living, moving forms of life. The babies would grow into maturity believing these shadows are true.
So Socrates asks what would happen if one of the prisoners was released, so that he could "stand up, turn his neck around, to walk and look up toward the light, and who, moreover, in doing all this in pain, and because he is dazzled, is unable to make out those things whose shadows he saw before. What do you suppose he would say if someone were to tell him before he'd seen silly nothings... while now he sees more correctly?" (515c, translated by Allan Bloom). Here is the essence of contrary thinking: the truth surrounds you, but it is only in craning the neck backwards that the new thinking can occur. The pain of turning your head is the pain of breaking your conventional thought.
The changed prisoner, after intial confusion and bewilderment, uses his reason to understand that the shadows were not true at all. Now he understands a new, more correct world around him. His fellow prisoners have yet to be freed, so he must return to the darkeness to tell them, and what, do you suppose, might be their reaction? After all, those shadow images had been all the babies had ever known!
The freed prisoner, the leader, now knows right not by perception but by absolute. His enlightenment originated from looking around to find a truth, an absolute, not relative one. Now he must show his fellow prisoners the shadows for them to understand.
posted by Henry Plantagenet at 2:19 PM
1 Comments:
Ninja, etal.,
We are chained in a cave of conventional thought. Finding the truth begins with the acceptance that absolute truth, not a relative one, does exist. Once you accept this principle, you must stand up and turn around. You must live a life of intense investigation, a life when you ask "why" and "how" to every dilemma. Too often the individual accepts these chains as natural and guaranteed rights "to believe what I want to believe."
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