Being Additive to Wisdom

Considerations in Thinking, Commenting, and Posting

Do you post and comment on posts? Do you add to or diminish wisdom in the process?

I have spent most of my life publicly forming and questioning my own and other’s opinions. And studying how to do that better and better over time. I started, overtly, at age six when my maternal grandfather asked permission of my mother, who was ill at the time, if she would allow him to introduce Native American ideas to me. I spent a lot of the summer with him, and this became our focus.

He was half Mohawk via his mother and half Anglo via his missionary father. He had been raised e in the territory of Western Oklahoma that had been US Government Tribal grant deeds given to native descents of the reservation’s inhabitants established by the government for survivors of the Trail of Tears removal to that territory of Choctaw decedents, and other tribes, and some slaves, indigenous to the SE USA. My grandfather’s aunts, uncles, and grandparents had demonstrated that an extended family raises a child, and he valued that experience. He was, at the time, in the panhandle of Texas with his half-Mohawk wife, my grandmother.

He taught me the principles of critical thinking, though he called the process ‘developing Mind Discipline.’ I want to share some of that experience by using a comment about a LinkedIn post I was tagged for. I was asked if I agreed by two of the three people posting, one supporting the third person’s original post and one rejecting it, basically inviting me to take sides. I did not agree with either of the commenters or the third party who started it by posting an opinion. Viewing it from my grandfather’s Mind Discipling principles, each comment needed more critical thinking and personal self-development.

Three Communication Principles -Think before open Mouth (or computer)

§  Discipled Thinking is needed to develop a worthy opinion or comment on other’s opinions. (discipline to reveal to self and others— one’s thinking sources, the background of ideas (e.g., paradigms at work, influential thinkers and Schools of Thought or pop psychology and philosophy). It helps prevent mechanicalness and biases at work by reminding us of sources and allows everyone to evolve thinking. We can get better at this with practice.

§  Reactive Machines: Commenting on ‘ideas’ Versus commenting ‘AT people’ is preferred by managing our State of Being  (it helps prevent unexamined emotions infusing our ideation and energy drains speaking for us (e.g. being self-referential; replaying unexamined narratives in our heads, mechanically; identification with ideologies and our coterie’s thinking;  attachments to static, unevolved ideas and interpretations of experiences; biased infusion, particularly those that harm others (a dialogue to influence hate; the tendency to spread our negative emotions; and finally, generating a field of fear of things that our ego cannot figure out how to relate to). These are all examples of an imbalance in the state of being and doing our thinking and talking for us.

§  Discriminating Mind:  Wisdom requires avoiding (not ensuring) bringing in diversity and inclusion of ideas, without discernment being introduced, the opposite of the usual admonishing to gain more diversity and inclusion (the most often error I see when well-intended people post and comment.  In addition to revealing our sourcing reference points, we need to have a way to discern the quality of them. Not all ideas are equal, and only framework thinking can increase the quality of thinking, not including all perspectives in the name of fairness, evenhandedness, and impartiality. That is a humanist-level paradigm idea that fosters a ‘do good’ process in the name of the inclusion of all people rather than improving thinking with reflection. It fosters flatland thinking (everything being on the same level and having the same value) rather than engaging dimensionally, dynamically, and with developmental thinking that enables discernment of the difference between incomplete, better, or whole thinking.

Principle One:  Sourcing revealed

The LinkedIn comments immediately seemed to be in conflict because they came from different paradigms. It will seem wrong because the context or lens is different. In this case, two were coming from a ‘Do Good’ or ‘Humanist’ paradigm and then rn into a Living Systems paradigm pretty quickly; one person intended to speak for the Regenerative paradigm did not awaken Principle Two, observing the state of mind and being, so one felt “judged.” No one in the posting or commenting offered the thinking behind their thinking; although two referenced me, I could not track the logic chain they used. Citing others does not help others see the connection you made or invite them to engage. When we have different sources and paradigms, we fall into a debate easily and add nothing to wisdom, especially when we fail to tell others how we got to our ideas or don’t manage our state of being.

Principle Two: Avoid Being a Reactive Machine—Better to offer questions, but not make personal about the commenter; rather challenge ideas using an articulated thinking and observing process, for people to check for themselves. And without judgmentalness. (Example of References: paradigms, outcomes and effects, reflective history frameworks, indigenous traditions, living systems of spiritual inner development, and quantum science.) Tested for at least 100 years is my yardstick.  Our ego is too well developed to assume we can proceed without restraints to ideation. We have not learned to build our own long-thought thinking (evolving our ideas intentionally over time) and avoid arrogance, mechanicalness, and hubris when presenting ideas.

So, when we, including I,  present ideas, I seek to clarify these reference points so everyone can check my thinking and build my ability to ‘make my mind reference’ to critical thinking structures, not my past ideas or personal mechanical reactions. Plus, it restrains me from telling them ‘what’ I saw that I should accept also but let them know HOW I was thinking about it, so they can decide for themselves. We both are better off in such an exchange. And we both lose out when I forget.

Principle Three: Discernment is what matters. Humans are poor discerners and quick judges based on low development of self-management and lack of “referencing to rigorous mental structuring’ we can use to check ourselves. The best way to do so is by working our thinking with living frameworks and avoiding mental models, which are static and usually borrowed, unexamined concepts.

For a living systems framework example, human exchanges need three forces in their ideation to bring in something new, useful, and meaningful. This concept was used by Pythagoras, mathematician and philosopher; John Bennett, the English mathematician; Immanuel Kent, the philosopher; and Buckminster Fuller, architect and philosopher, among others. All had some spiritual component imbued with this idea.

Activating

Restraining

Reconciling

Three Forces in New: Someone proposes an idea or action (an activating force). E. g. An idea about what regeneration means. Or thriving. Each idea gets some restraint added to it for upgrading, revision, and disruption. e.g. constructs for questioning the activating idea.  For completeness, each idea needs a reconciling force to uplift the activating and restraining forces or to serve as a source of higher-order ideation for a Sourcing, examining, Mind.

Discriminating Wisdom: Are their many paths? Yes! But some are limited paths to the outcomes desired. Some are better, and some are Best, discernable via an Essence thinking process, which almost no one has ableness to do because of a lack of critical thinking skills and personal development. That is why our Developmental School is based on these two capabilities and not the teaching practices we have used as our focus.

I propose this to argue for NOT letting any idea, unrestrained, into the dialogue.   This is what fosters a flatland view of reality where everything is equal and undifferentiated by levels of force in the world and dimensionality in terms of effect. It is also not useful for discerning value and choosing paths to greater outcomes. So, I categorically don’t think all ideas belong on the table for the sake of open-minded and inclusive processes. We need the discipline of restraining poor, incomplete, flatland ideas with discernment exploration and no judgementalness of persons when posts are offered. This is not about adding and including, but definitely questions and encouraging, demanding sourcing, and discriminating mind offered with restraint. Otherwise, this ‘humanist idea makes us dumber. Without shared frameworks, consciousness of paradigms, and mindfulness of our being state working with us, we further reduce wisdom building.

Humanist ideas are about being inclusive of ideas. It invites a lack of discernment and lack of precision because they are based on helping people get along and have a better life. Our School is about developing this capacity to go beyond humans and their lives into systems as work

It is bad for people’s thinking development because, without framework thinking (using a framework as a reference to restrain and test our quality of thinking, it fosters unexamined sampling and building a basket of non-discernable tools from mixed paradigms.

The ultimate diversity of people, based on the Essence of each person, is the right place for diversity, but not of ideas necessarily without framework thinking to exam it. Diversity of ideas for its own sake is the diminishment of critical thinking for the assumed sake of being fair. It just makes for over-acceptance.

So, I felt like everyone had an opportunity to consider my grandfather’s communication for what I interpreted. I am mindful of how each is being sourced, examined, and affected by my emotional and mental state before the post, how their state of being frames the attitude and what they evoke, and how they are making a living framework explicitly so everyone can have a shared assessment. This is my reflection on having been tagged.