It seems to me that closed mindedness is rampant these days. I don’t like to get into politics, but does the phrase “You’re either with us or against us” ring any bells? I specifically don’t “preach” on my blog. So for the record I’m only making observations here.
My mother in law recently sent Heather a twenty plus page typed letter on why we shouldn’t be unschooling our kids. Her arguments were all over the map, and I won’t go into them here. But she laid the guilt on thick. She said she stopped crying for Quentin a while back, but her heart still has tears.
My mother attacks us on another front. Our religion. We don’t believe in her Baptist god, so we are surely going to hell. She sends me engraved bibles every year with long letters about why I’ve got it all wrong. My dad signs it at the bottom and says something like “I agree, Dad”.
The common thread here is obvious. You don’t believe what I believe! You are wrong and I am right! You’re either republican/democrat, liberal/conservative, gay/straight, good/evil, black/white, etc. What seems to be overlooked is that on all these dichotomies there are “middle positions” that take on the characteristics of both end points.
I read a series of scifi books by A. E. van Vogt years ago that embrace a concept called Null-A. It’s a theory invented by Alfred Korzybski in his 1933 book “Science and Sanity” (which I have a copy but could not read!) The “A” stands for Aristotelianism, or right/wrong, yes/no thinking. So Null-A is NOT thinking that way. Null-A means you try to see all the shades of gray in arguments and know that there is no right answer. We should all aspire to be Null-A thinkers! Here’s a link to all the Null-A book jacket covers, some are quite cool, and here’s an essay on van Vogt and the book “The World of Null-A.”
I commented to Heather that her and my mom’s views are like “memes” that are desperately trying to survive another generation, but are hitting a brick wall with us. How are we using Null-A thinking on their arguments? Well, Heather is a Unitarian Universalist, and they believe that there’s no right answer on the religion front, and welcome (and teach) all religious traditions (including atheism!). That viewpoint is VERY Null-A. On unschooling, we’re just right and she’s wrong(G).
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