Quotes about Perspectives

Values by their very nature tend to seed differences and oppositions, i.e. to make it possible for us to detect and appreciate the various perspectives from which issues may be seen; even though we (by a profound self-misconception) may find this psychologically and socially unpleasant, for the sake of value-intelligence we must learn to live and to thrive AMIDST such polemics, "in medias res," in utmost self-uncertainty and insecurity. Values, also by their inherent character and natural function, tend to form hierarchies; and even though our egos and appetites and illusions and delusions may resent being afflicted with judgments of rank and superiority/inferiority, again for the sake of connoisseurial and wisdom-seeking value-intelligence we have to stretch and traumatize our minds aristically to understand the rationality and objectivity of such intrinsic hierarchicalism, valid and authoritative over and beyond all that we may have cultivated as our idiosyncratic and subjectivist preferences (idiotia). Aristeia is naturally ingrained in the very nature of values; values are naturally ingrained in the very character and laws of nature.

It is good to look through different perspectives. However never your exact opposite, this is your reflection in the mirror from who you will never win. As any cat can tell you.

After long experience in keeping journals and annotating my readings, etc., I grew more keenly aware of my own shifts in perspectives and criteria from time to time or circumstance to circumstance or relation to relation.  Most mentalities are merely viscous, pathetically modulating from one tincture to another; I was determined to learn how to follow those little trails of snailslime in my own and others thinking.  Human psyche at most levels is definitely a sea-creature, a metamorphic or Protean sort of being; but there is a visceral core that remains constant.  How I learned to overcome idiotism or simpleminded perspectivism was by returning to what I had written over and over from several different viewpoints and strategies, assaulting what I took for granted from priorities and perspectives I had not originally thought of.  One rises in that way from monocular or naive opinion to a kind of philosophical compound-eye like Argus had in mythology.  One enables oneself already to anticipate criticisms, to defend or adapt against them or if need be go over to their vantagepoint.  Most opinionizing is houses built upon the sand; philosophical intelligence is geological intelligence about the bedrock in every region.

HAVING TO BE RIGHT SHACKLES YOUR MIND.

People are culturally conditioned to have to be right. The parents are right, the teacher is right, the boss is right. Who is right overrules what is right. Couples have huge quarrels about considerations that are forgotten as the struggle for who is right rages on.

Political parties have institutionalized having to be right. How often has a political party welcomed the position of the other side? Imagine if all the energy that goes into trying to prove the other side wrong were channeled into actually thinking about what was best for whatever the dispute is about. Worse, having to be right becomes a barrier to learning and understanding. It keeps you away from growing, for there is no growth without changing, correcting, and questioning yourself.

If you have to be right, you put yourself in a hedged lane, but once you experience the power of not having to be right, you will feel like you are walking across open fields, the perspective wide and your feet free to take any turn.

Conclusions and perspectives we share about people, or any situation we encounter tell others as much about us as they do what we are describing. What we notice must have a point of resonance within us or we wouldn't notice it at all. We don't have to abandon our points of view to expand our understanding. When we limit our perspectives, we limit our opportunities to be all that we are intended to be.