CONFIRMATION BIAS IS A BITCH. We get trapped by it regularly. It seems like an easy tool to navigate an overwhelming amount of information. The content we agree with is safer to consume, so we…
Listen to preachers who remind us of what we already know.
Tune into talk show hosts that give us new reasons to believe what we already believe.
Watch pundits who dutifully take their assigned side of an argument and apply it to the current events.
There is no thinking in these performative displays. Just the repetitive exposition of opinions held with too much confidence. But, opinions are the lowest form of thinking. They are as common as pennies and left on the ground for others to collect.
THINKING IS HARD. We believe having a thought is thinking. It’s not. It’s remembering a pre-established thought. We already had it. To think we must be able to have a thought about a thought we already had. This is critical thinking. It’s the ability to look at a situation from a different point of view. Wanna go pro? Trying having a thought about a thought you just had about a thought you already had.
ASKING QUESTION IS HARDER Great questions are vulnerable, humble and curious making them as rare (and exciting) as seeing an endangered parrot in the wild. They hide in the recesses of our jungled thoughts and refuse to emerge until it is safe. Unfortunately, our ego believes it’s never safe to ask a great question. Instead, we lead with opinion’s tightly gripped. But, safety third.
Great questions can shift mindsets, alter conversations, and open dialogues.
Great questions will allow new thoughts and possibilities.
Great questions are the vaccine for confirmation bias.
Leading with questions is not easy because they are empty. They lack advice, solutions, and anything that suggests how smart we are. They avoid loaded words and inflammatory conclusions. Great questions seek to understand.
Questions like…
Why?
Can you say more?
How do you feel?
What do you think?
What brought you to believe this?
As the world shifts again, decentering our sense of order we at the Paid Party seek to engage in the multivariant patterns of thought that make any moment.
We seek to understand the one standing silently (or very loudly) right beside us. We seek collisions that create a connection in order to effect change. It’s times like this that we are reminded of our overconfidence and return with great questions.