Friday, May 27, 2022

Dont Consider Best Paths Forward: Anger and Logic

Life is confusing. Soooo many options and choices and one must think through their options. Logic is usually one of the secondary considerations behind emotion and social networks when people make decisions. When people are in leadership position they should have the capacity to balance logic with emotions and social network demands. They are expected to be above that but often fail to muster the personal strength. 

Over the years I have seen people make superficial self interested choices and then distort the logic leaving big holes in their decision making. The goals is to achieve something and all the logic used is distorted to that end. Better decision making leads to better ends.

Worse, if you point out possible alternatives even if you don't care specifically about any of them you will find some start to think and you will find other enraged. Part of my life is about helping people think through alternatives. Sometimes if you point out something different they get really angry. 

Part of the reason is because it forces them to use their brain and spend the time to accept or invalidate an argument; assumptions are very lazy and convenient. That makes people livid and when their emotions get involved it increasingly creates big issues. When that is matched with power or an avenue of destruction you will need to watch out.

There are those of us who can handle differences well by learning from them and there are many of us who resort to lower standards such as aggression and bullying. Yet the circumstances don't change. You can silence someone but you don't change the "truth" of the situation. It just pushes it down for another time.

For example, some people appeared to be taking things that did not belong to them and engaging in a variety of inappropriate behavior. When questioned they doubled down and exploited racial and religious hate to "force" their will for self gain. That led to a whole bunch of problems as people lined up to support their friends, racial, and religious group (Pretty third world. Actually kind of worse in some cases.) 

My logic recognizes bad behavior mixed with mental health and a unquestioning social network they can rely on to create flying monkeys (...a term used when manipulation occurs and people act on that manipulation to help their perceived "leaders".) One of the primary ways to solve the problem is to force them into mental health help and if that doesn't work some punishment or jail time would be appropriate (carrot or stick). 

Yet that is my logic and now what we are experiencing hate and violence across the country I have not had to change my logic as it still seems to apply. I'm willing to change it when it becomes ineffective but as of yet mental health concerns are part of the hate mix and one of the ways to fight extremism. 

Let us move into our political perspective. There are lots of things that anger people from minorities living in their town all the way over to taxes, abortion or votes. When you ask them to think through their logic they get really really angry and are often willing to use force to get their way (i.e. sacking capitols or protesting at justices houses in what appears to be an attempt to intimidate their families). 

The question becomes one of values. Who is more important to society? The people who question or the people who demand. That is where your personal values and the values of society come into play. As of right now...the juries still out (perhaps literally).

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