https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=f0qH6YI9Kf4
Hello and welcome to navigating patterns. So this is the second video on my sense-making patterns that we see in the world today. The models that I think we’re using maybe hopefully moving towards over time. And again these are my definitions and my models. If you like them, use them. If you don’t like them, throw them out or better yet modify them to suit your own needs. So last time we talked about the simple model that I think people a lot of people are using to understand the world today. This model where the primary mode is you, others, and the line of friction between them. And we talked about how that’s line of friction. The solution to every problem is force. And the problem with this is that when you’re using force to solve things, you know, you’re hopefully on the right side of that equation. But sometimes you’re not, right? Because we’re not going to agree about everything and the politicians aren’t necessarily going to agree or maybe they’ll even tell you they agree but they don’t actually act out their agreement on these issues. And because there’s so many different issues you’re going to be on the wrong side of a few of those issues. So you’re going to be subject to the force as well. So it’s good to kind of keep that in mind because we don’t agree on that many things even when we agree. So the problem primarily with the model that we talked about before is that it lacks perspective. So what I’d like to do today is show you a model that maybe more people are at. I hear a lot of public intellectuals sort of making appeals towards a model that might look something like this as a solution to this political friction force problem. And, you know, what does that model look like? Well, we’ll use some slides and show you what it is I’m talking about. So basically, this is the addition of perspective. And what this gets you is it gets you out of this you others thing, right? It gets you into sort of the realm where you can have a perspective that is different than your personal perspective. Now, why is that important? Because perspective is the thing that adds the dimensionality and the complexity to the problem. Obviously, you don’t want to add too much complexity, but you definitely want to have more than one way to look at something. This is how we perceive depth, for example, with our eyes, right? We’ve got two eyes, they’re offset. That helps us to perceive the world better. And the way that we’re doing this primarily is to add something called the common good that we can appeal to, you know, and sort of agree on. It’s a way to get this concept down to us that we have some place to have a perspective of. And you know, one advantage is that others now become people. So this gets us out of the othering problem. It gets us closer to an area where we have a space that we can relate instead of keeping everybody on the other side of like some mystical force that we have to use to get them to comply. And all of that is really important, but it’s not the only thing that happens, right? So there’s also ways to enhance what’s going on in this model. So the other thing we can add here is a shared frame. And when you add a shared frame, you add the sense that you’re going from just the common good to the common good is a place that we can cooperate within. And this is important because being with other people is how we make sense of how sane we are. Now, there’s lots of distributed cognition where we’re not the only ones thinking about a problem. We’re talking with other people or interacting with other people, maybe non verbally even. And this is giving us a sense for something. It’s allowing us to understand something at a deeper level than we’re capable of with just our heads. Right? Yeah, you see this a lot in computing with cloud computing, right? You can do things with one big computer, or you can just spread it across a bunch of little computers. And we do this as humans. I mean, it’s very much a human model. And this distributed cognition helps us in one particular fashion in this case, which is sanity. We outsource our sanity to others. We have to look at how other people react to us and behave based on the statements we make and the moves we make in the world. And seeing their feedback helps us to say, well, we’re too far here, we’re too far there, we’re too far. Well, are we just right? So if they’re not reacting badly, then maybe we’re okay. Maybe not, but maybe we’re okay. So we outsource, you know, our sanity to this distributed cognition. And there are problems with outsourced cognition, but it also has some advantages like everything else. It’s a trade off for sure. So we need the perspective of others in a common area that we can sort of neutral ground that we can have together in order to do this. And, you know, you could you could rightly complain, well, look, you have to define common and you have to define good. Fair enough. I’m not going to get into any idea of common beyond it’s a place we can exist in together. And that’s what makes it common to us. And I’m not going to appeal to the good because that’s a difficult philosophical argument. And I don’t think it’s necessary to understand the model per se. Right. We can just sort of agree that there might be a good and that we might be agreeing to it and that this is a place to meet where we can find these values that we might have, that we might share together. And because it’s neutral, we can relate to one another and outsource some of that sanity making. And it gets what it gives us with common ground actually gives us ultimately is a way to cooperate and participate with one another. And so that’s really important. Right. Like you have to be able to build things with other people to build better things because there’s a limit like to what I can build or to what I can build. Well, we’ll say and having that common ground helps us with that. So it’s very important to have the shared frame, that common ground, to be able to get there and sort of have another place to look at the world from other than just you and your eyes. Now, this is not the end of this model. And of course, I have more models. I’m leading somewhere. Some people are stuck at the previous model, you others friction line of politics. Some people are sort of at this model. We need to bring people in slowly. And again, I would encourage you to take this very seriously. Take some time to think about it. It may seem very obvious, but really taking the time to understand it allows you to articulate it to others. And really, the goal is that we can articulate these ideas to each other so that we can find reach that common ground, get to that point. So what is sort of the ending point of this particular model? Like where does it end out? It ends out at connection. So in this model, we’re making connections to commonality, common good, right? We’re making connections to people, because you can’t make connections to others, right? But you can make connections to people. So that’s an improvement. Again, it’s not the best model. I’m going to go through some more, but it’s a good start. And it’s a necessary start. So we have a space to share, we can make a connection there. We can, we can understand that politics is not going to solve a connection problem. So in any situation where you need to make a genuine connection with somebody, politics isn’t going to help you because politics uses force. And that’s the only tool that it has. So everything’s something that can be forced in politics. That’s another reason why politics is so dangerous. In some sense, politics is divisiveness, sort of, at the highest level. And that’s what we need to avoid in terms of framing. So when you’re framing things, it’s better to frame them in terms of the common good. Now, you may have noticed throughout these slides that there’s some friction in the model, things are a bit skewed, the priorities look off. And so I want to talk about some of the existing downsides. It’s still you at the top, and you’re still sort of bigger than everybody else. There are connections, you know, with people and with the common good, but they have these arrows. Now, the arrow between the shared frame and the common good is two way, right? There’s lots of negotiation there. And in this model, you can see people are not negotiating with the people and common good, right? Or I shouldn’t say people, I should say you. You are not negotiating with people and common good. You’re trying to impose, right? You’re fighting for your common good, right? You’re fighting for control. And that’s still a problem. So it’s worth thinking about whether or not people are acting within this model, acting as though this is the model of the world that they’re using. And I think that’s, you know, a valid critique of some people. And it’s something to watch out for. But by talking to them about the difference between people and others, the difference between politics and having a perspective that can allow you to cooperate, I think that’s important. There are lots of things that politics cannot fix. And you can see this in community organizers. When community organizers get together, that’s a non-political effort to make a change in a local community. The best people to make a change in a local community are the people in the local community, not politicians, because even if they’re politicians of the local community, they may not be there day to day. They’re not seeing the same thing. Everyone has a perspective and your single perspective. And then if your goal is to be political or you have a political aim, then your single perspective is going to skew towards that political aim and not necessarily to the needs of the people. To getting together, building a playground, getting your own money together to do it. Governments terribly slow at building anything. So it’s preferable not to let them do it. And, you know, it’s important to think about ways to get people from the first model, you, others, politics force into this newer upgraded model as the next step. So I hope that this makes sense and that it helps you to make sense of maybe how you’re thinking of the world, how other people are thinking of the world, because once we understand how other people are thinking of the world, we can help them to think of the world differently using some of this vocabulary, some of these understandings and also to have a little grace around their limitations because models, all models are wrong. Some models are useful. Models are limiting and we need limits, but we need to know what they are so that we know where our blind spots are and and the blind spots of others. So hopefully you can use this as a tool to help have good conversations with people that help them out of this model and into some of the upcoming models that I’ll be showing you next time. I’m happy that you’re engaging with my material and thank you very much for your time and attention.