
When discussions expose different positions and viewpoints, facts and truths can help to resolve those differences. But facts and truths can be helpful only when the parties to the discussion can accept facts as facts and truths as truths. Discussions that heretofore had focused on the issues at hand can become entangled in debates about facts and truths that aren't really debatable.
Barriers to accepting truth are many. Familiarity with the catalog of these barriers can help groups clear them more quickly when clearing them is possible using the tools of discussion and rational argument. As we'll see, some barriers can't be cleared using rational argument alone, and some cannot be cleared at all. Below are two examples of barriers to accepting truth.
- Newtonian worldview
- One of the more subtle barriers is a Newtonian worldview. I've provided two examples in recent weeks. One is in "Newtonian Blind Alleys: I," Point Lookout for May 22, 2019. Briefly, the Newtonian worldview includes the belief that a mechanistic model of classical mechanics applies more broadly in the world of ideas. Its consequences include the idea that a single concept or agent can explain whatever phenomenon is at issue; that a single counterexample can invalidate a hypothesis as an explanation for a given phenomenon; that an individual who provides heroic contributions in one field of knowledge cannot do so in other disparate fields; that someone who has performed brilliantly in the past in a given situation will inevitably do so in future similar situations; and that credentials are equivalent to capabilities.
- Many who Many who are adhering to false
beliefs are unaware that they are.
To them, their beliefs seem axiomatic.adhere to these beliefs are unaware that they do. To them, these beliefs seem axiomatic. Others can experience a sense of relief when these beliefs are questioned, because they do present a heavy intellectual burden, constraining severely the set of possible solutions to problems. People who hold these beliefs very strongly are unlikely to adopt alternative views as a result of a short discussion. - Ignorance
- In informal conversation, to be ignorant is to be rude, discourteous, or unsophisticated. And certainly those attributes can be barriers to accepting truth. But ignorance in another sense can be more problematic. To be ignorant in that sense is to be unaware, uneducated, or unschooled in the matter at hand, and in some cases even more broadly. To engage with people who are ignorant in the sense of unawareness about the truths of matters unfamiliar does present difficulties. It might be necessary to educate them about related matters before they can understand the points you're trying to make.
- And that necessity creates two classes of issues that might be difficult or impossible to address. First, unless the person seeks your assistance in completing his or her education, when you attempt to help with that project you might seem to them to be haughty, conceited, presumptuous, condescending, or worse. Offending the person is likely. Second, we humans have a way of filling the voids in our knowledge with imagination, rumor, or some other form of manufactured "facts." When we do, we rarely keep track of where we obtained which bits of data. It all goes into the hopper labeled "What I Believe to Be True," in a jumbled mass along with what-I-wish-were-true. And when someone comes along and claims that some of this stuff isn't true, we tend to resist. Dissuading people of something they believe — and who don't remember why they believe it — can be difficult indeed.
These two barriers to accepting truth are examples of the more benign kinds of barriers. Next time we'll examine some members of a less benign class of barriers. Next issue in this series
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Related articles
More articles on Effective Communication at Work:
Ending Conversations
- At times, we need to end the current conversation. It's going nowhere, or we have something important
to do, or we just don't want to deal with the other person. Here are some suggestions for ending conversations.
Long-Loop Conversations: Anticipation
- In virtual or global teams, conversations are sources of risk to the collaboration. Because the closed-loop
response time for exchanges can be a day or more, long-loop conversations generate misunderstanding,
toxic conflict, errors, delays, and rework. One strategy for controlling these phenomena is anticipation.
Cognitive Biases and Influence: I
- The techniques of influence include inadvertent — and not-so-inadvertent — uses of cognitive
biases. They are one way we lead each other to accept or decide things that rationality cannot support.
Obscuring Ignorance
- Some people are uncomfortable revealing that they have limited understanding of topics related to the
issues at hand. They can't allow themselves to ask, "Pardon me, what does X mean?" Here are
a few of the techniques they use to obscure their ignorance.
Six Traps in Email or Text: II
- Collaboration requires communication. For many, communicating often takes place in email and text message
systems. But much of the effort expended in communication is dedicated to resolving confusions that
we created for ourselves. Here are four examples.
See also Effective Communication at Work and Effective Communication at Work for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming May 14: Working with the Overconfident
- A cognitive bias known as the Overconfidence Effect causes us to overestimate the reliability of our judgments. Decisions we make based on those judgments are therefore suspect. But there are steps we can take to make our confidence levels more realistic, and thus make our decisions more reliable. Available here and by RSS on May 14.
And on May 21: Mismanaging Project Managers
- Most organizations hold project managers accountable for project performance. But they don't grant those project managers control of needed resources. Nor do they hold project sponsors or other senior managers accountable for the consequences of their actions when they interfere with project work. Here's a catalog of behaviors worth looking at. Available here and by RSS on May 21.
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