Uncertainty is unpleasant, no?
If there is one collective illusion that we all share, it is that we are correct in our view of the world- despite all the evidence that we are wrong. And, this evidence- for some weird reason — convinces us even more strongly that we are right.
Of course, we all commit to the models we used to function in the world. We have to, in order to survive and preserve our sense of ‘self’. Because after all, who else can know us- with our shameful secrets and our dangerous weaknesses- except ourselves? And who else would we want to know us? It’s risky . As many married couples will testify.
And we are not reluctant to tell people about our models directly on LinkedIn, Medium. Facebook, Reddit. Twitter and a host of other platforms and websites. Of course, we are driven to ‘sell’ this models whether they are about systems thinking, agile methodology, Scrum, Donald Trump , Brexit, Coronavirus, and -literally- hundreds of thousands of other opinion haunted- and dominated- topics.
We are, however, more limited when it comes to listening to the views of others except as a way of gaining more credibility for ourselves. Tolerance seems to be…limited
This has been attributed to the success of the Enlightenment itself, which has driven the worldwide transmission- and increasingly the adoption- of modern technoscience, the administrative state, and the new ways of thinking that they engender- including that of individual primacy. And individual rights.
At the government level where so much power resides, a limited tolerance may be accommodated. But this leeway is generally the result of indifference rather than the deployment of principles. The tyranny of monolithic religion and absolutist politics against which the Enlightenment struggled has been replaced by the faceless tyranny of system, where nobody rules over all.
And this means that instead of being unified by the strength of our common beliefs, we are increasingly united only the helplessness we share and hold in common. Applications may support the illusion of power and control, but concerns about “who controls the controllers” has replaced those regarding “who will guard the guardians” from the days of the Praetorian Guard.
This uncertainty and helplessness affects subject peoples just as it does governments. The world today is characterised by an ‘intolerance of power that is worried about its power’. The slowing of globalization may hinder this but it still supports a contemporary crisis of impotent rage and incomprehension that threatens us all with destruction.
So, should we use this relatively new found global voice to create a force for tolerance?
Or keep cranking up the uncertainty with our utterly justified beliefs that we are ‘right’?
