What We Miss When We
Jump….
One of the key teachings of all the wisdom traditions
concerns the dangers of jumping to conclusions on the basis of inadequate
information. Our limbic systems, bless
them, never, ever think that they have inadequate information. What we call a capacity for critical thinking
is merely a limbic system that has been trained to stop, loop in the prefrontal
cortex, and then and only then step lightly to a not-deeply-held
conclusion. Everyone who has taken the
training with me is glad they did.
I’ve felt for some time that the answer to “why didn’t
Americans get emotionally involved with the East African embassy bombings?”
wasn’t simple racism. I knew that the
knee-jerk “they’re all racists” explanation for why there hasn’t been a Je suis Ankara movement to complement
the solidarity Americans felt with Parisians after the terrorist attack, was
missing a core truth. But simply knowing
that someone else is engaging in simplistic thinking isn’t the same as being
brilliant oneself.
Then I read an article in APU Insider [In Homeland Security contributor Sylvia Longmire] that supplied the brilliant missing link. [I got my 2nd MA at APUS, great school.] The reason why Americans are emotionally wrought about Paris is because we either have been there, someone close to us has been there and connected us to it vicariously or we dream of going there (mostly because – again – it is someplace that others we know have been). Few Americans have been to, or wish they could go to, Dar es Salaam or Ankara. Psych research clearly shows that a huge part of emotional connection is familiarity. When something is just a point on a map, we humans don’t feel connected. But places that feel “familiar,” we care about. [Advertisers understand this: even if you rationally don’t want to, your limbic system, where decisions are made, feels more positive about products you have heard about repeatedly. The familiar has a positive vibe to it.]
** My earlier post misattributed the brilliant idea. Pls forgive my error.
Then I read an article in APU Insider [In Homeland Security contributor Sylvia Longmire] that supplied the brilliant missing link. [I got my 2nd MA at APUS, great school.] The reason why Americans are emotionally wrought about Paris is because we either have been there, someone close to us has been there and connected us to it vicariously or we dream of going there (mostly because – again – it is someplace that others we know have been). Few Americans have been to, or wish they could go to, Dar es Salaam or Ankara. Psych research clearly shows that a huge part of emotional connection is familiarity. When something is just a point on a map, we humans don’t feel connected. But places that feel “familiar,” we care about. [Advertisers understand this: even if you rationally don’t want to, your limbic system, where decisions are made, feels more positive about products you have heard about repeatedly. The familiar has a positive vibe to it.]
** My earlier post misattributed the brilliant idea. Pls forgive my error.
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