Thinking Gray

Can you accept an idea you don't agree with? I have been having a few conversations with a friend recently where our opinions differ on politically charged topics. Don’t worry, this blog isn’t about dissecting the issue of the day; it’s about dissecting the difference between acceptance and agreement . I will be using the gender pay gap and emotional reactions to it as an example though. Acceptance is to receive an idea. When you accept something, you listen to it and accept that it exists in the world ( remember the difference between listening and hearing? ). Accepting something as plausible or possible does not mean you have to agree with it, or with the person who has said it. It is the acknowledgement that you can see where the idea comes from, and can accept the evidence for the idea. It is often very hard to accept something that we don’t agree with. Especially to accept evidence for ideas we don’t agree with. Agreement with an idea or person is to “ harmo...

I've been having a few conversations this week about what people * should * do in what can only be described as terrible situations. Grief, loss, stress, life upheavals... things that make us go "AAAARRGHHHHH". There's a whole host of ideas about what we *should* do and how we *should* behave and we tend to dole that advice out to ourselves quite regularly, even if we don't do it to other people. (Advance apologies for the length of this blog. I appreciate you choosing to give your time to read it.) I really dislike the word *should*. We need it because it describes appropriate behaviour, without which society would be much less organised and wouldn't really function. Imagine yourself in any social situation with a young child (or a dog) who doesn't understand what they should do - imagine the chaos of trying to explain the social and behavioural boundaries to the child, or dog. These things we take for granted are implicit rules we have learne...