Now each of us has a subscription to many mass chats – residents of the house, neighbors in the country, parents of schoolchildren, visitors of sports clubs … Often such chats are used for specific purposes: announcements, fundraising, practical messages and correspondence in them are sluggish, lazy. But as soon as someone touches a controversial point where there is no general agreement, a serious disagreement ignites, sometimes lasting for hours or even days. The state of garbage heaps is often such a trigger. The right to walk with dogs and pets in common areas. Selection of road surface and bike paths. Sometimes people start arguing over reasons that are generally not something to discuss, but sufficient to gather information, check it, choose an already existing solution and put it into practice. But even in such cases, the participants already engage in a loud discussion. And if the solution is not clear, the degree of expression is growing rapidly. Lots of thorns, reproaches, mutual claims.
Most of the time, this babbling doesn’t lead to any results. The problem is usually solved somewhere and by someone outside the chat, measures are taken, but those who participate in the conflict do not notice it.
Parties are formed, alliances are formed. It seemed like a common thing.
But what I’ve noticed when examining these types of conversations is that the participants do not come to a common agreement, everyone is left to himself, no one succeeds in persuading the others. What happens is a debate, not a disagreement, but a quarrel in which everyone, as a rule, unequivocally expresses his position and does not want to hear any arguments that contradict his own opinion. It is not concerned with any objections on the merits of the case. Also, such debaters seem to have a barrier to knowledge. They do not accept any facts that contradict their beliefs, they reject them immediately, en masse, without discussion. It doesn’t matter if the opponent has enough competence or is just a rooster, the argumentative is determined.
Such a person is not ready to clarify or change his emotional position, which does not depend on rational arguments. Opponents often falsely believe that providing irrefutable evidence is enough, and then are surprised at the ease with which it is rejected. And all because here the mind serves the emotions, not the other way around.
It seems to me that more rational thinking was used in the past, even in the twentieth century. In any case, the mind and its tools: logic, analysis, synthesis commanded respect, and the majority trusted those who used this arsenal. Today it has become much more difficult to turn to the authorities, less trust, more doubt. Doubt is often inherent in people who are not very good at reasoning: they suspect that they are deliberately “talked about” to deceive, subdue, or ridicule, that they are confused, that they are in a fog of words they do not understand. Therefore, just in case, any long or complex arguments that require attention and concentration are thrown aside.
You’ve probably come across interlocutors who get bored as soon as they start expressing their opinion on the topic they have brought up. If your words don’t match what they want to hear, they’ll shut up and get frustrated and angry or stop communicating when you give them information that contradicts their position.
The brain created by modern media gets used to bright and clear images. Centuries of exposure to advertising (and propaganda) affect the mind – after all, it is advertising that uses techniques that connect a particular expression with emotion, not experience, practice, or knowledge. Preferably with a pleasant feeling. It is this subconscious pleasure that we depend on modern methods of presenting visual information – no matter for commercial or political manipulation purposes. Advertising consciousness already requires caress, the consumer does not want to reason, investigate, question, explore, he wants to receive the whole, clear, emotion that creates a pleasant sense of justification. And here you have objections. Yes you.
Have you noticed that service workers, who have to communicate a lot with people of different social, material, intellectual levels, very skillfully avoid direct statements, but willingly agree with you after understanding your mood and views? It is they who save energy, knowing that the client does not want to listen to anything contrary to his opinion, but will be grateful for everything that will support him.
People in high positions with important resources are aware of this effect, which disrupts any flow of information reaching them. Power is always accompanied by a lack of sincerity in subordinates who intuitively avoid any unpleasant communication. Griboedov, Gogol and Ostrovsky wrote comedies about it – about the privilege of superiors not to receive objections from subordinates.
But even ordinary people today want to maintain their emotional comfort by shielding themselves from any unpleasant information, ignoring it, ignoring it, or aggressively denying it.
The problem is that the modern world allows a person to exist in emotional comfort for a long time. You can choose the sources of information that match your position, and communicate with those you have nothing to discuss. In social networks, you can calmly talk, stop arguing, stop responding to unpleasant messages, without listening to objections. Easy road, but where does it go? Obviously, this choice has its drawbacks, and they are also obvious. First of all, achieving goals, if any, is always associated with some effort, stress, discomfort. These neural costs – including the exchange of information, changes in positions and opinions previously taken – are paid for by the fact that eventually an agreement is reached on a controversial issue, a compromise or conviction, a move. forward, resolution of disputes and resolution of quarrels. If this is carefully avoided, the situation will not improve, conflicts will not disappear, but will only be driven around the consciousness, deep into the psyche, causing anxiety and even more disturbing and more pressing desire. against psychological stability problems.
People today feel such a lack of community and unity that it is easy to sacrifice real achievements for the illusion of peace.
I want to make it clear: we are not talking about compromises, because when we surrender to others, we can do it out of love, out of pity, out of a desire to protect another. But a person who is constantly striving for emotional comfort will often unconsciously refuse to conflict and argue for the sake of inner peace. People condemn themselves to emotional deafness to other people’s opinions, they simply turn off their receivers, no outside information reaches their ears, the possibility of dialogue is cast aside. This fundamentally infantile desire to avoid conflict is frightening because it makes bargaining impossible. In addition, the desire to protect one’s comfort often becomes aggressive, publishing one’s own opinion makes one persistent and cruel.
And insoluble problems pile up, escalate, plunge everyone into the abyss of crises, conflicts they can’t agree on (and haven’t tried), erupt violently. Even Aristotle formulated it this way: “The wise man does not chase after what is pleasant, but after what saves a man from troubles.”
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.