Become aware of your worldview — it has far-reaching consequences
19 March 2020
Sometimes I get the question — is it really good to dig into a particular theory of how the world works? Isn’t there a risk of getting stuck in a model and missing other aspects of reality as it is?
Yes, absolutely. But I’m more worried that we believe there is some unspoiled, pure, or theory-free view of the world.
I don’t believe that.
I think we always apply one or several frames of understanding, worldviews, theories, categorisation systems, inner representations of how the world works. The question is rather: are we aware of them?
Most often, no.
In other words, the risk is that we mistake the identification with our unconscious worldview — and therefore the inability to critically observe our own gaze — for seeing things as they really are.
But rather than having a model or not, we can have varying degrees of clarity about which frames of understanding, worldviews, or glasses we are using when we look at the world.
With that view, we can become curious about our ideas about how the world is. And in the long run, we can even choose a fitting inner map depending on the situation and on the truth-effects of the map.
Because how we see the world has decisive consequences for what we can imagine is even possible. For us as individuals, but also for groups and for society.
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One view of development I like is the Hegelian one. Hegel described development as a process of contradictions between thesis and antithesis. Which leads to synthesis, after which the cycle repeats.
I sometimes use that model to describe how people, groups, and societies develop through stages.
What I like is how this view helps me focus on movement, dynamism, and the developmental potential in conflicts. It helps me trust the process. To look for what is needed to drive it forward to a new place, rather than getting stuck in positions, partial slices of reality, or imagined opposing pairs:
- thesis or antithesis?
- right or left?
- religion or science?
- friendship or love?
- individual or structure?
- biology or environment?
- monogamy or non-monogamy?
Or this classic:
- stay quiet about what you wish from someone in order to honour their freedom, but miss communicating your longing — or — ask for what you want, but risk the other experiencing it as a demand? And so on.
For me, Hegel invites me to look for the synergies, ideas, and paradigms that capture the best of one (thesis) and the best of the other (antithesis). It helps me see the possibility of transcendence and of solutions we couldn’t imagine, and so didn’t even dare to dream of (synthesis).
Which is something quite different from compromising between positions, meeting in the middle, or a pretend peace.
For someone like me, who likes development, Hegel’s view is inspiring. But it remains a strategic choice of view among several possible ones.