Summary: Aim To Deepen Understanding, Not Push Your View
- Many relationship therapists work with the idea that their job is to help people deepen their understanding, rather than push them to stay or leave.
- I really like this approach, and feel it’s the optimal approach for many places. Like talking politics with a friend — focusing on helping others understand, rather than convincing them of a certain view. Or at work — can I deepen my understanding? Can I try to help others deepen their understanding?
Different Ways To Approach A Discussion
L-2: Personal Attacks (Ad Hominem): Criticising someone’s character instead of engaging with their argument, such as accusing them of being morally corrupt.
- “The only thing you should be intolerant of is intolerance.” Karl Popper.
- Labelling those who disagree as '[something]-ists' or 'phobes,' suggesting they should be "cancelled."
L-1: Negative Sum Debate:
- Strawman Arguments: Misrepresenting someone's position to make it easier to attack.
- Tone Policing: Focusing on the delivery rather than the substance of the argument.
L0: Discussing the points but pushing your view:
- This can make it hard for you and / or the other person to update their thoughts.
L1: Deepen others' understanding: Don’t push people towards a view point.
- Give yourself enough rope to change your mind gracefully. Give others enough rope to change their mind gracefully.
- I feel like society says that ‘winning a discussion’ is what you want to do. Or that if someone has changed their mind on a topic that’s tantamount to saying they were ‘wrong’ and hence might be ‘stupid’. This can be very detrimental to progress.
- Relevant blog: Good messaging tries to provoke thought, not tell people how it is.
0% ⇔ 100% Deepening Understanding
Quotes
- John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" Emphasising adaptability when presented with new information.
- Charlie Munger: "I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don't know the other side's argument better than they do." Highlighting the importance of thoroughly understanding opposing viewpoints.
Jingles
- Less pushing, more pondering!
- Deepen, don’t debate.
Details
The work needed to have an opinion
- L0: No Research: You form an opinion without any research or factual basis.
- L1: One-Sided Research: You’ve done research, but only on one side of the issue. This can often lead to "motivated research," where you look for information that confirms your existing beliefs (confirmation bias or data mining).
- L2: Researching Both Sides: You’ve researched both sides of the issue and understand the opposing view so well that you could argue it better than its supporters. Example: “I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do.” — Charlie Munger
- Comment: Even if you’ve reached L2 and fully understand both sides, does that mean you should push your view on others? In my opinion, most of the time, the answer is no.
Questions you cannot answer are much better than answers you cannot question.
- Facts: For facts, there is a clear right or wrong answer. For example, today is Sunday, or a coffee costs $5. These statements can be verified as true or false.
- Ideas: For ideas, there is no absolute right or wrong answer, only a hope for gradually improving our understanding. Examples include: What is the best education policy? What does it mean to live a good life?
For ideas then, I think you want to be updating for a net improvement as much as possible.
- Not making up your mind once and then never changing it because changing it means you were wrong which is tantamount to being stupid.
- Not having made your mind up once and going around and trying to convince as many people as possible to agree with your view as 1. Then you were right (smart) + 2. You are helping them morally because obviously you are right and people who don’t agree with you are [insert]-ists. AKA ad hominem attacks on others.
[Copy From Above] Different Ways To Approach A Discussion
- L-2: Personal Attacks (Ad Hominem): Criticising someone’s character instead of engaging with their argument, such as accusing them of being morally corrupt.
- “The only thing you should be intolerant of is intolerance.” Karl Popper.
- Labelling those who disagree as '[something]-ists' or 'phobes,' suggesting they should be "cancelled."
L-1: Negative Sum Debate:
- Strawman Arguments: Misrepresenting someone's position to make it easier to attack.
- Tone Policing: Focusing on the delivery rather than the substance of the argument.
L0: Discussing the points but pushing your view:
- This can make it hard for you and / or the other person to update their thoughts.
L1: Deepen others' understanding: Don’t push people towards a view point.
- Give yourself enough rope to change your mind gracefully. Give others enough rope to change their mind gracefully.
- I feel like society says that ‘winning a discussion’ is what you want to do. Or that if someone has changed their mind on a topic that’s tantamount to saying they were ‘wrong’ and hence might be ‘stupid’. This can be very detrimental to progress.
- Relevant blog: Good messaging tries to provoke thought, not tell people how it is.
Possible Mindsets for Talking to People with Different Viewpoints
L-2: People with opposite views are bad or ‘-phobic’ and should be cancelled. It’s my duty to educate them on what’s right.
L-1: Avoid those who think differently.
L0: Engage in debate, but both sides just end up feeling exhausted.
L1: You don’t grow by only talking to people who think the same as you.
- Some topics, like politics or parenting, can be very emotionally charged.
L2: Seek out people with different viewpoints and genuinely try to understand why they believe what they do.
- “I don’t agree with what you say, but I’ll defend your right to say it.” Voltaire
- “Change is the only constant.”
- “Any year you don’t challenge a core belief is a wasted year.” Munger
- You don’t learn much from only hearing agreement. The aim is to evolve your views when it makes sense. A key value here is supporting diverse opinions and seeing updating your perspective as a strength, not as a sign of being wrong. Having different viewpoints doesn’t mean you don’t share the same core values. In fact, I’d argue a key core value is to actively foster having different viewpoints. Healthy discourse = Healthy progress.
Related blogs
Defence mode Vs Understanding mode. One key way to see our blind spots and ego distortions is to listen to others who point them out (Understanding mode), we can’t see them if we 1.don’t listen and 2. try to justify our view (Defence mode).
Approaches to helping a friend
It can be easy to be ‘protective / supportive’ of friends if something bad has happened. Often this can mean ‘being on their team’, but I normally think it’s optimal to ‘deepen their understanding’.
Your understanding of reality is the foundation upon which all else is built.
- Helping you get out of a bad place: Good friends of course help you dust yourself off, and get back on your feet. Relationship Strength = Downside support.
- Once out of a bad place: After this, they help you understand reality as well as possible so you can make the best decisions possible.
- Blind Support (Bad Approach):
- Pros: Immediate comfort and reassurance.
- Cons: Prevents true understanding, limits personal growth, and can strain the friendship over time.
- Understanding-Centred Support (Good Approach):
- Pros: Promotes healing, encourages self-awareness, and strengthens the relationship through meaningful dialogue.
- Cons: May require more time and emotional effort upfront.
Approaches to helping at work: Diagnose before you prescribe.
Good Diagnosis = 90%+ understanding of the problem space.
- Problem space = 1. Known knows + 2. Ego Distortion + 3. Blind Sport (Unknown Unknowns)
- Helping someone get to 90%+ ‘1. Known knows’ is not easy.
- A great strategy to help others decrease ‘2. Ego Distortion + 3. Blind Spots (Unknown Unknown)’ is helping them ‘deepen their understanding’.
- Each unit of growth you do normally is part known, part ego distortion and part blind spot. Systematically finding and addressing ego distortions and blind spots is a core strategy for self improvement. Finding 1-5x new ego distortions and / or blind spots as part of a 6 monthly work performance review I’ve found to be extremely valuable.
- “Any year that you don’t destroy one of your best-loved ideas is probably a wasted year.”— Charlie Munger
- "Any year you don't find 1-5+ new ego distortions or blind spots is probably a year wasted." - Duncan Anderson
Addendum
A Strategy To Try Deepen Understanding: 6 TYPES OF SOCRATIC QUESTIONS
Socratic questions can be used to inspire, lead, and coach in ways that encourage mutual deepening of understanding and creative problem-solving.
CLARIFYING THINKING & UNDERSTANDING
- Can you share an example to help deepen our understanding?
- Could you explore this idea further to make it even clearer?
- Are you suggesting …?
- What is the opportunity or challenge you’re aiming to address?
- Could there be situations where this might not apply?
- Are we basing this on certain assumptions? How can we explore those?
- How might we confirm or refine this idea?
- What could unfold if we tried a different approach?
- What evidence or insights support this perspective?
- Are there any areas where the evidence could be strengthened or re-examined?
- What other positive explanations could be considered?
- How might someone with a different perspective contribute to this discussion?
VIEWPOINTS & PERSPECTIVES
- What are the strengths and opportunities in this approach?
- How could someone with a different viewpoint enhance or build on this?
- What fresh perspectives might allow us to see even greater possibilities?
- What alternative paths could lead us to similar or even better outcomes?
IMPLICATIONS & CONSEQUENCES
- What exciting possibilities could arise if this is true?
- What does this open up for us?
- What positive outcomes could follow from this assumption?
- What long-term benefits could this bring?
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE QUESTION
- How does this question help move us forward?
- Why do you think this question is valuable for our conversation?
- What does this question invite us to consider or explore further?
- Could this question spark other exciting questions or ideas?
Hierarchy of discussion
