on Ambivalence and Social Media
Whether the absolute “Truth” exists or not is a vast and beautiful debate. However, the problem is that we are not hanging in Athens; instead, we are fighting through social media. In that social battleground arena, we can easily filter out people, ignore others and create our own cultural bubble.
I struggle so much with maintaining a good habit for debates that I developed. The difficulty of that habit increases with my increased interest in the topic: Whenever a collective discussion arises, I start to understand the argument that I am intuitively against (even if I had to go through annoying comments). Then I try to take out the positive aspects of their perspectives and include them in mine.
Through this process, I sometimes find a middle way, which cannot be accepted by the mainstream contradicting positions.
I often find myself having A centrist opinion that, On the other hand, a progressive person might discover too idealistic and unrealistic. On the other hand, the conservative sees it as naive and lacking facts. So in this regard, I do find both positions are right and wrong simultaneously.
I am currently trying a totally different approach than I previously described, which is even much more demanding than those as mentioned above already difficult habit:
Holding both positions for a short amount of time as if they are both equally valid.
Which is what is called an “Ambivalent Opinion.”
The only requirement to create (even for a short period) an Ambivalent Opinion is the mindset of someone who can entertain paradoxes.
What a paradox is, is simple to demonstrate, but entertaining paradoxes for a more extended period can be very stressful; think of the following phase:
“This Sentence is a lie!”
Does that sentence tells the truth, or is it in itself a lie?
While thinking about it, you might find your brain going around, making a scene like the works of Escher (Photo).
Through this experience, I hold that tension for a few moments, which can stretch out with how much time you give yourself thinking about these paradoxes. One can maintain their Ambivalent mindset, being with both sides of the coin simultaneously, as long as one keeps holding their breath navigating linguistic, visual, or argumentative paradoxes.
This tension will need, in the time of a decision, a release in the end. That is when you stabilise on either a brand new opinion that neither mainstream side can or would consider. Or you find yourself leaning toward one side of the issue by defining your values and choosing to look at the topic at hand through the local lens or global ones. While leaving a space for a gentile compromise with the other.
I personally found the beauty of such stabilisation that I lost the urge to stressfully argue in social media, not with a passive attitude but rather a positive one. Because I can clearly see from where the other is coming from and empathise with that.
Nevertheless, I would encourage anyone interested to read more on Ambivalence. Here I will link an excellent article that explains it better and adds some related studies.
And the more one tries to think about paradoxes and maintain ambivalent opinions, the more you can see how we are locked linearly as prisoners of “Langauge”.
And maybe then one can appreciate more the “silence” we find so naturally in plants and animals.
Like a cat gazing through a window.
Comments
Post a Comment