The Walls that Divide

Someone in a Facebook group I follow recently said that a family member posted this quote on their wall:

This person was wondering how to respond. I replied as follows:

I've rarely seen a more perfect example of how people's worldview filters can make it extremely difficult to communicate. In the Believer's worldview, 'faith' is a word that has only positive connotations. It is the epitome of goodness, righteousness, and what to strive for. 'Doubt', as the opposite of faith and its destroyer, is naturally vilified.

In the Skeptic's or the Non-believer's worldview, 'faith' is the epitome of all that is wrong with the world and 'doubt', as expressed in Robert Weston's famous poem quoted above, is a cherished virtue.

With this in mind, one can easily see how Elder Holland's quote is a perfect illustration of how clashing worldviews can present an obstacle to communication. When believers read this message, they see it as an affirmation of what is good and right. When non-believers read it, they see it as the worst sort of demagoguery.

So, my advice is to consider the source. The bigger person will respond to the intention behind the message and not to the message itself. I think this message might have had a positive intent before being encrypted by the sender's 'believing worldview' key. Then when you received the message and decrypted it with your 'non-believer worldview' key, the message came out garbled and its original good intent was obscured. To put it another way, passive-aggressive is often only in the eye of the beholder. To put it yet another way, "never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity" (Hanlon's razor).

With all that said, the bigger person can easily wind up being the doormat. The key to avoiding this is for all participants to transcend their respective worldviews and realize that a worldview is not the world. Giving the benefit of the doubt can help this. Putting yourself in the other's shoes can help also. But these are things only you can do. You can't force the other person to do this, especially if they're convinced they're right and you're wrong.

Sometimes it's possible to find a way to help the other person be more 'meta'. That is to say, help them realize that (1) a worldview is not the world, (2) they're stuck in their own worldview, (3) you have a different worldview, and (4) communication will go more smoothly if you both can rise up from behind the walls of your respective worldviews and converse directly. This is so much easier said than done, but sometimes it is enough to point out the existence the worldview walls to make the other person see them for the trap that they are.

 

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