Situational awareness and discipline are important characteristics to develop for most competitive and combative activities. As an aspiring pacifist, I do not advocate combat of a physical nature unless it is mutually agreed upon destruction. I have been trying to apply this principle to intellectual combat as well. What, exactly, does this mean? I’m glad you asked…
It is no secret to those that know me that I like to debate, some would even say argue, but those people are more pessimistic in their terminology. Anyway, when it comes to my philosophical convictions I will gladly spar with any willing participants. However, knowing when to stray away from beating up unwilling participants has often been a problem. This has of course has sullied many relationships.
People are not the same
People are individuals. This means that we often have different interests and behaviors. I tend to enjoy shirring up my convictions with constant questions. This involves reading books and articles written by people smarter than me, who agree and disagree with my perspective. Where I need to apply more self-awareness, is to realize that most people do not train their mind in this way.
Most people do not go into a “friendly” political argument with a tactical strategy to slowly strip away defenses before punching an idea in the face. Most people are just repeating something that they heard in passing because it sounded good to them. There is not a problem in living your life this way, just like there is not a problem in not knowing how to physically defend yourself. The problem comes when someone you are competing with assumes that you do have these abilities.
The Social Media Abyss
This is not an elaborate way to repeat the old adage: “never talk about religion and politics.” I really think that people should discuss those things, and really anything else that they want to talk about at any time. I am taking these measures to improve my communication skills and relationships with others. This is a rather strenuous activity for us more introverted individuals, especially with the new bastion of awkwardness known as the internet.
Social media has delivered a beating to situational awareness for most people. It is basically a giant gray area where people will speak their mind unaware of the potential consequences. I have seen many one sided debates on different platforms in the favor of just about every perspective. A more common occurrence is people conducting two different fights in the same ring, which is sometimes rather interesting to try and dissect (although a lot of these are just childish gibberish).
Be nice
Those of us with convictions want people to agree with us or at least know about these ideas. This goal is never achieved by beating people over the head with them mercilessly. If a conversation goes into a philosophical direction, maintain your awareness and try to understand where others are coming from. Really all that I am saying, and this is mostly directed at myself, is be nice.