Reading blogs on Discovery.com is interesting. The scientific mind often gets bent out of shape when logic seems to drift. Read this post about a nest of wasps that formed in the shape of a Buddha in Rochester MN. Not only is there the incredulusness of the idea that Buddha and wasp are related, but the people intervied in the referenced story and the author of the original article keep confusing bees for wasps.
The funny thing about Buddhism is that no matter how much it is a philosophy, it still spirals into religion. Not saying that it can't be a pure way of life, but that is not what it is in all Buddhist-based cultures (barring those in California).
The wasps (through the miracle of self-delusion actually bees) must have a 'human' explanation. The purist Buddhist philosophy would simply be that they were being wasps as is their nature - nothing more.
The trick is that Buddhism does not deny the religion that existed prior to the adoption of Buddhism before it arrived. Look at Thailand (I do for 6 months of every year) where there is never a Buddha that is not within arms reach of a creature or god from the indian-based religions. Because they were also very prone to believing in the influence of these other worldly beings, they attribute a lot of how the world works to them. The number of rituals or signs, belief in the cause and effect of the rituals is amazing. This is not necessarily peasants in the jungle. We are talking about the educated masses bowing to the Buddha as well as multi-armed Shiva and other dieties.
I'll add one more thing. No matter how you slice it, humans are the problem - not a religion or other excuse. We can make anything seem reasonable. A Buddhist will not cause damage to another living being. But a Buddhist can (and I have seen it) create a situation where pain or worse is inevitable just as long as they don't strike the death blow... or can claim it was just a reflex. A mosquito cannot be killed, but should it wander into a death trap through misadventure, that's alright.
The purist Buddhist would not do such a thing, but the non purist would argue that they were pure as well. Imagine a dictionary with only one definition for every word. Imagine a book that could not be interpreted to having different meanings (barring pure math).
The simple fact is that we are human. Murphy's law is all about the human's ability to believe something will work, that it is designed right, that it will be used as intended and the consequence of believing any of these has a shred of truth.
And now, the missing ending.
In this case it is all about the sloppiness of belief. A Buddhist can cheat, lie, make mistakes, and do silly things as easily as a Christian or Islamist. Just as an engineer can put in a part backwards (the source of the Murphy tale) people easily can reverse/twist/expand a belief or embelish liberally to support the initial position of their belief or action. Even stranger is how beliefs and their supporting arguments are easily picked up by others. This is acually a bit less surprising because it is simple to go with the flow.
Back to philosophical Wasps building Buddha-shaped nests in Buddhist temples (we call them Watts in Thailand). What stuck me funny as I have said is the bashing of the very science-based blogger of people that are... well, being people. On the one end, Mr Wizard. On the other end, Mr Wizard with prejudice of religion rather than understanding that the human condition easily mistakes a wasp from a bee and gets bent out of shape when deities show up built by insects.
Where is this going? The referenced blog seems to say these folks are stupid. Stupid isn't about being educated or facts. Stupid is is a state of mind that got there through human experience and the way the mind works. Stupid, ten to one, is nothing more than a belief that is wrong. Stupid comes from lack of Critical Thinking
, perhaps education, and even our parents - but it is something that is always there in some amount in all of us.
So, here we are in Triiibes. What does this have to deal with leading? People are not stupid. Note: Not talking about IQ. Lots of smart people belong to cults. Lots of people do stupid things. Stupidity is sometimes fleeting, but I am talking about a persistent stupid. How do you lead stupid?
First, drop the 'stupid' moniker. Treat stupidity as a belief. Find what led to a problem that you have with a co-worker, client, targeted customers, and the rest of the world. Remember that belief is hard to change. Most beliefs exist even in that face of evidence, so don't expect a belief to change.
A variation of what we often label with 'stupid' is related to skills. I want to call this out separately because the English language sucks (it is a human invention and ha a lot of flaws). Good book to read is The Myth of Laziness
. Spelling, the ability to write, speaking skills, fine motor skills are all are related to how the brain is wired. You can't do a lot about that. Worse lots of kids with developing brains or adults that are not quite wired perfectly are labeled as lazy which is closely related to and often called 'stupid'. You get the same issues leading these folks. In addition they have additional beliefs caused by not being perfect and what that entails.
Full disclosure, can't spell, handwriting from hell, and until I learned to juggle, I could not lay on the ground while chewing gum without tripping. But, I use a spell checker, I type, and I now have motor skills thanks to learning to juggle when I was about 35 (balls, knives, flaming torches and toilet plungers in their order of danger to my self and audience). Juggling rewired a brain stuck at age 13 because my beliefs kept me tied to avoiding improvements in my motor skills. The rest are just coping skills that work quite well in modern society.
The trick to leading most beliefs or handicaps of all kinds is to first accept them. Suspending belief should be the game. I became a writer when I realized that nobody really cared as long as I used a spell checker (at a guess I have used the spell checker on about 30 words in this blog entry so far). I also became a writer because I had a goal where the writing was only a small part of reaching the goal. Juggling too was just a means to a really good joke rather than being able to own glassware rather than high impact plastic.
So, here are my steps for curing stupidity caused by beliefs:
1) Accept the belief. If possible, find the source and acknowledge that this makes the belief true given the evidence.
2) Suspend a belief with a different reality or conditions where another belief can be possible. Alternately, ask that a belief take a little time off and try another belief and have the subject see how it works out with their own observations. Goals that are related, but not the focus of the belief are very useful.
3) Follow up and if possible confirm a change or at least progress in loosening the grip of an old belief
There are pitfalls to consider:
Inertia - If you are not dead, the belief has not really affected you that badly. If it is not life threatening, it is hard for the brain to find a reason to change. It takes a lot of effort to change direction in a car or a mind.
Self-limiting beliefs - Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of being seen as inferior, fear of mediocrity and others will help support a belief. These can be teated as stated above, but they are deeply held beliefs that likely caused the belief. My favorite book on such limiting beliefs: The Luck Factor: The Four Essential Principles
Energy - The brain uses a lot of energy when rewiring itself. Nature likes to conserve energy. A closed mind is a low energy mind. Changing the energy level through the effort of changing a belief is not something the brain likes to do. That is why having other goals are important. The need needs to be sweeter than the effort so that the effort pays big or such that the effort isn't even noticed against the greater need to reach the goal.
All of this applies to groups as well. Think about Microsoft and Apple. In the minds of Apple fans they have beliefs with inertia, the fear of failure by being wrong, and all the baggage of understanding how to use the products. Microsoft might call these people stupid and Apple plays the same game with Mr Hodgman. Microsoft is playing on the need to be part of a group with their new adverts which is also a deep belief.
Apple is winning market share as much from the new inertia of converts that bring in others simply because nobody dies from buying Apple and they do seem a bit happier. The energy of changing your mind is easier if you observe others succeeding - why waste energy when all the thinking has been done for you?
How many Republicans call Democrats stupid and hear their words mirrored back? How did Obama win? My guess is that he put the goal of change in the air until it overcame many beliefs that were held by Republicans and non-voting youths that had found no reason to vote before. McCain mostly spoke to the beliefs of other Republicans rather than a new belief that would sway youth or existing Democrats.
You can now start to see a new strategy. Don't push against stupidity. Stupidity is just a belief. Change beliefs. You are already changing your mind a little and that has its own inertia.
Let us know what you are thinking. The fear of commenting in public is not a belief we have here :o)
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