Your Views Are Not Right

But how could that be?

Well, you are not everybody.

People have different lives, different circumstance, different needs, and different life paths.

“Your views are not right” for everybody. We need a chorus of voices. Differences in viewpoints are a strength and not a weakness.

To paraphrase the Greek philosopher Epictetus, “you have two ears and one mouth so that you can listen twice as much as you talk.”

There is no way that all people can or should think (or view the world) the same. The young and old should not have the same views. People living in the different areas will see things from different vantage points.

Seek different viewpoints. That is why we love fiction. It lets us try out other people’s lives. It is not hard to see the world as another person does. Movies give us multiple views.

The right view is having all the views harmonized into one opennessence. Your view is only one of the components. Your view is one view and it is true to you. Don’t falsify anyone else’s view by saying it is wrong just because it is not yours. Listen. Ask questions.

Try their view(s) out. Seek even more views. Where do the views all meet?

If there is a view that is wrong, it is the view that says that other views should be shut down. This absolutist thinking is an error in that it closes the world and is anti-social. It may seem safe in the short-term, but in the long-term it becomes a start for constricting the whole world slowly — one added restriction after another. The word “social” necessitates openness. There is a thinking that seeks to close people down. We should use listening and communication to encourage everyone to want for everyone else to have the freedom and encouragement to share. The forum of ideas must allow for the best ideas to win over the minds of the most of us. If we fail, then humanity will fail, but it must be allowed to confront that risk. Autocracy’s great lie is that it must imprison the people to free them and to protect them from themselves. It leaves no one free. Social freedom must tolerate risks. In a democracy, much effort must be expended to win people to your side. We should convince others rather than coerce them.

We must have faith in the power of democracy to reveal our will. Let that will have its day and prove its usefulness for us all. That is the view that is right for us all. That view will be ‘the view’ that a plurality of views are needed to see the whole world in all of its intricate colors and complex angles.

E Pluribus Unum — one world with many views — in essence ‘open.’