Jeff, what strikes me about this is how well storytelling works as a method of defining one's terms. You opened with a snapshot, literal and descriptive, taken from your own experience, which immediately anchors the conversation in a shared understanding. Define your terms in storytelling is, "show me what we're talking about," or as Jonny mentions, "describe the world you're arguing for."
Love it. I lol'd at Oppenheimer, post-Engels, and shape shift while nodding and saying Amen aloud. I think I'd crumble trying to converse with Voltaire. "Describe the world that you're arguing for" works too. There's often none when you have to ask.
Jonny! Haha I am glad to hear it. I laughed when I wrote it. Also Voltaire was a dawg. Legend has it he drank 40 cups of coffee a day so it would probably be hard to talk to him for that reason as well. And yes I’ve never thought of that phrasing, that is a good one to ask too.
The funny thing is that even readers who struggle to understand something often consider that there is more value in what they read, whereas if what they read is simple they find it of no particular value. I assume they do it to compensate for their lost time to try to understand what they read; it is not particularly nice to spend a lot of time trying to understand something, only to discover in the end that what you read was incomprehensible or of no particular value.
A professor of mine used to say that we should talk and write as if we were speaking to our uneducated grandmother. Unfortunately, since the intellectual imposters are many more than the intellectuals who do have something valuable to offer, they have managed to set a paradigm — at the cost of those who do have something to offer to be ignored...
Thank you for such a thoughtful comment, Lazaros. The tragedy is that many people value credentials, and appearing smart, more than actual learning. Over seeking truth.
The mistake complexity for depth. The trappings of a thing are mistaken for the thing itself.
Agreed, and sometimes it is not even complexity, sometimes it is just straight nonsense.
Jeff, what strikes me about this is how well storytelling works as a method of defining one's terms. You opened with a snapshot, literal and descriptive, taken from your own experience, which immediately anchors the conversation in a shared understanding. Define your terms in storytelling is, "show me what we're talking about," or as Jonny mentions, "describe the world you're arguing for."
Rick, I hadn't thought about it like that. Another great reason among endless to tell stories and work on the craft of storytelling.
Love it. I lol'd at Oppenheimer, post-Engels, and shape shift while nodding and saying Amen aloud. I think I'd crumble trying to converse with Voltaire. "Describe the world that you're arguing for" works too. There's often none when you have to ask.
Jonny! Haha I am glad to hear it. I laughed when I wrote it. Also Voltaire was a dawg. Legend has it he drank 40 cups of coffee a day so it would probably be hard to talk to him for that reason as well. And yes I’ve never thought of that phrasing, that is a good one to ask too.
The funny thing is that even readers who struggle to understand something often consider that there is more value in what they read, whereas if what they read is simple they find it of no particular value. I assume they do it to compensate for their lost time to try to understand what they read; it is not particularly nice to spend a lot of time trying to understand something, only to discover in the end that what you read was incomprehensible or of no particular value.
A professor of mine used to say that we should talk and write as if we were speaking to our uneducated grandmother. Unfortunately, since the intellectual imposters are many more than the intellectuals who do have something valuable to offer, they have managed to set a paradigm — at the cost of those who do have something to offer to be ignored...
Thank you for such a thoughtful comment, Lazaros. The tragedy is that many people value credentials, and appearing smart, more than actual learning. Over seeking truth.