In discussing a number of my recent confusions with
colleagues in China, I realized that my confusions were also causing a couple
of the Chinese to become confused. The thought that confusions are contagious then
escaped from my lips without much thought. Now I am wondering if there is any
evidence to support such a claim.
Many years ago when working at the University of
Bergen in Norway in the area of system dynamics-based learning environments, I
devised a principle called UUPS – pronounced ‘oops’, standing for the Universal
Underlying Principle of all Systems – namely, when one begins
working on a complex and challenging problem the notion is that something has already gone
wrong. Typical early problems include (a) misdiagnosing the problem, (b) not
providing sufficient resources early in the effort to address the problem, (c)
focusing on just one aspect of a complex and dynamic problem, and (d) assuming
that the future will resemble the past with regard to the problem situation.
A first corollary to UUPS is the notion that mistakes
rarely occur in isolation. Typically, one mistake leads to another and so on.
Misdiagnosing the problem can lead one to address a symptom of a problem rather
than an underlying cause. One might then develop an elegant but entirely
ineffective solution. Yes, I have done so on more than one occasion although my
solutions are rarely very elegant. That first corollary to UUPS is related to my
current thought that confusion may be contagious. Recent political events tend
to reinforce this nascient belief.
I added two additional corollaries to UUPS: (a) there
are rarely sufficient resources to do what you believe should be done to
address a problem situation involving a complex and dynamic system, and (b)
others generally have good or better ideas about what can be done to improve
the situation. But then I rarely listen to myself much less to others.
I seem to recall a phrase treated in some depth in one
of my psychology courses many years ago around the popular claim that misery loves company. The instructor
asked us to read about that notion and finds its origins and offer an
explanation based in psychology that would lead some credence to that popular
belief. What little I recall from that class is the notion that the evidence
tends to show that misery likes miserable
company. Apparently, a 14th
century Italian historian named Dominici de Gravina wrote, in his Chronicon de rebus in Apulia
gestis something
that translates roughly as follows: "It is a comfort to those
who are unfortunate to have had companions in misfortune.”
My more recent dives into
the research pertaining to confusions being contagious led mainly to articles
about contagious diseases. Being easily influenced by what I read, I then had
he thought that perhaps confusion could be treated as a kind of disease – a disease
of the mind so to speak. This notion has promise in terms of understanding how
confusions are formed, reinforced and spread to others. Perhaps.
Confusion is a contagious
disease of the mind. Onward through the fog, as they say at Oat Willie’s (see http://oatwillies.com/). Could it be that a person develops a
malady that results in frequent confusions? If so, how might that happen? Many
have written about habits of the mind (for example, see http://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/what-are-the-habits-of-mind/). In general, those persons have taken a
positive view of the habits of the mind and argued for their support and
development in teaching and learning. However, a more neutral approach would be
to view mental habits just as other habits are viewed – namely, in terms of
repeated activation that lead to a relatively thoughtless repetition of a particular
disposition in a certain kind of situation. The notion of reinforcement
patterns in the brain’s neural network structure seems to support such a
general analysis. So, it may be possible that through repeated activation a
person develops a mental habit that is likely to result in confusion in some
cases. It could be repeated reliance on one source or one authority or one
perspective to account for a wide range of beliefs. I recall reading Quine and
Ullian’s Web of Belief (see http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/W.-V.-Quine-J.-S.-Ullian-The-Web-of-Belief.pdf) years ago and thinking that when
confronted with something that does not fit with prior beliefs and
dispositions that one is forced to call into question an entire set of beliefs,
however reluctantly.
Then I remember one of
Nietzsche’s aphorism in The Dawn of Day:
"The
surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those
who think alike than those who think differently." Perhaps following that
advice is one way to inoculate oneself and others from confusion. One of my
philosophy mentors, Oets Kolk Bouwsma, argued that many philosophical constructs
were a result of conceptual confusion (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oets_Kolk_Bouwsma).
This is akin to Wittgenstein’s notion in Philosophical
Investigations that language can lead one astray (see http://aprender.ead.unb.br/pluginfile.php/170854/mod_resource/content/1/RPGB%20Wittgenstein%20Phil%20Investigations.pdf).
I have formed a habit of reminding myself of two of Wittgenstein’s key ideas:
(a) From the Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus – we picture facts to ourselves (that is to say that
people naturally create internal representations to make sense of things they
experience that are new or puzzling; see http://tractatus-online.appspot.com/Tractatus/jonathan/);
and (b) from Philosophical Investigations
– we talk about those internal representations to which no one has direct
access with others in the form of language games. If one only talks with those
who hold similar views and dispositions, then one is not likely to question
one’s assumptions or carefully examine the quality and credibility of the
evidence supporting those views and dispositions (recall Nietzsche’s advice).
Well, there seems to be no lack of conceptual
confusion on my part or among the general public. Perhaps confusion has reached
epidemic proportions. Not to panic … one can always crawl back into Plato’s
cave described in The Republic (see https://web.stanford.edu/class/ihum40/cave.pdf).
Life in the shadows is sometimes easier to manage.
