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"HOW CAN MT. FUJI BE HIDDEN BY A SINGLE TREE?":
Thinking within bias (the other guy's) may be a partial solution to avoiding
international affairs misconceptions.
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Question: "How can Mt. Fuji be concealed by a single tree?
Answer: "It is simply because of the narrowness of my vision and because
the tree stands in the way of my vision that Mt. Fuji cannot be seen. Yet we go
on thinking that the tree is concealing Mt. Fuji."
[Zen Master and Swordsman, Takuan Soho from
"The Unfettered Mind", Kodansha International].
by
Guntram Werther, Ph.D.
Gold Canyon, Arizona
- delivered at Mountain Brook Country Club -
17 March 2004
Preamble:
This is a very complicated topic. It requires that you think in a new way about
several things, but mainly about the idea of "bias" as being not
something to be eliminated from our judgments about international affairs and
trends, but rather as something to be "artfully" used to form better
predictions.
The substance of this lecture can be had in greater detail by reading my
previously published "Beyond the Blocking Tree: Improving Performance in
Future-Oriented Analysis" (Competitive Intelligence Magazine, Volume 3,
Number 4. October-December 2000).
That article and this talk is about more accurate prediction, and how to get it.
In the article I refer to the "currently increasing...stresses within the
Andean Rim countries of South America" (page 42) as an example of
"future-oriented analysis" long before Ecuador (Jan, 2000 & Nov,
2002), Peru (Nov, 2000 & July 2001), and Bolivia (Oct, 2003) had shifts
toward rising/violent "indigenization" of their politics; a topic I
covered in detail during many university and other lectures. Before that, in
other articles and many lectures worldwide, I detailed and discussed why
"globalization" in general, and certain regions-countries in
particular, would not develop smoothly; and why that it so.
Today, our country is becoming familiar with just how bad we are as a nation at
predicting future events and trends. I suggest that we are going about this task
just about 180 degrees backwards; focussing on "getting" over
"understanding" through bureaucracy and secrecy - the twin enemies of
the creative and sensitive mind. I have spoken about this elsewhere.
The referenced "Beyond the Blocking Tree..." article was written at a
moderately abstract level for professional CI intelligence analysts and is
available at 'www.scip.org'; the web site of the Society of Competitive
Intelligence Professionals. I included a copy of this article if you attended
the Mountain Brook Country Club lecture in Gold Canyon. Otherwise, download.
Our discussion today will highlight some points from the article within the
substance and orientation of what we have discussed this Spring in various Gold
Canyon lectures. In short, I plan on using plain English to make a few points
about better predicting and understanding international trends that are useful
to 'normal people', as opposed to professionals.
"How Can Mt. Fuji be Hidden by a Single Tree?
Self-evidently, by standing behind it so that the "tree" blocks your
view.
This "tree" is YOUR opinions, preferences, goals, ideologies, likes
& dislikes, any interpretations thereof, and all the other stuff that YOU do
to reality so that the world makes sense to YOU. It is your worldview, and how
you want things to be. Takuan Soho frames this as "the narrowness of my
vision."
Show me a person with a strong ideological commitment, and I will show you a
poor judge of things. (S)he reads only one point of view - sometimes as a point
of pride - excluding all other interpretations.
Others feel that ELIMINATING BIAS will make them more "objective."
What I present for your consideration is the idea that to see "Mt.
Fuji" (in our sense, to better predict and understand emerging
international trends), no single perspective will suffice. It is not a matter of
right and wrong, true or false, better or worse, nor is it about subjective
realities (the idea of one perspective being as valid as any other). IT IS
NOT ABOUT VALIDITY AT ALL.
IT IS ABOUT ENTERING INTO; or as I have elsewhere framed it "Thinking
within bias", "Rational thinking from the perspective of the
other", "Integrative thinking", and/or "non-accretive
analysis of emerging international trends."
IT IS ALSO ABOUT FLEXIBILITY OF MIND; going appropriately where needed.
The foundation of this method for understanding is a comparative,
multi-disciplinary, socio-psychologically grounded approach that does NOT depend
on lots of data (let alone, the oft suggested and entirely impossible advice to
"consider ALL THE FACTS") because you simply cannot do this; you would
be gathering all your life long, and never have time to think about the issue.
1) YOU WILL NEVER HAVE ALL THE AVAILABLE INFORMATION.
2) IF YOU DID, IT WOULD OVERWHELM AND CONFUSE YOU.
3) IT IS IMPOSSIBLE AND ALSO UNDESIRABLE TO ELIMINATE "BIAS".
4) THE GOAL IS TO GET RID OF YOURSELF - MEANING YOUR BIASES - SO THAT YOU CAN TO
SOME DEGREE ENTER INTO THE BIAS (MIND SET) OF THE OTHER.
5) THE QUESTIONS ARE: "HOW DO OTHERS SEE THEIR REALITY, GIVEN WHAT
MOTIVATIONS, FOR WHAT GOALS, AND BY WHAT MEANS DO THEY PROCEED?"
6) THIS IS NOT A MATTER OF HAVING ALL THE FACTS....IT IS A MATTER OF UNFETTERING
THE MIND SO THAT YOU CAN SEE WHERE OTHERS ARE GOING.
LEARNING TO FIND: "...having listened to their words, I observe their
deeds." (Analects, Book 5, 12)
Nietzsche observed "After I got tired of searching, I learned to
find."
PROPERLY integrating factors through understanding other's motivations and
directions is "finding". The process of "getting" is mere
searching.
Permit me to expand from the article; giving examples of this difference:
1) "Are analysis methods per se the problem?...Said otherwise, is there
some lack in the nature of the paint and brushes that keeps us from painting
like Rembrandt?" (from page 41).
2) "...we could set the world partly aright by simply spending more time
quietly sitting under trees as Newton did; waiting for apples to drop. By this I
mean mainly that effective analysis is always long on thinking and short on data
crunching." (from page 41).
3) "The hardest task in training students is convincing them of the need to
to have an idea before "doing research." (from page 41).
4) "...one can track changes...the way a beagle tracks a rabbit; it starts
somewhere and the trail leads somewhere. If you understand this properly, you
will be there waiting to take advantage of future opportunities." (from
page 42).
5) "Objectivity involves thinking the matter over from many perspectives.
Reasoning outward from each perspective involves thinking within bias; seeing
the situation from the bias of another, and not from one's own bias." (from
page 43).
6) "Our personal and historical experience tells us that people are rarely
either objective or comprehensive when choosing, and by extension, this applies
to firms and societies....Strategically using the target's biased reasoning to
explain things is often better." (from page 43).
7) "Understand information you hear with the reasoning of
responsibility." (quoted from "Counsels of Hadrat Ali" at page
43).
What I have presented is at odds with the mass of teaching and research
orientations within the social sciences. We like to think that the "people
sciences" are like physics or chemistry; but atoms don't talk back. They do
not have personalities that react in an anticipatory and strategic manner via
culturally perceived modes of thought to their observations.
CONCLUDING COMMENT FOR THIS LECTURE SERIES:
If there are about 6,000 cultures worldwide within about 220 countries, why is
there one (or a few) "objective" way to assess their behavior with
regard to international trends and changes? Moreover, why is that way OUR way?
You are welcome to your ideologies, preferences, objections, prejudices, goals,
and biases; they are partly what makes you "you". As a matter of the
understanding of international events, my suggestion is that this is entirely a
wrong approach. Nor is this a matter of "validity", but of
"entering into."
Thank you.
Copyright Guntram Werther Ph.D. 2004. - You
may reproduce this note for non-commercial purposes providing attribution of
authorship is given.
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