"911 was planned by the USA."
"Ron Paul is going to ruin the country."
When presented with new information, we have a handful of options. We can be a derelict, a stoic, a skeptic, or a cynic. I'll get the first two out of the way so I can focus on the skeptic and cynic.
Derelict - neglectful of duty; delinquent; negligent.
I would have preferred to use the term gullible or credulous
- but hey...neither of those ends in an "ic" sound. I'm using this term to describe the person
who blithely accepts anything they hear.
They are negligent of a commitment to the truth.
Stoic - one who is indifferent
This is the person who hears the information
and simply shrugs it off. They don't
care to discover the veracity of the claim. Our lives are busy, so we do have a need to
make decisions regarding to which topics we dedicate time and which get swept
aside. Unfortunately, there's an
inherent weakness in not having a complete picture. You may not see the importance of being able
to discern hemlock from parsley, but if you knew you were going to be stranded
in the wilderness and living off of plants, you may change your mind. That's just how it goes, I guess.
I'm assuming none of us wishes to be a derelict, and we'll work
to discern what types of information are worth our time in research. And so, we
make it to the skeptic and cynic.
Skeptic - a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual.
Cynic - a person who is bitterly or sneeringly distrustful, contemptuous, or pessimistic.
Both the skeptic and cynic are asking questions. How do you know which you are? I think it can be challenging for an
individual to be honestly introspective in discerning which of these they
are. This is especially true when the
new information presented to us is contrary to ideas we already embrace. None of us likes to be wrong and confirmation
bias works overtime in our lives - evidence only matters insomuch as it's
confirming evidence.
I think the best way to find a difference between these two
terms is to understand the motives behind the questioning. Are the questions a consequence of wanting to
know the truth? If so, we're a
skeptic. Or are the questions a result
of not wanting to believe? If so, we're
a cynic.
But, it can be difficult to nail down our motives. So, here's a litmus test to help. Have we subjected our existing view to the
same level of scrutiny? Has our current conviction
gone under the same microscope of arduous inquiry? If not, it's likely our viewpoint isn't a
result of rational, objective analysis.
And our visceral rejection of the new material is probably the result of
cynicism.
The initial reaction to opposing viewpoints is to
immediately dismiss them as we think of all the anecdotal evidence we've
experienced to the contrary. However,
our egos work diligently to convince us our ideas and actions are logical and
noble. Our life interpretations must be
taken with a grain of salt. We have to pause and allow ourselves time to digest material from every angle.
Confirming evidence can be found for nearly any proposition. The quest for truth really begins when we
work to disprove ideas and see what still remains. It's a matter of personal growth to allow the
question, "Come to think of it, why do I believe this is true?"
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