Kick Butt But Do It Kindly
This year, because of the COVID pandemic, my two granddaughters from Thailand came to live with us. After a year of virtual school and not being able to get their vaccinations, our family decided in their best interest to come to the US to get vaccinated and go to in classroom schooling.
Both of them did well in school here in Texas. For extra-curricular activities, Harriet, the older of the two, was into horseback riding and voice lessons while Iris in into soccer and piano.
Iris is very athletic and very focused when she practices and plays. I have told my granddaughters, “Kick butt, but do it kindly.” Excuse my French, but I mean do your best but be nice. Her soccer team, however, has been in the losing end during the tournaments. So I had to tell Iris, “Life is not always about winning, but about learning something, whether you win or lose.’‘
Some came up with these 6 rules to kick ass in life:
- Know that your only competition is who you were yesterday.
- Earn, save and invest before you spend.
- Avoid negative people, life is too short.
- If you don’t go after what you want, you will never get it.
- See failure as a beginning, and not an end.
- Our habits decide our future.
I don’t know if you have had the same experience I had with Facebook religious and political forums. I have joined some of these groups and had to withdraw from being part of them because of the vitriolic language being used against each other. A good number of participants try winning arguments at all costs. They resorting to name calling and use demeaning language against people who don’t think like them. It is not uncommon to see them refer to each other as morons, crackpots or stupid.
When I was growing up in the Philippines, there were frequent debates in the town plaza. It usually involved people voluntarily representing the Catholics, Iglesia Ni Cristo (Church of Christ by Manalo) Baptists, and the Seventh-day Adventists. Even lately, I have seen some of these debates posted on YouTube. The debates are very contentious. Debaters try to shame each other and try to make a fool of the opposing person for what he or she believes. The spectacle attracts many people and is a source of free entertainment for most of them. To me, it is just an exercise of futility. I still have to know of someone converted to their opposition because of these debates.
What is debate? The Oxford dictionary defines debate as a formal discussion on a particular topic in a public meeting or legislative assembly, in which they put opposing arguments forward to prove their points. In a free society, there is always a battle of ideas. With the presence and universality of the of the public social media, one could debate ideas with anybody around the globe. Politicians, dictators, governments and other influencers have exploited this to promote their causes. They even hire groups of individuals to put out propaganda materials in the guise of news to sway public opinion. They are now called influencers.
Does winning of a debate result revealing the truth? There are people who are always trying to use logic to bend the world to their will. Logic is no substitute for truth. Debate is not truth-seeking. what we find persuasive has very little to do with objective truth. I heard a lawyer say, “We always use the truth, whether working for the plaintiff or the defendant. However, we use only the part of the truth that supports the narrative in favor of our client.
We know other nations are trying to influence the political direction in America. Nowadays, to accomplish this, they don’t need to send spies to our country. All they do to is study the postings in social media and feed it to their computers to do the analysis. Then they create bogus multiple media accounts to spew out alternative or false narratives to influence people. They are very effective, because they use analytics to study their target audience and make their message tailored so that the reader would be more receptive. In my younger years, I was involved in the recording business; I have sat down with advertising executives who studied their target groups, on what kind of music are they attracted to, what pastime they are into, and do they like children or pets? Then, with the information they have gathered, they decide how to tailor their radio and TV ads. Now they use information obtained from data mining groups to make their ads more effective.
Hugo Mercier, the co-author of an article on the argumentative theory of reasoning published in April 2011 in The Journal of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, said; “Reasoning doesn’t have this function of helping us to get better beliefs and make better decisions… It was a purely social phenomenon. It evolved to help us convince others and to be careful when others try to convince us.”
How many of us have watched video infomercials? You listen to one claiming to be an expert enthusiastically, promotes a product and convincingly gives you reason to act right now. I remember someone ask me about the effectiveness of a medication for joint pains and arthritis that she had ordered after listening to an infomercial touting the product. I checked to components of the product and found the principal ingredients were chondroitin and turmeric. One could get both products at a price a tenth of what the product the individual paid for. But if you listened to the infomercial, you think his product was heaven sent for your problem.
Tyrants have been good at exploiting these methods to convince people to follow their biddings. Good examples are Joseph Stalin, revolutionary and Soviet communist dictator, who governed the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953; Adolf Hitler, Austrian-born German politician who was the Nazi dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945; Mao Zedong, chairperson of the Chinese Communist Party, from the establishment of the PRC in 1949 until his death in 1976. All these dictators gain absolute power over the people they ruled, and they convinced them that, as leaders, they were doing things for the greater good of the nation. To this day, there are many people who believe in the ideas and methods espoused by these despots, despite them being long gone to their graves.
In my younger years, I’m not proud to admit I love to debate and argue my point of view for the sake of winning an argument. Yes, early on I have learned the actual object in a debate is not telling the whole truth. Consciously used selective part of the truth to promote falsehood in a debate in order to win. Through the years, however, I have learned that you may win and arguments and lose friends. Effective leaders always listen carefully to their followers and competitors and give due credit for things they agree on and build on that. That is what we call building up using common ground as your basis of your relationship. The best way to get rid of an enemy is to make him your friend or ally.
You may have heard people say that someone has won the battle but lost the war. They actually mean that someone has won the minor conflict but lost the major one. There are people that always want to win, but many times you don’t have to win those small insignificant battles in order to win those bigger, more important ones. You may have seen people who thought they were always right and had little supporters because they turn off people. In the end, they drove all their potential allies who would help win the bigger battle.
What does the good book tell about arguing?
“Do everything without complaining and arguing.” Philippians 2:14
“Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.” 2 Timothy 2:23-24
The heart of the godly thinks carefully before speaking; the mouth of the wicked overflows with evil words. Proverbs 15:28
However, avoid pointless discussions. For people will become more and more ungodly. 2 Timothy 2:16
