When we say “I don’t understand,” that can be a confession: “I am, so far, still unable to understand.” Or it can be an assertion “I don’t understand because it is nonsense.”
If we are powerful, we get to decide which way to say it. Are we feeling charitable today? Let’s dialogue and be good listeners. Or is the master feeling impatient and disinclined to suffer fools? We call it like we see it. We scoff at it. Or we angrily send it away. It is entirely our choice. We cannot even imagine a world where it is not we, but someone else, who decides what gets heard or dismissed.
And we have forgotten what it is like to be on the other side of this dynamic.
If we are weak and vulnerable, the decision is far less discretionary. Our leaders might be stupid and boorish or even crazy — but if we don’t get inside their heads and figure out how they see the world, we will be unable to make persuasive appeals to them, or anticipate their next action. And we cannot appear presumptuous, which means to believe our judgment is equal to that of theirs. We must act out their truth to their satisfaction, or suffer consequences. And we cannot rely on public support for our truth. We must learn to make sense of the world to ourselves. The powerful can take shelter in consensus. Everyone knows.
In this way, the weak get smarter, more insightful, more resourceful, and grow stronger, and the strong get more and more complacent and stupid and grow vulnerable.
–x–
–o–
I can’t understand how anyone could think that.”
“I can’t understand how this nonsense is so persuasive to so many people.”
“I don’t understand how I lost power.”
“I don’t get to decide everything, anymore? I must do the persuading?”
“Perhaps there is something I was averse to understanding, and refused to notice and consider.”
“Oh! I understand now.”
“Here is what we must do to change this situation.”
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