The Distant Fire Episode #3: The subtle danger of Absolute Truth
It's not just what you believe, it's what that belief does for you.
Welcome to Episode 3 of The Distant Fire.
The Distant Fire is a series of weekly guided personal story prompts in which we tell the stories of our lives, and understand how what we tell ourselves affects our every day.
This episode is looking at beliefs, and how those tenets of us are present in all the stories we tell, and the way we tell them.
Download this episode’s document for you to complete here: The Distant Fire Episode 3 Document.
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A few things to remember each week.
Fairness has always been very important to me. Even as a child I can remember a confusing mix of anger and sadness uncontrollably well up in me when I saw things that were unfair.
And though I couldn’t understand it at the time, throughout my life that sense of fairness being important to me insisted upon itself, again and again, until I understood what it was.
But it was only when I started looking back through the stories I was telling myself, and then telling them out loud, that I realised the root of my dependency on fairness as an agreed upon foundation of life (which it isn’t) was affecting how I lived, and what I thought of myself.
This was my first encounter with the subtle danger of Absolute Truth, and today we’ll go deeper into the beliefs that we hold close, and see how they affect us without us even knowing.
As always, your home for all the episodes and everything you’ll need is TheDistantFire.com. There you’ll find downloadable documents for you to use with each episode, transcripts, storytelling articles and everything else I collect to help us find the meaningful truth in the stories we tell.
There’s no cost to you except your time. The Distant Fire is, and will always be, free.
We begin each episode with a One Minute Exercise to get us writing, or speaking aloud.
And as always, you can do this, and tell your story, any way you wish – write it out, type it, record your voice – it’s what works for you.
So, let’s start with a question about one of our core beliefs.
The One Minute Exercise - Episode #3
What is something that you feel absolutely certain about?
It could be a belief you hold, an answer to a question that recurs, or a situation in which you can find no grey area.
It doesn’t have to be a serious political or ethical question - it can be superficial or serious. It’s up to you, but you must believe in it wholly.
One immovable object of opinion.
First, tell me what it is, then in one sentence tell me why. No justification, no defence of your position - just the reasons why you think you think the way you do.
TAKE A MINUTE:
What is something that you feel absolutely certain about?
And why?
Let’s go, and come back in a minute with our answer.
One Minute Exercise Follow Up Questions
Whatever belief you chose, I’d like to keep that in mind for the next few minutes, as we look closer at it. I’ll be thinking about my own chosen belief as well.
A few questions to consider:
Firstly, would you be comfortable sharing this core belief with people? Is it something that is a visible part of how you live your life in the real world?
If pushed - would you be able to communicate your one sentence reasoning for it? Or would you prefer not to have to argue your case?
And finally, if such an opinion were possible, would you think less of someone who held the opposite opinion?
We hold many of these beliefs within ourselves, whether we know it or not. It’s partly how we make sense of the world, and ourselves in it. Some feel intractable, while others can feel borne out of necessity and experience.
What’s important for us today is to be able to state some of these beliefs, and be open to finding out what effect they have on us.
These beliefs are a big part of what makes us who we are, and I want to examine what effect they have on how we live our lives.
The COW Element - Episode #3: Certain Uncertainties
This episode intends to show that even the things we know for certain are full of nuance and change. Today’s Craft of Writing Element helps to get us to a place where we can see that complexity in useful detail.
It’s true that we contain multitudes, just as it is true that those multitudes can grow, recede and change in their composition. Our beliefs, like us, are not static.
The learning here is that our own appreciation of the things in our lives can be enhanced and emboldened - these things can become clearer - when we take a look from other viewpoints.
Our beliefs are the things we tell ourselves over and over. They are our solid foundation, the ground beneath our feet. But one of the core tenets of freedom comes from never being too certain of ourselves. John Stuart Mill said,
“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.”
This is an insight examined in Letters to a Young Contrarian, where Christopher Hitchens noted an observation of Sir Karl Popper, who, he said,
“...recognised that argument was valuable, indeed essential, for its own sake. It is very seldom...that in debate any one of two evenly matched antagonists will succeed in actually convincing or “converting” the other...it is equally seldom that in a properly conducted argument either antagonist will end up holding exactly the same position as that with which he began. Concessions, refinements and adjustments will occur.”
This is the Principle of Charity, a concept known as Steelmanning. The opposite of the more commonly-known Strawmanning, it encourages us to bolster up the argument in opposition to our own, in order that we can better understand our own position.
Our core beliefs can come from many places. They can be learned from family or inspired by friends, decided in reaction to evidence seen. What links them all is the internal feeling of certainty about them. That they are true, immutable, and central to how we live our lives.
Although, that’s not strictly correct. They are not fixed points in time. They are clay, not stone. And there’s something else:
They are not us, they are not who we are.
They are the decisions we make when presented with the same question: What do I know to be true?
They come rushing to mind quickly because, like the question - the answer is always the same.
To return to Hitchens again, in his celebrated 2006 defence of Free Speech at the University of Toronto, he argued:
“...every time you silence someone you make yourself a prisoner of your own action because you deny yourself the right to hear something...as John Stuart Mill said, if all in society were agreed on the truth and beauty and value of one proposition, all except one person, it would be most important...that one heretic be heard, because we would still benefit from his perhaps outrageous or appalling view.”
When we come back, we’ll take our place on both sides of the argument.
The Big Question - Episode #3
Friends, today we will be both hero and heretic, and we’ll discover what arguing against our own core beliefs can reveal about what we actually believe to be true and how this discovery can affect how we live each day.
Imagine a disagreement about one of your core beliefs. I want you to argue both sides.
Go as deep in compassion, anger, willingness to concede, from your own perspective, and then try to see it from the opposite point of view. Try and do it as forcefully as you come to it from yours.
You declare something - find its opposite, and argue that.
It’s a strange way through an argument. And you don’t have to change your opinion or give anything up - only be open to the task.
You may want to write for 5 minutes from your perspective. Then argue the other side of the story - with as much insight, feeling, importance, and so on.
When we’ve done this, we’ll come back and find out what we discover.
TAKE TEN MINUTES:
Imagine a disagreement about one of your core beliefs. Argue both sides.
Let’s begin.
The Big Question - Episode #3 Follow Up Questions
Firstly I want to ask how did you feel arguing against your own position? Were your tactics different or your argumentative instincts affected by either position?
Did you imagine you were someone else when you argued against your core belief? Or were you able to find common ground, or an opposing rationale from your own self?
Was there a moment when you were arguing against your own belief, that you felt protective of what you believed? If so, how do you think you would feel and live if that belief was proved to be wrong?
And finally - Do you feel stronger in your opinion following the exercise? Either way - do you feel the same way about your core belief as you did before you started?
It may take time and practice to see how this imaginative exercise can help us to know our own beliefs better.
It is time worth taking, and though there is vulnerability in it, it’s worth remembering that all of our beliefs, essential or otherwise, are not the totality of who we are.
We carry them forward in each day of our lives, and it is up to us how much they lead us, and how protective we are of them.
The Distant Fire Recommendations - Episode #3
That’s The Distant Fire for this week. Thank you for coming along this road with me.
This week’s recommendation is well suited to the theme of the episode. I mentioned Christopher Hitchens’ 2006 speech on the defence of Free Speech at the University of Toronto and I urge you to watch the full speech.
Hitchens was a brilliant provocateur, a firebrand whose debating style can seem confrontational or even aggressive, but he was a man of belief. And even this speech places us within territory that we may seem sure of, but it asks important questions of us.
And like all great experiences, we leave it having been pushed to question our beliefs, and changed by our responses.
It’s well worth your time.
You can find a YouTube link here:
Thank you once again for being here with me.
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Friends, you’ve been wonderful.
Take the very best care of yourself and I’ll see you again soon.