How to Do Damage Prevention, not Damage Control
I have not been part of the Medium community for long, but I have learned to appreciate the fact that the voices of people like “you and I” can be heard and followed here, as well as those of famous and widely influential people. I enjoy listening and learning, and staying open-minded. Instead of making up my mind about important things in life too quickly, I try to take in reasonable factors beside my own fancies, and I keep shaping my opinion in a rather flexible fashion. I have come to believe that this attitude could be a valuable asset in order to learn from the past, shape the present, and most definitely choose sensibly what is to come in the future.
As far as learning from the past is concerned, we can take a look back in time and care to remember that wise voices have been around for probably as long as mankind has existed. We do not have to reinvent or rethink everything, many a wisdom has been available to us for quite some time. One such wise voice, dating back around two thousand years, I would like to quote hereafter:
This wisdom was supposedly uttered by the Roman philosoper Seneca years before Jesus Christ was born. The quote sums up, in its first part, what connects all human beings - apart from other obvious universals. The first part is the most famous part of the quote, let me suppose that we all know it. But in its second part, it points out what most of us do not even wish to see, thus turn a blind eye to.
Maybe that is why it has been mostly forgotten?
The latter — persisting in error — has probably also gone on for at least as long as mankind has existed. However, it is the latter that we should pay special attention to, as it contains the actual wisdom the speaker was trying to convey to us.
Apart from conveying the message, it teaches us how telling apart right from wrong, good from bad, correct from mistaken, and lies from the truth, is made possible. It is never solely a question of having learned in theory about a certain matter. It is at least as much a product of getting a chance to experience the matter in question, consequently opening up two possibilities:
First of all, to recognise when a mistake is made — to err — preferably before it is made.
Secondly, to get the opportunity to be able to improve, but not repeat the mistake — how not to persist in error.
Take abortion, for instance. You may have formed an opinion on the matter long before you are actually in your reproductive period in life. This may be so because you took ethics classes in school, or your parents discussed such matters openly, or because you have read about it somewhere. Most likely you will preserve this preconceived idea or opinion right through your own adult life.
However, unless you are put into the position of having to decide on whether you are going to have an abortion, you will not be able to tell, if your earstwhile opinion withstands the pressures that you might be exposed to in the real-life situation happening to YOU.
Whatever you do decide, the decision-making in itself is only a very short moment, while the process of getting there is what will occupy your time. You will have to live with the consequences of this decision henceforth. When faced with such a major decision, as is whether to have an abortion or not, it is true that you would never be able to experience what it might have been like if you had not gone ahead with it. Once you do, to imagine your life with this child does not equal living this life. On the other hand, you would never be able to experience what life without this child would have been like, either, and it stands to hope you wouldn’t want to.
At this point, I must say that I do not wish to open up a debate on the subject of abortion here. It is merely a very good example of how we could be facing very difficult decisions, which do not typically reflect wishes or desires, but do contain preconceived ideas coming into the equasion.
The Rubicon Model of Action Phases
The reason for taking a look at this is model is that it helps us to understand how there is no turning back from ANY decision, no matter how small it might be. It serves to show how we always have a choice, too, even though we might have come to some preconceived beliefs earlier on. This model is therefore a powerful tool to make changes before any damage is done.
So, here comes another phrase containing a Latin word to enter the stage of a theoretical approach in Psychology to decision-making waiting be put into practice: The Rubicon Model of Action Phases.
The Rubicon is actually a river in Italy, and one which has come to fame due to the action the Roman Emperor Julius Cesar decided on when he crossed this river. The moment he crossed the river, his plans of an invasion had become obvious, which is why it is used as a metaphor for a “point of no return”.
While the example abortion is a very extreme one, it serves to show how there is no room for second thoughts once a decision is not only made, but put into action. According to the Rubicon Model of Action Phases, most decisions can be made sustainably by prevailing in the first of its phases, described as that of volitional processes, for quite some time.
The interaction of motivational and volitional aspects have been studied within various academic disciplines, especially those of Personality Systems Interactions, but also in (Language) Learning in particular, and Education in general.
It is certainly true that some actions may be revoked in the above disciplines, or undone by choosing a second option at a later stage, but only ever up to a certain point. As long as Cesar had not yet crossed the River Rubicon, there was room for more than one goal. Similar to posting something on the internet, you can write your message, see it on screen, edit, or erase it again, but once you have hit the return button, the action can never be fully taken back. Some trace will always be there for some computer nerd to be found, that only being the least of possible consequences to be imagined.
This means that in order to prevent errors from being made, whether that be on a large or a small scale, we have to tap into the stages before a decision is actually motivated, i.e. before hitting the return button on our keyboards!
While we are still far away from any decisions and their consequences, it is easy to shape them, because they only exist as potentials, they have not become facts yet.
People seem to be overwhelmed nowadays by the complexity of life. It is not suprising that the very notion of the above proposal equals an excessive demand.
Fast thinking, fast action, fast results, fast careers, fast food, fast cars, fast growth, fast everything. To remain at the stage of volition, i.e. before you can actually err, as opposed to making quick decisions, is not something we have learned to do.
Even worse is however that choosing the same decisions that lead to earlier mistakes can be encountered in our so clever, so modern, so technological world. Mistakes are being made over and over again, only to find out that you keep erring. To me, this stands in sheer contrast to what modern societies are capable of! Instead of taking time to form a wish or set a goal, we rush into them! We do so many things on impulse because a set of values has been planted into us as a preconceived idea: being fast and FIRST at everything is the goal you should set yourself, no matter what you do.
However, as indivuals capable of thinking, of assessing , of making decisions, and of learning to use our intellect, we have not understood the message Seneca was trying to give us more than two thousand years ago.
My guess is that another factor apart from sheer love of speed comes into the equasion: Due to globalization, our world has become so overtly complex that we are all aware it has become virtually impossible to make any decision without harming someone, something, somewhere, so that many of us have given up hope to be able to make a difference, and have given up trying altogether. Some may simply not care, that also be said.
I would go on to say that complexity is the very reason why we are so quick at taking action, instead of thinking things through very thoroughly. In our elbow-society-world everyone knows somewhere deep down that it will not be possible to go on this way forever, but we use our elbows nevertheless, because we have been taught to do so.
While we have terms like the famous butterfly effect to describe the effects of even the smallest of actions might have in this world, we still lack guidelines on how to adopt an attitude that can help us prevail getting to the stage where the damage is done.
When we have to resort to damage control, it is too late. This is why the prevention of damage is so important.
How to adopt a state of healthy cognitive processes for damage prevention.
Volition at centre-stage, rather than self-centered wishes turning motivation into goals all too quickly, is something we must learn.
Coronavirus, along with all other — most certainly — man-made catastrophes hitting the world in such a disastrous way right now, suggests that the time is not five to noon anymore, but that we have moved on to the clock being about to strike high noon, which actually equals hell, and no less.
In other words, high-muckety-muck definitely has to go on a strict diet of eating humble pie!
The way to go is to stop bringing up little Cesars, and the likes of these alpha-male (and sometimes female) know-it-alls, because they, above all, are the ones who not only err, but PERSIST in error, and do so many times out of pure egocentrism. The motivation to become successful, the motivation to become rich, the motivation to be first is so deeply rooted that kindness, compassion, and empathy have had too little a chance to influence our wishes, goals and decisions sustainably.
Luckily, I am not the only person who is convinced that the way to go is to stop persisting in the same errors!
The way to go is to stop making a competition out of everything, especially education, especially science, especially religion.
The way to go is to stop thinking that real progress can actually happen in one place when economic growth is brought to that place, but not to the rest of the world.
The way to go is to stop thinking that we can get away with polluting and exploiting the earth at one end, because we are living at its other end.
At the center of the idea of remaining a much greater amount of time at the stage of volitional processes is also the implication that we have to consider many more voices, ideas, and ways to go than the ones that seem most convenient to us as individuals, or to us as a corporation, or as a nation, or to us as a continent.
Yes, it does take time to consider that the world is always the whole world. Nothing in it does not concern us. If that is still overwhelming, then we should try imagining the other possible outcome:
Persisting in error leads to no less than hell on earth, or no earth at all.
Is that what we wish for?
I should think NOT!
My thoughts in June of the year 1 #P.C.(Post Corona)
Sue
