Any thoughts?
If I bend a flat plank of wood into a wheel, it retains its shape.
If I polish away natural ‘imperfections’ in jade, they will not return.
If I carve wood against the natural flow of the grain, the bowl produced will still be useful.
Hi David,
The statement is correct. We may coerce the material world. We may even coerce some forms of life, but to coerce a conscious being is doomed to failure. Oddly, those who would coerce others are first coerced. There are no persuaders not persuaded.
JT
Is will like a mountain, steady and unmoving?
Given time, desires which flow like water can grind a mountain to dirt.
Or is will strong yet supple, like yew wood? It can easily bend, yet rarely breaks. The waters of desire feed the tree, making it stronger. In the right quantities, of course. Too much water and the tree will rot, not enough water and the tree will die.
what if you replace the word “convince” with “illuminate the truth and disprove lies”?
isnt that what any convincer at least claims he is doing? if youre doing it against someones will, then you merely have to prove that their will is based on lies, and if they knew the truth, they would be willing. if they are convinced, they are no longer unwilling.
People’s wills can be bent into pretzel knots in coercive situations. Authority figures, legitimate or illegitimate, can spin many people’s moral compases (a surprising number actually - read about the Milgram experiments), can put people into mob mentalities, and can even make people sympathize with their captors (stockholm syndrome).
So no, will isn’t an indestructable mountain.
Is will desire or opinion?
I first saw this proverb in Andrew Carnegie’s “How to Make Friends and Influence People”. Carnegie understood it to mean that if you try to modify someone’s beliefs in a tactless way (for example one that seems critical of the person or their beliefs), the person will often resist the modification even if you are right and trot out all the right evidence. This is because many people get upset and offended when criticized, and when they are in that state they often become irrationally defensive. And once they become irrationally defensive, you can only convince them ‘against their will’ which isn’t even convincing since you’ll never change their opinion now.
I’ll try to explain the difference by expanding on an example that Carnegie gives of something that happened to a friend of his at a dinner party. His friend was talking to someone who said a certain proverb was in the bible. Carnegie’s friend knew this was not the case and said so. The man became more defensive and argumentative the more Carnegie’s friend challenged his opinion, until Carnegie intervened and lied, saying the proverb was in the bible. After the party, Carnegie explained to his friend that even though he was right, he had not succeeded in modifying the man’s mistaken belief because of his critical, challenging approach.
I would suggest that what Carnegie’s friend should have done was either let it go or perhaps say “wow, I didn’t know that was in the bible! I only read it in such-and-such. Do you remember where in the bible it was?” Such an approach would be much more likely to make the man examine whether his mistaken belief was correct than the critical approach that was first taken. It still might not work but at least it doesn’t make the man defensive, since defensiveness tends to make us think our opinions are beyond reproach.
Thank you for bringing that to light. It makes sense to me. Asking questions is alot less threatning and better ways to communicate ideas. IMO
Oh exactly. When I meet a Christian I always introduce myself as a Christian. (I wear a nice little cross too, so people will think better of me.) However I consider a big bulk of Christian views to be rediculous. On another forum I frequent, I started getting into the Christian threads, always under the pretense of being a very devout Christian-- but with a different understanding of the text. That will certainly get you in the door, but the core beliefs are very hard to get at without blowing your cover.
I recall hearing the N.Vietnamese would have their captured Americans write essays on the virtues on communism, with your ‘forced belief’ in mind.
I tend to agree, and have my less motivated students write essays about the value of their education. I usually say when they start to write “I hate…”: “I don’t care, just lie, I want this essay to be about ‘why it’s important to study.’” Having repeated this exercise hundreds of times, I feel it has a major affect on the believers, some benefit for those students who have not much thought about their motivation, but little affect on the truly spiteful pupils.