“Nothing is more dangerous than a dogmatic worldview – nothing more constraining, more blinding to innovation, more destructive of openness to novelty.”—Stephen J. Gould
Freshman year in high school, my algebra teacher, Ms. Romano, noticed me squinting in class. She moved to the front row and suggested that I have my eyes checked. Shortly thereafter, I was wearing glasses for distance—only for class and, eventually, driving, because I hated how I looked in glass (still do). Eventually, my vision worsened to the point of needing correction all the time. Now, I wear contacts.
Whether we wear glasses or contacts or not, we live our lives seeing through lenses. We view the world through our own biases. Sometimes our lenses help us see clearly. At other times, we see a distorted world view. Most of our lives are spent squinting—thinking we can see fine or what we see is an accurate picture. If we are lucky, we have a Ms. Romano who helps us see what we can’t see so clearly.
So many areas of our lives are lenses that shape our vision—religion and politics are the most noteworthy. It is only when a more correct lens is provided that we see things more clearly.
This is term paper season for me, as a professor. I recently proofread a draft for a student and was taken back by the level of bias in the paper. I don’t think it was intentional. The student just began his paper from the perspective to which he adheres. Unfortunately, he was clearly not open to seeing other views—or even contemplating the science that was contrary to his assumptions. Unfortunately, this is how most of us go about our lives. We all have our “sacred cows” to which we hold on with no intention of letting go. No amount of evidence to the contrary can convince us. This is not “well-centered”. This is not growth-oriented.
We need to be open to alternative ideas (not “alt facts” per se, but ideas that challenge our thinking. We need to explore life like a trip to the optometrist—you know, the machine that changes your clarity ever so slightly until the correct prescription is found. We need to be willing to try new lenses, because, chances are, our current lens is not quite right. This is not to say we let go of our long-held ideas. They may, in fact, be correct. We simply need to be clear in our vision of reality. Without my contacts or glasses, I can see a tree in the distance. I know it is a tree. With the right lens, however, the detail of the tree becomes clearer. And, perhaps, there is more for me to see.
We need to take the time to understand why we believe what we believe and to desire to see things more clearly—even if it reveals that what we were looking at is not at all what we thought we were seeing.