Rut Think

"I know you believe you think you understand what you think I said ,but I'm not sure you realize that what you think I said is not what I meant" (author unknown)

Sometimes I see things happen in a discussion and I think to myself, I've seen this before, it has a familiar feel to it. I finally tagged one of these "feelings" with a name. I call it Rut Think because it reminds me of a car driving down an extremely rutted road while attempting to stay out of those ruts. While it might be difficult but possible to stay out, you can bet all your doughnuts that it'll be pretty much impossible to get out once you've slid in.

This makes a nice metaphor for too many discussions I've had on divisive issues.  It is caused, I think, by the programming of our own thought-forms by what I'll call the big three: entertainment and news media and government institutions of education. It occurs when that almost constant programming trains our minds to intercept certain ideas with foregone, non-contextualized conclusions. I may well be describing a logical fallacy here, but I'm not aware of one. I assume that that is because Rut Think doesn't happen because of poor logic but rather because of an overdose of emotion.

Since it's easier to give examples that will probably resonate than would be to describe what I'm talking about, here are a few:

• When I say that, I am against Obama's health care reform plans, what is heard is: I am against poor people getting the health care they so rightly deserve and am perfectly happy with the current system.


• When I say that, The Church should not ignore politics What is heard is: The church should forsake her original commission and become an active arm of the RNC whose purpose it is to keep Republicans in power regardless of what they may or may not stand for.


• When I say, Intelligent design should also be taught in public schools, what is heard is: The education system should be turned over to a bunch of fundamentalist anti-science and anti-education, back-woods zealots who want to halt all quests for knowledge, and thereby use it to turn the country into a third world theocracy.


• When I say that, We should drill for oil, what is heard is, We should, with reckless abandon, without care for anything except our precious gas for our precious cars, wreck, pollute, destroy, ravage, and strip- mine the entire earth.

There are many more examples, these are but a few. It has been my experience that when you feel your "discussion" slide into the ruts you might as well end it. It has been commandeered by pre-programming and thoughtlessness. But on a positive note, It also keeps me on the lookout that I don't, myself, push a discussion into the ruts.