22/08/2024
Have you ever been at the receiving end of being viewed through the lens of a ‘single story’? Do you remember what it felt like? A ‘single story’ is an overly simplistic and pejorative narrative that presents only one facet of the multi-faceted (TED, 2009). This ‘single story’ approach can be so pervasive, that all it’s perpetrators see, hear, feel, touch, and/or taste when they interact through that lens is that parochial view. David Brooks characterizes this as ‘objectivism’ and one of the qualities of a Diminisher*. This approach fails to behold you for all you are. The opposite quality, he shared, is ‘a holistic attitude’ that characterizes the Illuminator*. ‘A holistic attitude’ recognizes that an individual is multi-faceted, and even when our interest in them is encapsulated in only one facet, our interest must be pursued with the awareness that they are more than that facet of our interest.
This approach of ‘a holistic attitude’ benefits both the Illuminator and the person with whom they are interacting. To the person the illuminator is interacting with, the interraction leaves them with a sense of wholesome completeness — that they are more than what the Illuminator’s interest is in them. For the Illuminator, Palmer’s (1993) thought that “every epistemology becomes ethic” (Palmer, 1993) is true, i.e., the kind of person we become often depends on the way we attend to others.
Watch out for the “single story” pitfall.
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*See post No. 2 of 20 for definitions
TED. (2009, October 7). Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a
single story | TED. YouTube. https://lnkd.in/gyaKgRJr
Palmer, P. J. (1993). The Violence of Our Knowledge: Toward a
Spirituality of Higher Education [Review of The Violence of Our
Knowledge: Toward a Spirituality of Higher Education].
https://lnkd.in/gf5c5C6G
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**Random gleaned thoughts as I re-read David Brooks’ “How to know a person—The art of seeing others deeply and being deeply seen”, 2023. Random House LLC**
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