Thread by @cburniske

Each person interprets the world through their own, unique value system 🧵

When you put words out there, they originate from your value system, but are interpreted by every value system other than yours.

Interpretation of your words, therefore, will always be a little different than what you intended.

Conflicts arise when one person presumes their value system is superior to another’s, trying to convince the other to come to their side.

Conversation then becomes a subtle competition, focusing on what we’ll say next to “win.” We half-listen and empathize little.

When I encounter a person who tries to force me into their value system and to play a game that they believe is *the* way, I work to remain calm and reveal the subjectivity of their preference. But maybe that’s me pushing my value system too much 😏

Aside from things that I anticipate will clearly hurt more beings than help, I’ve also been working to let everyone have their value system, and recognize its value to them is as important as my value system is to me.

If you stop trying to always win a value argument, it becomes possible to appreciate all sides of an argument.

Acknowledging varied value systems is particularly relevant bc everywhere I look I see people approaching things from the presumption that their value system is superior.

Combine the unseen disposition of “presumed superiority” with social media’s celebration of polarization, and we have a recipe to always bicker, never reconcile.

I’d love it if we as a society came to recognize values exist along a subjective spectrum and are rarely binary.

Conversing more through high-bandwidth, synchronous mediums (in person, voice, video) is partially the solution.

My value system prefers “off-screen” for all the rich context it gives us, feeding into our animal instincts and desire to belong. This partially explains my drift from Twitter.

At one point in my very early 20s I gave up all screens for almost a year.

The sense of connection and appreciation of nuance was divine.

Thanks to @jmonegro & @keighstone for being my mirrors, reflecting to me when I’m not hewing to the values I purport ☺️