Information Doesn't Speak For Itself
Information Doesn't Speak For Itself
Information Doesn't Speak For Itself
In delivering a commencement address at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, she mistakenly mentioned a few alumni of note, who it turns out went to a Wheaton College in Illinois. Whoops. She apologized, expressing mortification and hope that her pure motive of connecting to graduates to inspire them to public service would be accepted. It was.
My first reaction was to ponder how on earth this made the national news. What's the big deal about a few earnestly made factual inaccuracies that wouldn't qualitatively hurt anyone? It happens all the time. Given what I know about how the brain handles information, my brain kept chattering at me about a range of ancillary issues.
At her stature, surely the research for the speech would have been done by an assistant, not her. This catapulted my thoughts to the role of delegation, where you simply have to trust your sources to give you correct information. The alternative is to do it all yourself, and even you are capable of getting it wrong. How much checking and verification is enough? Who is ultimately responsible for the information presented? There is likely to be a correlation between the stakes in getting the details right or wrong and the degree of cross-checking and verification that is prudent.
Information is neutral. This is a biggie. Morsels of data are, in and of themselves, neutral. They are only charged with the meaning, associations and value we give them. And this occurs on personal, tribal, national, ethnic, even historical levels. What causes a chain of thought or emotions in one person can mean nothing or something very different to someone else. Yet the assumption is we all think and feel the same way about things. Not true. What is almost funny if not so commonly experienced as tragic, is that someone who has NO reaction when another has a high charge on something, is often perceived as pure evil by the other. It just isn't necessarily so.
Mercifully, for her and all involved, Ms. Curry's apology kept the focus on her original intent, which was to inspire notions of public service amongst the graduates. In reality, I bet 99% of anyone who heard the speech wouldn't have known that the illustrious alumni she mentioned went to the other institution. And thankfully, the College President accepted her apology, which kept this from escalating into something beyond a slip of fact.
Related to this is that in our society of Fact Fanaticism and Thinking Deprivation, people rarely scratch beyond the surface to grapple with what something really means, or how we could advance information by applying it to our lives. Truth is, if the students were fired up by Ms. Curry's presence and words about their personal ability to make a difference by applying their talents and education to the greater good, then it would almost not have mattered who she mentioned by way of example. The underlying concept worth gleaning related to the ability of one individual to "be the change they seek in the world".
Finally, information does not exist in a vacuum. We always need to consider the context and understand that words take on shades of meaning as a reflection of multiple facets of their contexts. Sometimes it comes down to a matter of perspective and perception as to what something means, and that is a movable feast.
So, all in all, information is supposed to serve us and our needs for clarity of communication. This is often the opposite of what happens. The more we can be conscious of how we take in or deploy information, use it in a context as knowledge to explore or impart value, then thoughtfully integrate that with our experience, then we are on our way to wisdom. And maybe World Peace. Now, in my view, that's a message the students can grab ahold of as they make their way in the big wide world.
Leverage your learning and legacy with practical courses and resources on TLC: Thinking, Learning & Creativity athttp://www.GlobalearningNetwork.com.
by Donna Kim-Brand
Creative Energizer & Living Legacy Strategist
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