Is it best to table decisions until the emotional distortion of facts has attenuated?

Question

If the normal human response to most insults is to respond with disproportionate force, is it best to refrain from decision-making until such a time that objective evaluation of facts underlying the contention is possible?

ref: http://www.althouse.blogspot.com/2006/07/eye-for-eye-is-subjective-game.html?fta=y

(couldn't find a link to the op-ed piece)

In other words, is it best to take a deep breath, find something else to occupy your mind, and make every effort not to over-correct during resolution of the problem?

In many places around the world, people seem to feel that immediate and drastic measures are appropriate and acceptable responses to normally occuring events, e.g. natural disasters, tragedies within armed conflicts, etc.

Answer 1

More often than ever, it is best to set the issue aside under further contemplation, as people will be quick to take revenge. I think that this is an innate survival response. I see it happening here in India --and it appears in the newspaper at least five times a week that the tribals avenged so-and-so... In many parts of the world, although we would like to consider ourselves "civil" we take revenge of others either with thought or with action (or passive aggression --resulting in silence.) Today I was just commenting to my husband about the BBC television program called "Hard Talk" in which the host offers the guest rapid fire questions, some of which are difficult or surprising. I know that some people would take it personally -- the part that he questions the guest's integrity in whatever field it may be. Not being able to "one up" the host, for some, may feel excruciating, because that's not the nature of the program. But the innate feeling that one must pull a harder punch certainly rises...so yes, take a deep breath, and examine that part that feels the need to stand taller and oppose. I'm not sure how this can be applied to, say, an attack on public soil. Here in India, there is a saying that says, "if the bullocks aren't going the way that you're driving them, go the way of the bullocks." That is to say, take the path of least resistance...they will go your way...eventually.

Answer 2

I would say it might, *might*, depending upon the decision needed to be made. On the whole, I would agree with what you have written.

Let's look though at the severe reaction people have to insults. You have to ask WHY? Now if someone told you, "You are a green, slimy, Martian who is the trash of any solar system" would you care? No. Would you have a severe reaction to something you were confident was a lie or in the least a really bad assumption on the part of the "insulter?" No, because it would not impact you.

Best question we can ask is WHY are we emotional over something which we are confident in and have no reason to CARE what someone else thinks? Someone may tell you "You are a mean, hateful, unloving, self centered know-it-all!" We may blow back up at them, but we really need to be doing some self-evaluation to see WHY such a reaction?

Personally, it is best to take the time to know what you want to say, what you want to do, even in situations where you are not being confronted. ALL decisions should be entered into with the knowledge and foresight that words once they escape the tongue are like bullets which can never be recalled into the gun, and every decision will impact you and those around you.

Good question!

Answer 3

To counter some incorrect statements made so far: a million) The divinity of Jesus became created on the council of Nicaea interior the year 325. The early Christians believed that Jesus became the SON of God, no longer that he became God himself. 2) The Catholic church became no longer one and united till protestantism. In 1054, the leaders of the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox church homes the two excommunicated one yet another (the excommunications weren't lifted till 1965). yet there were different "exchange concept systems" earlier that: see Arianism, Nestorians, Monophysites. 3) Luther is credited with beginning the Protestant Reformation circa 1517. This had no longer something to do with divorce or the English King Henry VIII. The separation of the Church of england from the Catholic Chruch did no longer start up till approximately 1533.

Answer 4

I agree with flat foot, We have been brainwashed into thinking that we should fight back, and not just fight but inflict the greatest harm possible to detter future attacks

Answer 5

hmmn, i suppose this stems from our ancestry, if we get hit by a club, then you hit them back harder, so they dont hit you again

nowadays, we have to reason, our body can make us get enraged if we are angered, ie adrenaline , but if we take the time as you suggest, we would probably not over react.

Humans have killed each other for millions of years, it is how we dominate, seeing us dominate over them (whoever they are), makes us feel secure, makes us feel safe.

Jamie

Answer 6

i think ur question is too broad... it doesn't have a single answer. but a little bit of patience is always nice to find, only that, it should be present on both sides! :)

Answer 7

You must be very proud of your question.

Are you trying to show people you are smrat?

If you are... come on buddy... anyone can take words, comments and phrases from other websites and post a comment pretending that they are their own...

Try again.

Answer 8

it is a normal reaction