We Want to Know the Reasons Why
We are living in an age when the dynamics of personality development is under close scrutiny. We want to know why things happen as they do—when they go right, and when they go wrong. The principles of general semantics are valuable in this project of self-discovery.
Such an inquiring attitude into the nature of the individual and into the nature of society could hardly be found in an autocratic society where the individual had his place and was supposed to stay there.
Democracy, which in theory extends opportunities for everyone to develop his capacities as fully as possible, is based upon hopeful assumptions.
The individual today is asserting his dignity and self-respect. He is getting up and saying, “I want to know more about myself and about the society in which I live! I am just as good as, or certainly not much worse than, the other fellow.”
Perhaps this overambitious individual is motivated by envy. When he sees a successful, cheerful, productive person with lots of energy and a capacity for winning friends, he says, “How did he get that way? If he can do it, why can’t I?”
We are not satisfied with the explanation that it was just “luck,” although we suspect that luck may have had a lot to do with it. As we believe we can advance ourselves educationally and economically (to some degree) by our efforts, we believe we can do something to “improve” our personalities. We can apply the disciplines of general semantics to the problems of our daily living.
We can have confidence in psychological “know how.” We can stress experimentation and observe what is going on here and now, as a method of getting better results in interpersonal relationships. Perhaps the same open circuit and “give-and-take” communica¬tion which is desirable between individuals is also desirable be¬tween groups.
In brief, we believe that there are definite things we can do here and now to become the kind of personalities we would like to become. And there are things we can do to get along a little better with others.
Also, when things go wrong in our lives (as they frequently do), we are inclined to demand “reasons,” the real reasons, not just superficial ones. We seek more meaningful explanations. Here there are dangers. Sometimes we assume that the less obvious ex¬planation will be the more valuable one. This is not necessarily so.
For example, when a person is upset, we ask for a reason. He may say, “I’ve been working too hard.” Well and good, as far as it goes. But it may not go far enough. We may want a better and more complete answer. We may want to inquire among his friends and obtain more information, adding their stories to his story. This “looking around” is a process of extensionalizing. This check¬ing up and obtaining additional information gives us a picture that more accurately represents what is happening.
”I want a better explanation than that,” we say. “Perhaps you have been working too hard. But what else is bothering you?” etc. These additional questions may stimulate us to look beyond the immediate situation. We seek deeper reasons, more accurate rea¬sons, reasons that come closer to “hitting the nail on the head.”
However, just because a reason is less obvious than the one that first came to mind does not mean that it is better. The “reasons” should be tested by experiment, wherever possible. The stories must be checked with the facts. A less obvious explanation, if accepted uncritically, might be as misleading as an obvious one.
Also, no matter how thoroughly we investigate, we never com¬prehend reality completely. Our concepts are always to a degree erroneous, and our judgments are always to a degree unfair.
We are perhaps more easily misled by explanations that we do not test and question (whether obvious or obscure), than by those we do test and question. The Bible says, “Test all things, hold fast to that which is true.”
We evaluate our explanations by testing them out in reality. We want to find out how accurately our thoughts represent the realities that are taking place.