Right or Wrong in Cooperation and Competition
This entry is not about moral transgressions, it is about being right or wrong concerning knowledge and decisions for actions based upon that knowledge.
There is a fundamental difference between the meaning of being right or wrong for couples having a relationship based upon the ERCP and couples based upon the hierarchy enforced by a dominating man.
1. The cooperation of the egalitarian couple
For an egalitarian couple, the temporary disagreement, who is right and who is wrong, is an emotionally neutral situation. The difference between being wrong and right or between being less and more right is merely the difference between the available amount and quality of relevant information about an issue. Being wrong is the situation of ignorance before embarking in a process of learning and collecting information.
When the partners in an egalitarian relationship disagree, who is right or wrong about an issue, this requires cooperative learning by verbal communication.
The first step is comparing notes, sharing and pooling the disparate knowledge about that topic and maybe researching additional information from external sources.
The second step is evaluating together the new aspects and draw new conclusions, until the new knowledge is convincing to both. They both learn something and enjoy it, and nobody is wrong anymore, instead they are both right by consent. The final conclusion may well be different from what each had thought before. The focus is on finding and enlarging the common ground. This way, people can grow closer by communicating.
2. The dominating competitive man in a power struggle with a woman
For a jerk, who perceives a relationship as a power struggle for dominance and superiority, being right is connected with strong emotions. For him, being right as often as possible is an important source of justification of his entitlement to dominate, because he is giving evidence of his superiority and of having been successful in his dominating behavior. He has an urge to believe to be right, and when he does, he feels good, even triumphant, while not being able to feel right causes him anger and frustration.
Believing himself to be right means automatically also his believing her to be wrong. Since his main need is the justification of his dominance, a disagreement about some topic is not the beginning of a learning process. He wants to maintain his believe of being right, in oblivion of reality.
If he really has the better information, he is not motivated to give up, what he perceives as his superiority. Therefore he has subjectively no reason to share his advanced information in a convincing way by giving evidence, so that the woman could rationally agree with him. If she would come by her own thinking to the same conclusion as he, based upon the same information, he could not consider himself as right anymore in contrast of her being wrong. To be able to rejoice in his superiority, he needs to be able to claim that she is wrong by his contradiction and defiance of her opinion.
If his belief to be right is a delusion, then he is even more motivated to maintain it. Her information, her reasons would jeopardize his justified superiority and domination, so he is strongly inclined not to allow her to convince him.
No matter, how right or wrong he really is, as long as he believes himself to be right, communicating about the conflict has not the least advantage for him, it would only be a risk to his allegedly established superiority. From his perspective, his obstruction to communicate or to solve the problem rationally, is very logical. He already firmly believes to be right, so he has no reason to listen. All he considers as needing to do is utter his claims and enforce by coercion, what he considers as right.
The woman feels bad, because she feels depreciated and disrespected by being considered and treated as inferior without any chance to ever improve her position.
If she is wrong, he deprives her of the evidence allowing her to learn, and if she is right, she has no chance to ever convince him.
They are stuck in an impasse, they cannot grow together, their mental distance is maintained by the distance created by the hierarchy.
This entry is not about moral transgressions, it is about being right or wrong concerning knowledge and decisions for actions based upon that knowledge.
There is a fundamental difference between the meaning of being right or wrong for couples having a relationship based upon the ERCP and couples based upon the hierarchy enforced by a dominating man.
1. The cooperation of the egalitarian couple
For an egalitarian couple, the temporary disagreement, who is right and who is wrong, is an emotionally neutral situation. The difference between being wrong and right or between being less and more right is merely the difference between the available amount and quality of relevant information about an issue. Being wrong is the situation of ignorance before embarking in a process of learning and collecting information.
When the partners in an egalitarian relationship disagree, who is right or wrong about an issue, this requires cooperative learning by verbal communication.
The first step is comparing notes, sharing and pooling the disparate knowledge about that topic and maybe researching additional information from external sources.
The second step is evaluating together the new aspects and draw new conclusions, until the new knowledge is convincing to both. They both learn something and enjoy it, and nobody is wrong anymore, instead they are both right by consent. The final conclusion may well be different from what each had thought before. The focus is on finding and enlarging the common ground. This way, people can grow closer by communicating.
2. The dominating competitive man in a power struggle with a woman
For a jerk, who perceives a relationship as a power struggle for dominance and superiority, being right is connected with strong emotions. For him, being right as often as possible is an important source of justification of his entitlement to dominate, because he is giving evidence of his superiority and of having been successful in his dominating behavior. He has an urge to believe to be right, and when he does, he feels good, even triumphant, while not being able to feel right causes him anger and frustration.
Believing himself to be right means automatically also his believing her to be wrong. Since his main need is the justification of his dominance, a disagreement about some topic is not the beginning of a learning process. He wants to maintain his believe of being right, in oblivion of reality.
If he really has the better information, he is not motivated to give up, what he perceives as his superiority. Therefore he has subjectively no reason to share his advanced information in a convincing way by giving evidence, so that the woman could rationally agree with him. If she would come by her own thinking to the same conclusion as he, based upon the same information, he could not consider himself as right anymore in contrast of her being wrong. To be able to rejoice in his superiority, he needs to be able to claim that she is wrong by his contradiction and defiance of her opinion.
If his belief to be right is a delusion, then he is even more motivated to maintain it. Her information, her reasons would jeopardize his justified superiority and domination, so he is strongly inclined not to allow her to convince him.
No matter, how right or wrong he really is, as long as he believes himself to be right, communicating about the conflict has not the least advantage for him, it would only be a risk to his allegedly established superiority. From his perspective, his obstruction to communicate or to solve the problem rationally, is very logical. He already firmly believes to be right, so he has no reason to listen. All he considers as needing to do is utter his claims and enforce by coercion, what he considers as right.
The woman feels bad, because she feels depreciated and disrespected by being considered and treated as inferior without any chance to ever improve her position.
If she is wrong, he deprives her of the evidence allowing her to learn, and if she is right, she has no chance to ever convince him.
They are stuck in an impasse, they cannot grow together, their mental distance is maintained by the distance created by the hierarchy.
