If a square peg doesnt fit a round hole, neither the peg nor the hole is to blame. Between two people, the question whose fault is it? is the friend of argumentation and the destroyer of growth-oriented communication. Assigning blame involves listening to criticize and responding to defend, speaking to lower the other person rather than speaking to build each up. Relational progress is impossible as long as blame is the focus because blame and progress are enemies. In our litigation-hungry society we must take care that focusing on fault - which is proper for the courtroom - doesnt carry over into interpersonal relationships. The heart of loving communication is listening to understand.
|
No culture on earth outside of mid-century suburban America has ever deployed one woman per child without simultaneously assigning her such major productive activities as weaving, farming, gathering, temple maintenance, and tent-building. The reason is that full-time, one-on-one child-raising is not good for women or children.
|
The difficulties in the study of the infinite arise because we attempt, with our finite minds, to discuss the infinite, assigning to it those properties which we give to the finite and limited; but this...is wrong, for we cannot speak of infinite quantities as being the one greater or less than or equal to another.
|