Play the Believing Game

Concrete Ways to Learn to Play the Believing Game

As teachers and students we are in a good position to learn the

ability to see things differently from how we usually see them, and the

willingness to risk doing it. If we want to learn those skills, it helps to notice

the inner stances —the cognitive and psychological dispositions—we

need for doubting and believing:

• If we want to doubt or find flaws in ideas that we are tempted to accept or believe (perhaps they are ideas that “everyone knows are

true”), we need to work at extricating or distancing ourselves from

those ideas. There’s a kind of language that helps here: clear,

impersonal sentences that lay bare the logic or lack of logic in them.

• If, on the other hand, we want to believe ideas that we are tempted to reject (“Anyone can see that’s a crazy idea”)—if we are trying to

enter in or experience or dwell in those ideas—we benefit from the

language of imagination, narrative, and the personal experience.

Here are some specific practices to help us experience things from

someone else’s point of view.

1. If people are stuck in a disagreement, we can invoke Carl Rogers’

application of “active listening.” John must not try to argue his point till

he has restated Mary’s point to her satisfaction.

2. But what if John has trouble seeing things from Mary’s point of view?

His lame efforts to restate her view show that “he doesn’t get it.” He

probably needs to stop talking and listen; keep his mouth shut. Thus, in a

discussion where someone is trying to advance a view and everyone

fights it, there is a simple rule of thumb: the doubters need to stop talking

and simply give extended floor time to the minority view. The following

three concrete activities give enormous help here:

• The three-minute or five-minute rule. Any participant who feels he or she is not being heard can make a sign and invoke the rule: no one

else can talk for three or five minutes. This voice speaks, we listen; we

cannot reply.

• Allies only—no objections. Others can speak—but only those who are having more success believing or entering into or assenting to the

minority view. No objections allowed. (Most people are familiar with

this “no-objections” rule from brainstorming.)