Thinking Gray cultivates the ability to see the shades of gray inherent in a situation in order to make wise decisions. Don’t form an opinion about an important matter until you’ve heard all the relevant facts and arguments, or until circumstances force you to form an opinion without recourse to all the facts. Delay, delegate, or postpone decisions whenever possible to allow room for thinking gray to occur.
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Reality is all gray area
There are very few black and white answers and no solutions without second-order consequences. It takes substantial deprogramming to realize that life is all gray and that all reality lies on a continuum.
Dangers to binary thinking (not Thinking Gray)
- Forming opinion – People tend to make judgements before it is necessary to do so, and close their mind to facts and arguments that may subsequently come to his attention.
- Flip-flopping – People tend to believe the last thing they heard from the last person they talked to. This results in mental contortions by themselves and their followers.
- Herd mentality – People tend to believe that which they sense is strongly believed by others.
Thinking Gray is not the same thing as thinking skeptically
The skeptic initially places everything they hear or read in the “not true” box. They will consider believing the information if accumulated evidence warrants it.
Nor does Thinking Gray make someone a contrarian. Someone who opposes a popular opinion has not necessarily weighed all of the relevant bits of the matter.
One should not rush to a decision or judgment on important matters. To further the point, avoid choosing a stance on anything, unless you absolutely have to. Such discipline takes training. Thinking gray mitigates confirmation bias. It encourages better thinking, leads to better decisions and results in better life outcomes.
Confirmation bias
I agree