If this is what Holmes meant, then I have plenty examples. The best example is how I do this in my own life. I have a grandmother who tells the ultimate embellished stories. Everything she says is dramatized and becomes a persuasion speech. A day going to the grocery store can somehow turn into a day in hell with the devil himself checking her out. I usually just roll my eyes and listen to her and I never realized how it would impact me. But, my boyfriend has started to tell me that I can embellish quite often. I will laugh it off and pretend like I don't, but he is right. I have started to use this type of opinionated reasoning just like my grandmother does. Be careful that this doesn't happen to you because it is very easy to be influenced like this and start using this in your every day life when you want to persuade instead of reason.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Discussion: Week #2
I think what Sherlock Holmes meant was that it is very easy to let you emotions drive your critical thinking. When trying to reason, we usually use assumptions and opinions in order to make other people understand how we feel. More then anything, I think we strive to make people get us. We want them to think and accept different situations that include reasoning, so the situation can turn into persuasion. The problem, Holmes states, is that we let embellishments and facts overlay in order to use our outcome as a picture, in which others understand our reasoning the way we want them to.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hey there,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you that it is so easy to let our emotions take over when we argue or when we want to persuade others. We can easily assume about what others are thinking or how they are feeling that we can cross the line on trying to sway them to our side of the argument. I think we argue, we should turn to facts or what really happened rather than embellishing or tweaking the situation. Your story about your grandmother made laugh, by the way. :D But yes, I’ve been in her situation too just like you where I can exaggerate a situation sometimes and twist the facts.
- Louise
Your story is very interesting and this is a very pertinent example for this topic. It is so true that people always use their own emotions to lead to our thoughts. And this is why rumors become rumors. When we need to retell others’ story, we usually add our own thoughts and opinions in it naturally. In daily life, we never know which is the original story. If we do not know anything about it, we should not easily believe what we heard. I like the way how you react to your grandmother. Sometimes, laugher maybe the best way to avoid conflicts. Besides, we should not add any self comments to the facts when we need to retell others.
ReplyDelete