The Importance of Thinking Twice

We live in a reactionary world. That’s simply the way it isnow. Someone says something or does something and around the world peopleReact. They get quite fervent in their reactions and the reaction builds andthen suddenly it becomes a Thing. But I do wonder how many of these Thingswould not develop in the way they do at all if people just stopped and thought twice.

Because it isn’t the first thought you have thatmatters. It’s the second.

The great Sir Terry Pratchett has beaten me to this insight,of course, in his Tiffany Aching books. But I shall do my best to clumsily articulateit all the same. Our first reaction to anything is instinct. It’s born of ourculture, our upbringing, our influences, our religion, even deep, primalemotions – it’s the thought that comes without even thinking about it. So, forexample, if you grew up in a time when or a place where, for example,homosexuality was considered unacceptable then one’s first instinctive reactionto a gay kiss on TV might be –oh, that’s not right, I don’t agree with themshowing that, or some such.

But here’s the crunch. While I know there are people who automaticallydisagree with me on this – we’ll get to that – I maintain that first thoughtisn’t what matters. What matters is how you react to having thatthought. What matters is what you think second.

Because if your second thought is to double down, tocontinue feeling disgusted and objecting to someone living their life in amanner that doesn’t hurt you in any way, because that’s what your cultural,social or primal instinct tells you, bluntly, you are choosing to beprejudiced. You are choosing to accept that instinct as a fact of your life andto re-enforce it. You are choosing to remain in your narrow cultural and temporalhorizon.

But if your second thought is to say – no, that’s notright, it’s none of my business how they live and love and it doesn’t affect meso why should I care? I’m going to try not to think like that - then youare choosing not to accept that instinctive thought. You are choosing toconsider and analyse what’s happening for yourself and not simply follow thepath your instinct has taken you down. You are choosing to be more accepting ofothers. You’ve taken control of your own thinking and looked at it critically. You’vechosen to think more broadly.

And I feel that is vital to everyone as we simply can’thelp our first, instinctive thoughts. They were instilled in most of usbefore we even knew what instilling was, as small impressionable children. Thereis very little we can do about them other than choose to confront, examine andwhere needed, push them away. But herein lies another problem – the reactionsof others.

Because, honestly, part of the problem out there is the instinctivereaction of other people not to forgive the first thought. They condemn someonefor not immediately understanding that culture, that viewpoint, that lifestyleautomatically, in spite of that person making an effort to understand – and indoing so, they are reenforcing that person’s first instinctive prejudice. Forif a person tries to be better and is met with sympathy and understanding, theywill know they made the right decision and carry on fighting their instincts.But if they are condemned for that first thought and for not having an inbuiltinstinct not to think like that – and few do – it pushes them away, back intothe arms of the first thought not to like it, as trying to resist it becomesunwelcoming and hard. It makes being better too much effort.

Because we have to allow people to change. We have to allow peopleto think. We have to allow people to broaden their horizons and learn tounderstand each other. Otherwise, what hope is there for any of us, or even forthe world? If we condemn everyone for their first thoughts, we condemn most ofthe human race. But if we encourage other people to think better, we can changeus all for the better as well.

And maybe, just maybe, a world where people learn to acceptand understand each other for what they are and judge people as individuals andnot by their ethnic, social or cultural group might not feel as impossible asit does right now. Maybe we might even become a true human race after all.