What is your favorite tool? Is it so familiar or compelling that you are tempted to employ it in all contexts? The law of the instrument illustrates this tendency.
Tools are designed for specific uses.
– Law for legal issues
– Reason and logic for conceptual issues
– Culture and freedom of association for values and preferences issues
– Organizational management for governance issues
– Philosophy for epistemological and ethical issues
– Persuasion and service for educational and spiritual issues
– Property rights and markets for scarcity issues
– Power for productivity and self-defense issues
– Measurement and statistics for information issues
– Compassion and contribution for relationship issues
– Technology for practical application issues
It is tempting to think “only X issues exist!” or “I can apply my favorite tool to all issues!” or “if I reframe an X issue as a Y issue, my favorite tool will be effective!”
However, power can’t solve preference problems any more than organizational management can solve spiritual problems or technology can solve relationship problems or compassion can solve scarcity problems or measurement can solve ethical problems.
Next time you encounter a problem, consider the context before you grab a hammer and start pounding away.
Great points! How do you help people reframe when they want to use the same solution for almost every context?
First, I think it’s important to recognize that a person’s temperament heavily affects their perceptions and tendencies. Like Epictetus said: “What upsets people is not the things themselves but their judgments about the things.”
It is often helpful to start a conversation by assuming and acknowledging good intentions, especially when people are emotionally invested in addressing a problem. People who promote misguided or ineffective (and even irrelevant) solutions are almost always sincere. You could think of the first reframe as making sure the conversation isn’t adversarial. Choose words that put you in a position of offering advice and alternatives to consider. Otherwise, you risk becoming a problem for them to target with their favorite tool. Of course, if they are intellectually dishonest or malevolent, then you are up against a conceptual/ethical problem and compassion/persuasion would be the wrong tools for you to use.
I think looking at problems as having more than one aspect can also be helpful. Challenges like divorce have a legal aspect and a relationship aspect (especially for those who have been through it). Compassion may be the best way to deal with the relationship aspect, but it will not satisfy the legal side of the equation (and vice versa).
I’ve noticed that Jordan Peterson seems to take a neutral utilitarian approach with topics people might take personally. Phrases like “not a good long-term solution” and “the solution should work for you and your family and your community” are examples of non-judgmental language that helps people consider more than their current frame when considering a problem. Using power and force to solve a relationship issue is a good example. You may get compliance in the short-term, but you risk losing authentic connection with and promoting resentment and fear in people you claim to care about.
I think things like timing are also important. In some cases, the right time might not be evident for quite a while. If people aren’t ready to hear something, it might be better to keep it to yourself. Striking while the iron is hot, pearls before swine, and all that.