Leo Stein on the necessity of recognizing one’s false positions

    Leo Stein tells us why it is necessary to recognize one’s false positions:

It is commonplace that one must recognize one’s faults in order to correct them, but one must be prepared to recognize one’s false positions in order to evolve beyond them.
(Quoted from The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 198.)

    This is a life-changing insight if people could act on it. Few dare to think they hold false positions. So they aren’t prepared to go to war to defeat their false positions, which they have to do if ever they are to evolve beyond them. 
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    For a brief biography of Leo Stein, click here.

Comments

[Aaron Kelson]

Hello Charles:

Recognizing false positions in others is always a great challenge when one recognizes that similar false positions may be held by himself. Nevertheless, some positions seem to be so inherently "false" that even through the lens of our own limitations we may recognize them in others (and in ourselves at times).

May I suggest a few characteristics of false positions, hoping that others may add to the list:

1. Those that do not allow for an expansion of reliable knowledge.
2. Those that have little respect or sympathy for differing positions.
3. Those that claim harmony with a standard when in fact the position is incongruous with that standard. (Sometimes described as "Ignorance that is deceived.")
4. Those that confuse practices with principles and vision.
5. Those guided solely by self-interest thus making no allowances for the need to sacrifice for the common good.
6. Those that make no room for humility.

Other characteristics of false positions could be added.

I am trying to address some of the false positions I have taken. In the process I inevitably confront similar positions held by others. I have found that most people would rather drink from the river of possibilities with the spoon they have used forever than to discard the spoon in favor of a cup or even a bucket.

When I try to point out a better way I am often told about the "great progress" that has been made by using the spoon to the utmost. Well, I'd rather not use the spoon at all when so many better options are available. People are threatened by this challenge to tradition.

Using the spoon is not of itself a mistake. Water is retrieved even by the spoon. The frustration comes by considering how more could have been accomplished.

I'm sorry not to be specific in my examples today. Challenging false positions is a painful process to say the least!