I found the following quote in an editorial by Thomas B. Edsall in the New York Times recently:
“Motivated ignorance differs from the more familiar concept of rational ignorance in that ignorance is motivated by the anticipated costs of possessing knowledge, not acquiring it. That is, it is not simply that the benefits of accurate political knowledge may be less than the cost of attaining it and thus not worth pursuing but that the costs of having accurate information exceed the benefits.”
It took me several readings too before I understood it.
Often clients in mediation are so committed to their complaint that mere common sense will not dissuade them. The cost of the truth to them is more ‘expensive’ than the perceived benefits of pursuing their grievances.
Whether it is a company, or a customer, when they ask for the moon it is possible to end up without even getting a star. The cause, that has been growing inside them like a cancer, has metastasized to such a degree that it has become their raison d’etre, literally their reason for being. In spite of all the evidence to the contrary that they stand no chance of winning anything, that only adds to their zeal. They derive their benefit from ignoring the obvious and sticking with what they know to be true. Their motivated ignorance could not entertain the fact that they were about to deal their case a mortal
blow out of hubris. It was like Oedipus denying that he had blinded himself.
Logic in mediation is a moveable feast of perceptions, often relying on grievance, culture, pride, and betrayal. Immersion in any of those elements could lead one down a rabbit hole where, like an unlucky cave explorer, it is possible to get dangerously, perhaps fatally, stuck. What I have found helpful with my clients is a process I used while
teaching English to students in continuation high school: Re-framing. For example, my students did not like to raise their hands for fear of being perceived by their peers as stupid or smart. Both were equally damning. I told them that they’re not stupid if they ask for help, they’re stupid if they don’t. When some of them did start asking for help, those were the students who eventually passed. They had re-framed themselves into curious human beings.
By the same token, if we as mediators can remind our more intransigent clients that who they are now, formed by the aforementioned elements, is not indicative of who they were before the conflict commenced and alert them to the fact, as Shakespeare’s Coriolanus tells the screaming mob who have turned against him “…There is a world elsewhere.” There was a world before this conflict and there will be a world after it. Do they want to be identified eternally as the product of that conflict, or do they want to emerge from it as new and improved human beings, determined to do and be better, one frame at a time?
© Ron Berglas 2024