To interact with this page you must login.
Signup
Why do we value talking and writing, but not thinking and listening?
I observe that people who publish and give speeches are perceived to be more valuable than those who absorb, reflect, and are empathic to others. Do others see this phenomenon happening and if so how to explain it?
psychology
understand
In our culture the social norm is to be extroverted and outspoken. If you're an introvert who spends their time just thinking and listening to people, you're not going to get far socially, as that's not what society wants off us. It's the people who spend their time expressing themselves, who are given regard in peer groups.
We live in a materialistic world, so we want to buy, consume , and create as much as we can. The Western world we live in is materialistic. Not many people know this, because they don't know any different. A capitalistic society is about spending as much money on stuff as you can. The analogies I can give are so typical of our experiences in real life. People are X, being confronted with Y. The people who are Z are W. Those people are happier, and are not bled dry.
1. People are watching tv, being confronted with adverts for every tv show they watch. The people on the tv are either rich or famous , or poor and ridiculed. The former are happier.
2. We're shopping in the supermarket, being confronted with value and branded goods, for each food that we want to buy. The people we see buying the branded goods walk out the supermarket with a full trolley. Those people are happier. You know the supermarket is bleeding both of you dry by taking the higher and lower tier of the market, but the richer person doesn't appear to suffer from this, hence the trolley.
We have been subject to this lesson and belief from as long as we can remember, and it is so imprinted in our brains, that we are not aware of it. All we know, is that we want to beat the system.
The only way to be on tv, and walk out a supermarket with a full trolley, is to value talking and writing over thinking and listening. Thinking and listening gets you nowhere.
This is the life we live.