This is an article

This is also a blog post. And the I'm not sure I even agree with the things I said. That's new!


Last week we did a presentation in my English class about a case study from Oliver Sacks. Specifically the Last Hippie. It didn't go that well and yesterday we received our grades. After class, I went to talk to the teacher, and we also discussed the presentation. The Last Hippie is about a guy who in his 20s became a hippie and then joined the Krishnas, where a tumor in his head started to grow and slowly made him blind and amnesic. A bit strange was the behaviour of his parents, because they never went to visit him in New Orleans from NY, so while he was becoming blind, no one, the Krishnas nor the parents, helped him. After four years they finally visited him and immediately took him to a hospital, where they tried to visit him every day. At least his father did, the mother wasn't really mentioned. This is all the information we had from the story about his parents.

When we received the comments about our presentation from the class, there was a complaint that we didn't talk about the parents more. Our teacher commented on it too, and I answered that we couldn't say anything because there was no information about them in the case study. To which she responded: "No, you just didn't do the analysis."
I didn't say anything because she was right. We didn't. But the next day I woke up and I realized what's wrong about all this.

Analysis, by my definition, is something like trying to understand the meaning based on the evidence. Wikipedia says: "is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts in order to gain a better understanding of it". Another definitions I found are: "a careful study of something to learn about its parts, what they do, and how they are related to each other" or "an explanation of the nature and meaning of something."
So my definition differs, but that makes no difference in the bigger picture. Let me explain why.

The reason I specifically said "based on the evidence" is because I see a difference between assumption and analysis. Assumption for me is basically the same definition, but without the support of the evidence. Definitions Google gave me are: "something taken for granted" or "a fact or statement (as a proposition, axiom, postulate, or notion) taken for granted" or the one I like the most: "an assumption is something that you assume to be the case, even without proof."

For me, there is a big difference between those two. The assumption is an explanation, and it can be true, but it can be considered (not taken) as true only if there's is some evidence to prove it. Assumptions, in general, should not be viewed too seriously. Analysis, on the other hand, should be taken seriously because it is based on facts, on evidence.
There are dozens of explanations for the behaviours of Greg's parents. We can create them, we can talk and think about them. Yet, without information, these are only speculations. With textual evidence, they can become a theory. Sometimes the assumptions will be right (statistically not too often), but they should always be viewed only as an unproven idea. Theories, on the other hand, are proven. That doesn't mean they are necessarily correct, but at least they are based on facts.

People judge all the time, and I believe that most people will agree that assumptions (=judgments) are wrong. There are two possible solutions to this. Either, stop judging and assuming, which is hard to do, and it is probably impossible to avoid judgment completely. The other option is to be aware of those judgments and consciously label them as unproven assumptions. This means being open to other options and questioning the process.
Guess what? People are not capable of either, for the most part.
And it seems to me that all of I just said applies to analysis as well. The analysis is based on evidence, but that doesn't mean it is correct. It shouldn't be viewed as such because it is still just a theory, something proven for now, but not necessarily correct. Theories don't become laws after a certain time, they will always stay theories because they can always be disproven with new facts.

The real issue here is that people can't stand not knowing. They have troubles seeing the world as it is. They have problems with having no explanation. People see the world as black and white, in better cases at least with some shades of gray. But life is not either. Life is full of colours.
Here I might surprise some people by saying that I don't mind not knowing. I don't mind the ambiguity and having no explanations. Why is that surprising? Because I'm the one who always pushes things and asks about unimportant details until I understand. The difference is that embracing "not-knowing" doesn't mean not searching for explanations. I would suggest it means the opposite actually. I'm the "seeker of the truth", so I will ask annoying questions until I get an explanation, but if I don't, I am capable of keeping the question open, of having it unanswered, at least for now.
Also, once I receive some answer I can change my mind based on new facts, which is even harder than accepting the ambiguity.

I am not perfect, and when I say I can do those things, I don't claim it do it always. I know my limitations, and because of those limitations I want to avoid making unsupported claims, because if I do, I might not realize they're unsupported. Our brains work far from the way we would like to, and thinking I will always remember that my assumptions are based on no evidence might just be another false assumption.
What I am trying to say is that we all have problems with keeping our opinions straight and based on facts. We all do. Some people realize this and fight against it, but most people, I believe, don't.

So the issues here should be obvious by now. I don't like analysis, or rather "analysis" (=assuming) and I try to avoid it. You could say I avoid it because I'm not good at it, which is a great point given I just received C+ on analysis of a short story and B- on this presentation, partially due to lack of analysis. You could say it's my ego not wanting to admit my incompetence. You could say a lot of things.
But which one is true?
Is there such thing as truth?
Can we ever know if I'm right by trying to be non-judgmental and non-assuming because I think it's useless at best? Actually, I think it's counterproductive and harmful.
I also think it can be harmful even if my views are based on analysis and not only assuming.
Because you could easily say it's my ego talking based on knowing me and this blog, but that wouldn't make it correct. It would be a good theory. Also, wouldn't this opinion make you  more likely to ignore my message? Even if you make your opinion based on the assumption that my whole blog is clear and logical, it still affects your decision making.

It's not necessarily a problem to have these ideas in your head, but it could be a problem when you say one of them is correct. And it would be wrong to then say there's no other explanation. Especially, after learning new facts.

You are just angry and looking for excuses. But you just didn't do the work.
I admit I didn't. And I also admit it's possibly because I couldn't do it.
At the same time, I say that this is not about the grade nor this specific example. It's about the principles I've had for some time, but I never tried to explain fully.
I've always argued against analysis because we can hardly know what the author meant. Which might not be the point, I admit. The point is to discuss our own ideas, and it's fine to do that, in case we admit we never reach any conclusion. Which is what most people are looking for. Closure.

Maybe the teacher just wanted you to think about it and you obviously didn't.
I did think about it because I realized there is little to talk about. I thought about it, I realized there are at least two possible explanations for the parents' behaviour and I stopped at that, knowing I will never know. I never judged them, I never found my answer about why they did what they did. I just accepted the story with the information given.

You still didn't think about it the way you were supposed to.
Ok, maybe I didn't. I don't like assuming, and knowing my human nature I don't want to take the usual shortcuts. I could go deeper into the story, and try to find some more in it, but for what purpose? Knowing myself, I would mostly focus on only one aspect of the story, and from that there is a short way to accepting this one aspect as the only explanation.

You just didn't do the job. Stop excusing yourself.
That's not the point.
Well then, what's wrong with saying the possible explanations? Just say them. Who cares if people take it seriously?
First of all, it's a case study, so the people involved are real, even though already dead.
Second, again, it's not about the story. I just use it to make a point.
Third, what worries me the most is probably the teacher. She is passionately (and hopefully successfully) making us more aware. She wants us to not "reduce" people, but to see them from several perspectives. She teaches us not to bifurcate, e.g. to see life in the 50 shades of gray at least. And she's doing pretty good job, surprisingly. But thanks to all I said, I get the feeling that in this case it could be counterproductive. Sure, it can teach us to think, which is always helpful and it is a starting point. Yet, this exercise teaches us to make something out of nothing. Which is, again, not necessarily wrong. But can we all make sure that this hypothetical something won't then turn into something definitive, something unchangeable?
I doubt it.

What I think is that this is exactly what could happen with the parents. We find an explanation that is nowhere supported, and that's it. We don't have to think about it anymore, we found an explanation. We can blame them or excuse them, but the case is closed either way. Same as our minds. If we take the available facts, we can see the options and the explanations with no conclusion. We just accept that there are many ways to consider the behaviour of the parents. Maybe they're to be blamed. Maybe it can all be explained and they did their best. Most likely something in between. But we don't know because we don't have enough information.

Wait, what's the difference between those two?
The difference is that the class haven't read the story, and when I present an assumption, they will accept it, thinking our opinion is based on facts. Anything we say is just our point of view.
Why not just say it then?
Would that work?
I don't know.
Me neither, but I'd rather just give the facts, and not go into speculations in this specific situation because there is absolutely nothing to support any of them.