{"id":2809,"date":"2011-01-27T23:14:58","date_gmt":"2011-01-27T23:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/?p=2809"},"modified":"2011-01-27T23:14:58","modified_gmt":"2011-01-27T23:14:58","slug":"the-otherness-of-the-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/the-otherness-of-the-other\/","title":{"rendered":"The otherness of the other"},"content":{"rendered":"

In previous posts (eg, here<\/a> and here<\/a>), I have talked about the difficulty of assessing the intentions of others, whether for marketing or for computer network design or for national security. The standard English phrase speaks of “putting ourselves in the other person’s shoes”<\/em>.\u00a0 But this is usually not sufficient:\u00a0 we have to put them<\/strong><\/em> into their shoes, with their beliefs, their history, their desires, and their constraints, not ourselves, in order to understand their goals and intentions, and to anticipate their likely strategies and actions.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In a fine political thriller by Henry Porter, I come across this statement (page 220):<\/p>\n

‘Motive is always difficult to read,’ he replied.\u00a0 ‘We make a rational assumption about someone’s behaviour based on what we would, or would not, do in the same circumstances, ignoring the otherness of the other. <\/em>We consider only influences that make us what we are and impose those beliefs on them.\u00a0 It is the classic mistake of intelligence analysis.’\u00a0 “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reference:<\/em>
\nHenry Porter [2009]: The Dying Light. <\/em> London, UK:\u00a0 Orion Books.
\nObscure fact:\u00a0 Porter (born 1953) is the grand-nephew<\/a> of novelist Howard Sturgis (1855-1920), step-cousin<\/a> to George Santayana<\/a> (1863-1952).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In previous posts (eg, here and here), I have talked about the difficulty of assessing the intentions of others, whether for marketing or for computer network design or for national security. The standard English phrase speaks of “putting ourselves in the other person’s shoes”.\u00a0 But this is usually not sufficient:\u00a0 we have to put them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,38,40,49,67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropology","category-intelligence-and-espionage","category-joint-action-society","category-marketing-strategy","category-prophecy","p1","y2011","m01","d27","h23"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2809\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}