Chapter 2/4

OTOH/BOTOH


In one sense all there is to becoming a better thinker is that we pause and think, on the other hand. But on the other hand, there is much more to it than this. Nonetheless, in the end, after we have considered the DIALECTIC more completely, on the other hand will mean a great deal more to you, and will still, in some sense, be the bottom line.


None of this requires that you become an intellectual or a philosopher. DIALECTICal thinking is for the everyday, moment-by-moment life decisions, dilemmas, and working relationships of life. It requires nothing more than the standard God-given equipment that comes with being human. Therefore, we all are included.


If we think effectively, we think, with two hands. We consider something “on the one hand,” and then realize or are told or somehow learn that “on the other hand” there is more to it than we had first realized. This is the basic pattern of good thinking. The acronym, otoh, botoh, has been suggested to help us remember the pattern, “On the One Hand, but on the Other Hand.”


Ever since Plato philosophers have called this way of thinking The DIALECTIC, the subject of this book. No other approach to understanding can match it in value. No idea can be of more practical value for all of us, almost any hour of the day, in almost any situation, no matter what we are involved in doing. The DIALECTIC is a necessary part of our approach to life if we would be wise in our judgments and conduct. By itself it is not sufficient to make us wise, but it is an indispensable element in our mental toolkit.


Again, you don’t have to become a scholar or a genius. You do not have to be “a brain,” at least no more brain than God gives to every normal or at least semi-normal human. All you need is the desire to improve your thinking, to develop a more useful understanding of other people and thus improve your relationship with them, and to make fewer mistakes in judgment. What this book presents is a method of thinking that many people use naturally; it is one part of our common sense. Don’t let the term, The DIALECTIC, throw you. Some people use the term in very sophisticated ways, but we will be using it in the broadest sense, a sense that comprehends the simplest and the most sophisticated and technical usages.


You may be just plain mentally lazy as I was, or think of yourself as mentally ordinary, but with the DIALECTIC, you can improve your life by becoming--rather quickly and easily--a better thinker than most of the people you deal with daily. It is almost effortless, and it is guaranteed. You may consider yourself a doer, not a thinker, but remember that thinking is doing, and that thought is required in deciding what to do, how best to do it, and how to evaluate the work when it is done. You can improve your performance simply by using the DIALECTICal method as accompaniment to everything you do.