misunderstandings

Society Religion & Philosophy
1

are they delibrately fastened to a relationship or primarily interjected?

when they are delibrate, can they be effectively handled?

when they are interjected, can they be denounced, because someone mistakes oneside’s pure free-home honesty as a take away to trash it out of inner fears that are unfounded?

& when someone’s personal ill-will discounts the other person’s purity in spirit (granted that it is seen that way also), does that count as a misunderstanding?
if not, then what will it be? a premature unfair judgement, or a flawed perception?

any one of these questions addressed will be great.
any thoughts?

Dushwari

2

Re: misunderstandings

if it's delibrate then we call it "EXCUSES".

3

Re: misunderstandings

^ right, xenophanez. makes perfect sense as excuses to be the clearly given reason. very self destructive in the long run.

4

Re: misunderstandings

Peace Dushwari

I think there are four reasons how misunderstandings happen:

They are when:
1 The transmitter has been ineffective at communicating the point to the recipient.
2 The receiver has been inefficient at registering the data that has been transmitted.
3 The medium through which the communication is being undertaken is causing a defect in the data to occur.
4 There is an external factor that has caused the adulteration of the message i.e. a confused signal.

They can happen inadvertently by consequence or intentionally by either recipient or transmitter.

So, when deliberate, can they be effectively handled? Yes, when deliberation can be identified.

Denunciation can be done, but it would be something else to determine whether the denunciation was a result of effective error-handling or defective error-handling.

I would argue that 'unfair judgement' is a special case of misunderstanding > intentional misunderstanding to be specific. This can happen both ways.

One can misconstrue a good to be bad and vice-versa. Both of these are shrouded in controversy however, in one such case regarding the Prophet of Islam (SAW) who is being taunted by the kuffar who upon twisting his name he replied by saying that they have cursed someone else I am such and such and they are saying such and such. (To that effect). He intentionally misunderstood their taunts so as to give a reason to himself for not getting angry, or some other wisdom that I cannot as yet see, but it happened.

You raise good questions, mashaAllah!

5

Re: misunderstandings

^ thanks psyah.

emotions and rationality must go hand in hand.
your reply is indeed constructive and conducive to giving a structure to misunderstanding tendency is people.

let's take the argument of self placement of misunderstanding to make room for justifying some decision made in error.

i feel that a huge part of this is grounded in self-infliction and inability to get pass one's past experiences and fearfull of too much strength coming to a particular person's surrounding or in her/ his interaction with others.
how to correct that, if that is correct able?
also, how much can be accounted for by attributing to situational pressures?
personally, i feel that an adult human being ought to be able to embrace change on her/ his own.

i truly appreciate you encouraging my queries.
best,

Dushwari

6

Re: misunderstandings

Peace Dushwari

Self-infliction: True! ... I was reading recently about Ryle and how he defined knowledge and belief and the limits of his theory. But it seems understanding is about the mechanism which provides the necessary impetus for a belief to be constructed.

In the Holy Qur'an, Allah (SWT) tells us about the psyche of two characteristics of 'unfair' minded people. The deceiver and the belier (or rejector). Both people try to inflict. They either deceive or reject, but Allah (SWT) tells us that they only do so to themselves.

The kafir thus would subject himself to such misery by denying what his fitra tells him is true, his state would be restless. That is where I think Muslims should understand the 'peace' exists, it's not necessarily the dynamism in our interactive life that determines our 'state'.

Here we can actually say that the reciepient has actually correctly 'understood' but reacts with 'misunderstanding'. Thus understanding may have a number of layers. Looking at the onion model,

Beliefs>Values>Personality>Attitude>Behaviour

We can see that a person may realise that their beliefs are being compromised, but then attitude and behaviour set in to determine whether the person is likely to accept and change their beliefs or rebel and unfairly dismiss the incoming truths as lies.

So how can this be corrected? Humility ... I think is one of the best routes. Only when we think that we can be wrong and that we need the guidance of God, can we be effective in our impartiality to incoming stimulus. As far as to do something ourselves? I think the Qur'an again is accurate that man will be at a loss if he thinks himself self-sufficient. These are strong statements.

I agree people should be able to embrace change ... but you will agree some children are better at it than many adults. Ali (RA) was 10 years old when he accepted Islam, but people of the likes of Abu Jahl died in ignorance. He was the most intelligent person of his time; he was given the title Abu Al-Hakkam before Islam came to Makkah, then after he rejected Islam ... his knowledge and intellect bought him nothing, because he had faith in his mind and not in his Lord.

7

Re: misunderstandings

i agree. humility is always necessary.
life it too precious to be wasted in sadness and pessimism.
confidence and honesty, forth right ness and prsonal ability to be stead fast, is crucial to making and keeping dear and cherished relationships be it with one's deen or with one's land, or people.
balancing all of it is ven more necessary to have a content life.
work, family and civic obligations as well as living up to one's righteous convictions is all necessary to be an example of a strong human being who is helpful and helping.
when beliefs are compromised, the damage is equally done to the person her/ him self.
the contradictions in the spoken word and actions thereafter, only lead the person to self deception.