One of the problems we face daily lies how to read appearances. Often we misinterpret. On an interpersonal level, such misreading can lead to embarrassment, hurt, or even anger when, for example, a teenager might mistake a look for a flirt, a worker might mistake a directive as an assault, or a nation might take a visit from a foreign dignitary as an affront to sovereignty and a cause of military action. Appearances are “real” because they lead to consequences both wanted and unwanted.
One might have to be far removed from the events of the summer to be unaware of the move by the FBI to seize documents from the former President’s Florida home. The incident fills the mainline and social media, motivates people to express their political views, and demonstrates how the appearance of an event can shape new realities. Regardless of one’s political affiliation, however, each American should ask about the consequences of appearances.
To state the obvious, I’ll say that appearance is important to every human who owns a mirror or pauses for a split second to look at a reflection in a window. Now think of the appearance of an FBI agent wearing a bulletproof vest and standing guard with an “assault rifle” in front of the President’s estate during a nighttime serving of a search warrant. What does the appearance suggest?
Does the presence of armed agents indicate that the FBI thought there was a “real” threat of an armed conflict at the residence while the family was in New York? Would that resistance come from Secret Service Agents or a butler and maid? Did the Attorney General believe that this was, as the written procedures of his agency require, the least intrusive mechanism for obtaining what it sought? Think now not from the point of view of one who supports the former President or from a point of one who hates him, but think rather from the point of view of an objective observer of appearance. What does the appearance of an armed search party suggest other than that there was a real possibility of violent resistance?
But let’s make such an appearance personal in case you are an opponent obsessed with an extreme “gotcha” syndrome that makes you happy to see such an incident in America. Let’s say the local police department decides to pull up in front of your residence at night in cars with flashing lights and officers armed with guns drawn in a mistaken address incident. Sleepy-eyed, you innocently answer the door to bright lights and an intimidating agent of the law. The mistake corrected, you go back to bed peacefully thinking “no problem.” Across the street, the neighbor sees the appearance that becomes the reality, and those throughout the neighborhood assume there is “some reality” to the appearance. Why else would the police show up in force? In this hypothetical, ask yourself how easy it will be to go on with life as it was with your past casual relationships in the neighborhood remaining unchanged.
Funny reality about appearance: One man’s interpretation can differ from another man’s interpretation. The reality of most appearances lies in the variability of what they elicit in the minds of many. On a peaceful summer day of lying on the grass and looking heavenward, I don’t necessarily see the elephant in the cumulus cloud that appears so identifiable in your mind.
Appearances are largely the realities of any society and are especially so at a time of ubiquitous and anonymous videoing. No matter how careful one is in personal care and behavior, cameras can capture appearances that once broadcast become the meme, the characterization, that is every bit as memorable as the sad-faced and happy-faced masks were as characters in Greek plays. It appears that few of us can avoid the instant as a representation of a lifetime.
One might argue that appearance, though not “everything,” is definitely “most things.” But lest you think I’m hypocritically faulting you, I’ll add that in fast-moving, complex social and political relationships, there’s little time to sort out the real from the apparent. So, just about everyone sticks with impressions garnered from appearance and modified by personal preferences.
The bias of preferences shades the interpretation of appearances, and for some that bias imprisons the mind, keeping individuals from other perspectives. The old adage “We see what we want to see” and the our seemingly innate penchant for confirmation of our beliefs combine to make almost any appearance into a “reality.”
One might have to be far removed from the events of the summer to be unaware of the move by the FBI to seize documents from the former President’s Florida home. The incident fills the mainline and social media, motivates people to express their political views, and demonstrates how the appearance of an event can shape new realities. Regardless of one’s political affiliation, however, each American should ask about the consequences of appearances.
To state the obvious, I’ll say that appearance is important to every human who owns a mirror or pauses for a split second to look at a reflection in a window. Now think of the appearance of an FBI agent wearing a bulletproof vest and standing guard with an “assault rifle” in front of the President’s estate during a nighttime serving of a search warrant. What does the appearance suggest?
Does the presence of armed agents indicate that the FBI thought there was a “real” threat of an armed conflict at the residence while the family was in New York? Would that resistance come from Secret Service Agents or a butler and maid? Did the Attorney General believe that this was, as the written procedures of his agency require, the least intrusive mechanism for obtaining what it sought? Think now not from the point of view of one who supports the former President or from a point of one who hates him, but think rather from the point of view of an objective observer of appearance. What does the appearance of an armed search party suggest other than that there was a real possibility of violent resistance?
But let’s make such an appearance personal in case you are an opponent obsessed with an extreme “gotcha” syndrome that makes you happy to see such an incident in America. Let’s say the local police department decides to pull up in front of your residence at night in cars with flashing lights and officers armed with guns drawn in a mistaken address incident. Sleepy-eyed, you innocently answer the door to bright lights and an intimidating agent of the law. The mistake corrected, you go back to bed peacefully thinking “no problem.” Across the street, the neighbor sees the appearance that becomes the reality, and those throughout the neighborhood assume there is “some reality” to the appearance. Why else would the police show up in force? In this hypothetical, ask yourself how easy it will be to go on with life as it was with your past casual relationships in the neighborhood remaining unchanged.
Funny reality about appearance: One man’s interpretation can differ from another man’s interpretation. The reality of most appearances lies in the variability of what they elicit in the minds of many. On a peaceful summer day of lying on the grass and looking heavenward, I don’t necessarily see the elephant in the cumulus cloud that appears so identifiable in your mind.
Appearances are largely the realities of any society and are especially so at a time of ubiquitous and anonymous videoing. No matter how careful one is in personal care and behavior, cameras can capture appearances that once broadcast become the meme, the characterization, that is every bit as memorable as the sad-faced and happy-faced masks were as characters in Greek plays. It appears that few of us can avoid the instant as a representation of a lifetime.
One might argue that appearance, though not “everything,” is definitely “most things.” But lest you think I’m hypocritically faulting you, I’ll add that in fast-moving, complex social and political relationships, there’s little time to sort out the real from the apparent. So, just about everyone sticks with impressions garnered from appearance and modified by personal preferences.
The bias of preferences shades the interpretation of appearances, and for some that bias imprisons the mind, keeping individuals from other perspectives. The old adage “We see what we want to see” and the our seemingly innate penchant for confirmation of our beliefs combine to make almost any appearance into a “reality.”
RSS Feed