A drop in the ocean: Another Aspect of Love

I think I’ve already mentioned TED.com where good and even better thinkers share their ideas. One of my personal favourites is Margaret Heffernan’s speech in which she is speaking about conflicts and claims that good disagreement is essential to progress. Moreover, after introducing the details of a successful cooperation between a physician and a statistician, she is saying that a well-based rational criticism and the endeavour to reach it is a form of love.

If you have time, watch the video. Subtitles will help you to understand the story and her thoughts. If you are short of time, read my favourite part of her speech:

So what does that kind of constructive conflict require? Well, first of all, it requires that we find people who are very different from ourselves. That means we have to resist the neurobiological drive, which means that we really prefer people mostly like ourselves, and it means we have to seek out people with different backgrounds, different disciplines, different ways of thinking and different experience, and find ways to engage with them. That requires a lot of patience and a lot of energy.

And the more I've thought about this, the more I think, really, that that's a kind of love. Because you simply won't commit that kind of energy and time if you don't really care.

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