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Agreement Does Not Automatically Equal Verification

Jeff Fox
10 min readDec 2, 2021

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Without any critical consideration its just flattery.

It feels good when other people agree with us. It gives us a sense of validation, its reaffirming, and implies a sense of belonging to a group with matching perspectives. Even at the best times and in ideal conditions having people disagree with us can be frustrating, demoralizing, provoke feelings of self-doubt, and make us feel isolated. Preferring to be agreed with is natural but being disagreed with is not an evil, it is an inevitable and at times necessary part of life.

Having other people agree with our opinion generates the positive feelings of validation and belonging but it does not automatically provide absolute confirmation of the accuracy or correctness of that opinion. It can certainly feel as though it does but the agreement only offers as much potential verification as the amount of critical consideration used to arrive at it. The agreement of five people after exhaustive examination and debate offers more verification than a hundred people who instantly agree simply because they like the sound of it.

Critical consideration requires time, information from as many different perspectives as possible, and the acknowledgement that the answers we find may not wind up being the ones we would prefer.

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Jeff Fox
Jeff Fox

Written by Jeff Fox

A professional dancer, choreographer, theatre creator, and featured TEDx speaker with an honours degree in psychology, two black belts, and a lap-top.

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