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Quote by Pearl Zhu

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Digital Hybridity

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Pearl Zhu

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“It is critical to recognize that we live in an increasingly complex world - biologically, socially, politically, technologically, you name it - that holds many inherent contradictions. In the middle of this complex world are we humans, who have a natural tendency to seek coherence in what we see, feel, think, and do. When we experience conflict, this tendency intensifies. Conflict is essentially a contradiction, an incompatibility, oppositely directed forces, and a difference that triggers tension. When we encounter conflict, within the field of forces that constitute it, the natural human tendency is to reduce that tension by seeking coherence through simplification. Research shows that this tendency toward simplification becomes even more intensified when we are under stress, threat, time constraints, fatigue, and various other conditions all absolutely typical of conflict. So what is the big idea? It is NOT that coherence is bad and complexity is good. Coherence seeking is simply a necessary and functional process that helps us interpret and respond to our world efficiently and (hopefully) effectively. And complexity in extremes is a nightmare - think of Mogadishu, Somalia, in the 1990s or the financial crisis of 2009 or Times Square during rush hour on a Friday afternoon. On the other hand, too much coherence can be just as pathological: for example, the collapse of the nuances and contradictions inherent in any conflict situation into simple 'us versus them' terms, or a deep commitment to a rigid understanding of conflicts based on past sentiments and obsolete information. Either extreme - overwhelming complexity or oversimplified coherence - is problematic. But in difficult, long-term conflicts, the tide pulls fiercely toward simplification of complex realities. This is what we must content with.”

ComplexityCoherenceCognitive DissonanceOversimplificationUs Vs ThemIntractable ConflictSocial Conflicts
Book:The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts
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“Coherence comes from a deep center, which is the heart. Ultimately it‘s the heart of the human being connected to Infinite Spirit. When the self is connected to the heart, and the heart is connected to God, you have coherence. It‘s really that simple. The practice we call „the remembrance of God“ is the channel to that coherence. (p. 14)”

SufismSufi WisdomCoherenceTreshold SocietySufi PathKabir HelminskiRemembrance Of God
Book:In the House of Remembering: The Living Tradition of Sufi Teaching
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“My point is that we are by now so thoroughly adjusted to the "Now . . . this" world of news—a world of fragments, where events stand alone, stripped of any connection to the past, or to the future, or to other events—that all assumptions of coherence have vanished. And so, perforce, has contradiction. In the context of no context, so to speak, it simply disappears. And in its absence, what possible interest could there be in a list of what the President says now and what he said then? It is merely a rehash of old news, and there is nothing interesting or entertaining in that.”

PoliticsMediaNewsStoryCoherenceContextElectronic Media
Book:Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
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