Things are not what they are, they are what we think they are, and what we compare them to. The great philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, “You have your way, I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”
Perspective is defined as a particular attitude towards or a way of regarding something; a point of view.
Perspectivism is the philosophical view that all ideations take place from particular perspectives, and that there are many possible conceptual schemes or perspectives in which judgement of ‘truth’ or ‘value’ can be made. This is often taken to imply that no way of seeing the world can be taken as definitively ‘true’, but does not necessarily entail that all perspectives are equally valid. The term perspectivism was coined by the nineteenth century philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche.
Understanding the concept of perspective, we can analyze truth in two basic ways. Truth is separated from any particular vantage point and so there are no ethical or epistemological absolutes. On the other hand, it can also be stated that truth is created by integrating different vantage points.
I’ll give you some interesting examples to show that perspective plays a vital role in our life.
Our perspective shapes our perception of the various things around us and it influences our life, to a great extent. Our emotions, thoughts and actions are driven more by our perspective than the circumstances of our lives. For example, there is an experiment, Daniel Pink, an author of books about social science, refers to; where there are two dogs in two halves of a box with electric floor. The electric shock pains the dogs equally. But one of the dogs has a small button its half of the box and when it nuzzles it, the shock stops while the other has no control over the circumstances. The first dog is relatively content and the second one is completely depressed. Thus, the circumstances of our lives may, actually, matter less to our happiness than the sense of control we feel over our lives and our outlook on life.
Besides shaping our own life, perspective is one of the greatest tools that helps change or shape others’ thoughts and opinions. It can be used in our favour to control or completely change the way people perceive our words and actions by changing their outlook. For example, it is said that the great orator, Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention in Boston as a presidential candidate made him the President of the United States.
He starts his speech by narrating a short story of his life and his parents’ lives, and hence he folds his story in the larger American story and makes his audience feel that he is one among them, a people’s President. He used antithesis, the use of repetition in structure to show contrast, now and then. His speech spoke everything about his views and that left a lasting impression on his audience.
Now let’s talk about some technical stuff. Wi-Fi facility is available on trains and metros. The reason is, the minds behind this want to make us feel that by surfing and chatting, we are utilizing and enjoying our time spent on the train, it also decreased the complaints regarding train delay to a certain extent.
The best solution to human problems are the ones incorporating technology, Economics and Psychology. That is, we can shape people’s perspective using Psychology to increase the economy, by using technology efficiently.
This is my perspective on “perspective “. Definitely, our point of view plays a pivotal role in our life. Therefore, understanding that our experiences, costs and things do not just depend on what they are, but on how we view them will go a long way.
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