Venting My Spleen: People Making Assumptions

 I dislike people making presumptions about reality and other people.  I notice their presumptions are both certain and made without any inquiry into the facts of the matter.

What I cannot understand is if this is something I am only noticing, or it is something new. A premise seems omitted in my writing: the frequency I am meeting this presumptuousness. People seem more inclined to blurt out their presumptions as facts.

My PO asks one neighbor if the neighbor has seen me, and when the neighbor is ignorant of my existence, the PO declares to me that I am living somewhere else. No preliminary questions of me. No examining the apartment for missing clothes, CPAP machine, or my other stuff. Just the blurting. I felt embarrassed for the poor fellow. He clearly wanted me to be living somewhere else where I had a life outside his supervision.

Likewise, he assumed that since I was storing stuff for CC, she must be living with me. He so much wanted me to be living with an unapproved person.

When I had my job evaluation, my boss made his own presumptions. Chiefly, I was talking down to other workers. 

No one asks questions that might confirm their opinions as being reality.

I have to say my legal education taught me that presumptions exist to be rebutted. Rebuttal requires evidence that comes from inquiry.

Having read philosophy, asking questions seems natural.

Before my formal education, my mother encouraged my curiosity - even as embarrassing as my jejune questions often proved. That has left me ready to ask for directions rather than clinging to my vanity.

I see this in politics, where the wrong questions or no questions are asked of the voters or the candidates.

This leads me to a solution: asking questions.

Today's Guardian book review newsletter brought a link to Open Socrates by Agnes Callard review – a design for life. The man gained immortal fame for asking questions. Perhaps we should add Plato to our high school curricula. No. Skip the "perhaps" and make it we must add Plato to our high school curricula.

For Callard, Socrates represents both a “midwife” and a “gadfly”, in that someone adopting his techniques helps us bring new and better understanding into the world while being, frankly, annoying. They bite and sting, defying our evasions, crawling through the tiniest cracks in our armour, not allowing us to get away with the false comfort of easy answers.

Make no more presumptions about me, ask questions.

As for Plato, The Perseus Project has three dialogs here, and Project Gutenberg's Plato collection is here. Do not read them at your own peril. Ignoring them only sustains your ignorance.

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