Adventures in Changing Our Minds: A CNY Socratic Conversation with Ron Gross & CNY Monthly Leadership and Team Building Meeting – Jun 18

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                   Thursday, June 18, 2015

     Adventures in Changing Our Minds

      A CNY Socratic Conversation with Ron Gross

6:15-7:45 pm

 

&

CNY Monthly Leadership and Team Building Meeting,

8:00 – 9:30 pm

 

Both at: Adelphi University Manhattan Center

75 Varick Street

Room 260-261 on the Second Floor

(75 Varick is between Watts and Grand Streets)

RSVP to grossassoc@aol.com

&

RSVP to  http://www.meetup.com/Conversations-New-York/events/222814774/

Please bring photo ID required for entree to building

 

DIRECTIONS

Subways: #1 to Canal, or   A, C. or E to Canal, exit next to the building.

 J, N, Q, R, W, Z or #6 to Canal, are about 5 blocks southeast at Broadway and Canal.

Bus: M20 stops at the front door.

 

COFFEE/FOOD/BEVERAGES/ETC.

Excellent take-out food can be purchased at The Mill (www.TheMilltoGo.com),

which is part of the same building, and brought to the meeting.

 

 

 

Conversation:

Adventures in Changing Our Minds

6:15 – 7:45

 

Q.:  What does it feel like to be wrong?

 

A.:   It feels like being right.

 

To err is human. Yet most of us go through life tacitly assuming (and sometimes noisily insisting) that we are right about nearly everything, from the origins of the universe to how to load the dishwasher.

 

If being wrong is so natural, why are we all so bad at imagining that our beliefs could be mistaken – and why do we typically react to our errors with surprise, denial, defensiveness and shame?

 

Let’s explore why we find it so gratifying to be right and so maddening to be mistaken, and how this attitude toward error corrodes our relationships—whether between family members, colleagues, neighbors, or nations.  

 

Consider the range of human fallibility, from wrongful convictions to no-fault divorce, medical mistakes to misadventures at sea, failed prophecies to false memories, “I told you so!” to “Mistakes were made.”   Perhaps we need new ways of looking at wrongness.   Maybe error is both a given and a gift – one that can transform our worldviews, our relationships, and, most profoundly, ourselves.

 

At a time when economic, political, and religious dogmatism increasingly divide us,  we need to explore the seduction of certainty and the crisis occasioned by error.

 

Let’s learn to ask one of life’s most challenging questions:

What if I’m wrong?

 

Suggested Reading (optional): BEING WRONG , by Kathryn Schulz, CHANGING MINDS, by Howard Gardner; MISTAKES WERE MADE – BUT NOT BY ME: Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts,  by Carol Travis and Elliot Aronson

Conversations New York

(8:00 – 9:30)

 (www.conversationsnewyork.com)

       Our exciting Action Agenda will be  highlighted by:

 

  • Semi-final planning for our 2nd Annual CONVERSATION DAY in Bryant Park on Sat., July 18th in collaboration with our trans-Atlantic partner Talk to Me London;

 

  • Display of ten of the best books on Conversation

 

  • Update on Fall symposium on “Reclaiming Conversation” with Sherry Turkel of MIT; Upgraded website features presence on the Internet; and

 

  • Honoring an outstanding contributors with our prestigious Plato Awards (“…and this month’s award goes to….”)