More Conversations Less Declarations | Conversations with the Browns

The Mister Brown Show

More Conversations and Less Declarations | Conversations With the Browns

A conversation about the current protests about racism

My wife, Andrea, and I stopped our breakfast to have a conversation about the current protests about racism. We are hearing a lot of declarations being made, but not a lot of conversations. In this video, we explain what we mean by that.

Declarations vs. conversations

Dictionary.com defines the word declare in a few ways. To declare something means “to make known or state clearly, especially in explicit or formal terms; to announce officially; proclaim; to state emphatically.”

Dictionary.com defines the word conversation as an “informal interchange of thoughts, information, etc., by spoken words; oral communication between persons; talk; colloquy.”

We are finding that the news and information on the internet makes a lot of declarations. Those declarations may or may not all be true. We are also finding that it’s easier to make declarations than to have conversations.

How the internet can affect your perspective

This morning I woke up and I didn’t want to look at the news, but my news app popped up about events that took place overnight. Right away, I started to feel the angst of reading and getting caught up in what new developments had taken place. I just had to stop. I decided to start my day with PB&J: Prayer, Bible & Journal.

God reminded me of Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” God is working things out for His glory and our good and those two things are not in competition with each other.

That became my declaration from God and that’s how I want to start my conversations for the day. I didn’t need to grasp for my declaration. My declaration has substance because the substance comes from God. My whole perspective for the day has changed because it came from God. Now all my conversations will be guided by that instead of what everyone else has to say.

Andrea made a good point: the internet and social media are built in such a way that it is more conducive to declaring things rather than having an actual conversation. There are people trying to have conversations and inviting people to have conversations, but when emotions are running really high or when it’s complex or there’s so much we don’t know, it’s a place where there is a lot of declaring instead of conversing. The internet is not always a good space for having a conversation.
Internet algorithms are designed to show you what it thinks you want. They are designed to narrow down the voices that you’re hearing and specifically to filter the content you see toward a product you can purchase.

When we keep that in mind, we start to see that our news may be shaped a certain way for us. That filtering starts to affect our perspective of the world. When we only receive information from a certain source or in a certain way our perspective becomes very narrow. We cannot see all sides of the story. This is not the best way to get our perspective and information from the world.

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