Evidence Procedures

In NLP, one of the central Metamodel questions is, “How do you know?” An honest answer to the question provides information about a person’s “model of the world,” which is essentially a “reality strategy”—the way people decide what’s real. In most cases, what we think of as “real” is more accurately a “belief,” in some cases with very little in the way of supporting evidence. Most beliefs begin, of course, with some evidence in the external environment. Through the natural processes of deletion, distortion, and generalization, beliefs that have a logical beginning can become increasingly distorted over time. One of . . . → Read More: Evidence Procedures

American Exceptionalism

The term “American Exceptionalism” has been much in the news lately, primarily because President Obama has frequently been accused of not believing in it. It is a strange expression, as is referring to the United States of America as “America,” as though the “of” wasn’t part of the deal. North America, Central America, and South America are also part of “America.” In saying so, I am probably guilty of having denigrated the concept of “American Exceptionalism.”

But that’s not really the case. I agree that the United States of America is exceptional in one sense of that word. In . . . → Read More: American Exceptionalism