Duck or Rabbit? Elephant or Donkey?
“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.”
– Saul Bellow, Nobel Prize-Winning Author
Which do you see first? A duck or a rabbit? This optical illusion from an 1892 German newspaper is a classic study of shifting perception. I feel this is particularly appropriate in today’s political climate, where many can only see a duck, and others can only see a rabbit, so to speak.
With time, most of us can shift our perception and see the other animal with increasing clarity, even if we prefer one animal over the other.
The benefits of shifting paradigms are that one can increase novelty, open-mindedness, cognitive flexibility, an appreciation for others’ perspectives, and an awareness that two things can be true. Uriel Abulof, a political science scholar and researcher states: “…the illusion crystallizes the interplay between freedom (choice) and facticity (forced reality). If you see just a duck, you may need to actively choose to work on seeing the rabbit too, and once you do, to then choose which you see at any given point. While submitting that ‘once you see the duck you cannot unsee it,’ Abulof says that ‘trying to unsee what we already did see might be less about choosing one perspective over another but about negating one so that we don’t have to choose.'”
How does this help us in our current political polarity and divisiveness? It can decrease the self-righteousness and judgment each side has for the other, which hopefully can offset any potential backlash of outrage and increase acceptance and tolerance despite the inevitable disappointment one faction will experience.
Voting Day is less than a month away now. While many are disappointed in the choices, the reality is that you must choose a duck or a rabbit. Vote your values. Vote your perspective. Vote your integrity.
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“There is an optical illusion about every person we meet.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson