Hi! That seems like as good of a way to introduce myself as any other!! My name is Finny Wiggen, which I will admit is a pseudonym and not my actual name. Why do I use a pseudonym? That is a long story for another time. For now, just know that I have used the self-ascribed name online for many many years, and it seemed appropriate to use it here on this website. I suppose one reason for this is that I don’t want credit for this project to be tied back to myself in any meaningful way. As, I am just one of millions who share these views. I hesitate to even put my story on this website at all, but someone may ultimately want to know who is behind this project, and so, I thought I had better include an article a bit of info. Though I have gone to great lengths to hide it at the very bottom of the project. In this picture I am holding my granddaughter. Isn’t she cute!
I am the founder of The Unitist. And just one of millions who share the views this project espouses.
I have a Bachelor’s degree in Earth Science, which includes geology, oceanography, and astronomy. I have a Masters (M.A.) in Biology, and another Masters (M.Ed.) in Research And Instructional Design.
I have spent my career involved in research, science, and curriculum development. Both as the founder of a rather large educational company that served hundreds of millions of students worldwide, and also more recently as a public school science teacher.
For the past 25 years, I have spent a lot of time being wrong. It hurts to admit it, but there you have it! You see, as a businessman, and as someone who looks at things as problems to be solved, I have spent most of my adult life wondering how on Earth it could be possible that other seemingly good and intelligent people could be so stupid when it came to politics. I mean, in my view, the solutions to the problems seemed obvious! I just couldn’t understand how good people could make such poor choices when it came to their opinions or the politicians who they supported.
Were these people perhaps less intelligent? Were they ill-informed? I mean, the solutions to the problems facing society were so blatantly obvious to me, and yet these people refused to accept what I viewed as the truth!
One thing I am very grateful for, is that I never began to doubt the goodness of others. Their goodness was always very apparent to me. I could see it in the way they treated their kids, in the way they loved their spouses, and in the way they contributed to society. It ate at me. For 25 years, I just couldn’t get my mind around it.
Gradually though a few ideas began to form in my mind. The first of these was the difference between how people seek learning, and who they trust for new knowledge. Did I mention in my bio that I am an devout Christian? Well, I am. I grew up in a Christian family, and still actively attend church each Sunday. As mentioned I am also active in the field of science. Both form an important part of who I am.
I began to realize that some of my family and friends looked more to their faith when it came to defining ultimate truth, while others looked more to science. Then there were my friends (like myself) who looked to both equally, or somewhat equally. This difference in how people define ultimate truth forms a critical difference in how people approach politics.
The other idea that formed in my mind was the difference between how people use (chaperone) their knowledge to judge the value of various solutions. I slowly began to realize that some people are very logical, while others are very compassionate. When it came to debate, those who were logical could usually debate circles around the compassionate, but it didn’t matter, because the compassionate didn’t speak the language of logic. As long as you approached these individuals with a logical argument you will not impress them. Not because they are less intelligent. But because they value compassion more than they value logic. In other words, these individuals understand the arguments being made by the individual who is logical, they just find the compassionate arguments to be more valid. You have to approach these persons with a compassionate argument. The same is true in reverse. The logical thinker understands the arguments being made by the more compassion driven person. They just find the logical arguments to be more valid.
The two sides are simply put, speaking different languages.
One night while sitting on my bed, at around 8:00 pm, the theory behind the Bidimensional Knowledge Matrix suddenly came into sharp focus in my mind. I sat my book down (Which I am not embarrassed to admit is in the Twilight Series… Go Team Edward!) Excited, I jumped out of bed, and spent the next five or six hours writing down all of my thoughts. I created the matrix, wrote out testable hypothesis, and from there, went to work.
While the theory seemed very logical to me, there was no guarantee that it would prove to be useful or true. I worked for 16 hours a day, writing a null hypothesis, writing questions I could pose to volunteers, creating testing instruments, programming the software (from scratch) that I would need to test the theory, and preparing to try to disprove the theory as completely as I could.
I started with just 36 volunteers, who completed the questionnaire that I had created. To my delight, these 36 college students, while not very representative of the larger community, did show a clear pattern in how they charted on the bidimensional knowledge matrix. Was it repeatable? Would I get the same patterns from a larger sample?
Using a research platform known as MTurk, I sent my testing instrument to 100 participants. Once again, I got the same patterns! How exciting! I used these 100 participants to identify bad questions on my questionnaire and to improve / revamp the testing instrument. I then sent the new questionnaire to 526 random Americans, representing a broad sampling of the population. Once again, I got the same predictable patterns. I was thrilled! It was clear that I had something!
Above all, what I got was a sense of appreciation my fellow citizens
As I stated earlier, I have never doubted the goodness of my neighbors. It was just too obvious to me that they were good people. This theory opened my eyes to the realization that the differences in how we approach the problems that plague society have nothing to do with being less intelligent, or ill-informed. They have to do with how we seek knowledge, and how we chaperone (judge the value of) our knowledge.
It has been wonderfully liberating to have this framework at my disposal, so that I can fully appreciate and celebrate the differences that provide strength to us as people and as communities.
To have real and hard data, showing a correlation between being balanced and being successful is a phenomenal thing to me! It truly liberates my mind so that I can celebrate all of my wonderful neighbors as important parts of the community whose views and opinions strengthen the rest of us.
It is the answer to the question that I have struggled with for so long! While I was judging “rightness” based on one criteria, some of my neighbors were judging “rightness” based on an entirely different set of criteria. We are both right! Based on the criteria we have chosen! Moreover, it isn’t possible to debate which criteria is better, because they aren’t mutually exclusive. In other words, just as you can value both religion and science, you can also value both compassion AND logic.
The research made it clear that someone who is both logical AND compassionate tends to be more successful than someone who is highly inclined to just one side or the other.
How great the importance of making this known
As I began to celebrate and truly rejoice in my appreciation for different perspectives, and for the need of balance, the atmosphere in our country began to grow increasingly hostile. With both extremes of our political ideologies fighting each other, blaming each other, mistrusting each other. To the point that we have seen riots in the streets (on both sides) and tremendous animosity online.
Here I sat with a framework that could help people to appreciate one another, and yet, I was the only one who knew anything about it (this particular framework…) It was then I that I decided I had to tell the world.
As awkward as it is to put yourself out there, I had to try. If no one listens then that is okay! At least I didn’t keep this knowledge a secret!
I say this as though I am the only one who knows the importance of unity. Obviously, I am not. There are lots of smart (much smarter than me) people out there. Much of what I have drawn on in the creation of these resources is taken from others.
This is just my small contribution.
