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A relation between two individuals may appear stable even when it rests on a false premise.  A decision is put forward without support and accepted before it is tested.  One speaks; the other adjusts.  A claim is introduced and taken in without examination.  When contradiction appears, it is set aside.  The relation holds because one asserts and the other accepts.  An account of two individuals may appear exceptional, but the relation it reveals is not confined to them.

 

A wider relation between individuals, sustained by excluding contradiction, does not require agreement.  It requires direction and alignment.  A statement is repeated as if it were already settled and is carried forward as something to maintain.  A speaker states a position with certainty and without qualification, and others accept that certainty as evidence of its validity rather than examine the claim itself.  A shared account sets what may be said; questioning it is excluded.  A decision holds because it confirms what is already assumed.  The relation continues without being questioned.

 

At what point does such a relation stop interpreting reality and begin to act in its place?  Not when a false claim appears, but when the relation no longer allows it to be tested.  As long as claims are tested, disagreement examined, and adjustment follows evidence, the relation remains open.  The shift occurs when alignment replaces testing.  A claim is carried forward before it is checked and no longer stands as something to be tested.

 

Contradiction no longer interrupts the relation.  It is dismissed or set aside and does not enter the decision.  What does not fit is excluded from what follows.

 

A claim holds because it repeats what has already been said.  Affirmation arises within the relation itself.  Correction becomes unlikely.

 

A decision formed within the relation is carried out beyond it without being checked, and a person who did not take part in forming it is required to comply.  The effect on that person is not examined and is treated as secondary to keeping the claim in place.  Each participant encounters the effect on the person subject to the decision.   Each participant continues to act in accordance with the claim and sets that recognition aside in order to maintain alignment.  The action continues before either law or ethics can take hold.

 

Decisions are then measured against what has already been affirmed rather than against what is present.  Behavior proceeds without testing.  Judgments form within closed circles of affirmation.  In an investment partnership, a senior partner advances a thesis under time pressure and incomplete information, and others commit capital on the strength of that authority rather than on outside validation.  Elsewhere, under unresolved uncertainty, in a clinical setting, available tests do not resolve the diagnosis, and a physician advances a working assumption; care proceeds on that basis as it is repeated and affirmed, while conflicting signs are set aside.  What appears consistent within produces actions that do not fit the conditions they are meant to address.

 

A relation of this kind also defines responsibility in a limited way.  Each participant attends to the other within the relation, but not to those affected by it.  Agreement between participants does not extend to those who are subject to what the relation produces.  Within the relation, nothing presents itself as a breach: the claim is affirmed, the decision follows, and alignment is maintained, so no point of interruption arises from which it could be judged.  Responsibility would require that each participant consider how the claim and the decision affect those outside the relation and allow that effect to alter or halt what follows.  Where that does not occur, responsibility remains contained within the relation, and those outside it are acted upon without their situation entering into the decision.

 

The difference between shared belief and shared distortion lies in whether the relation allows correction.  Where contradiction can enter and be considered, the relation remains open.  Where it is excluded, the relation closes.

 

The problem does not begin when a claim is false.  It begins when the relation that sustains it no longer allows it to be tested.

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