Starting assumptions

I'm constantly amazed by the foolishness of the assumptions with which many people begin their conversations. I'm not talking the easy-to-spot stupidities, such as rascist or sexist mindsets. What really surprises me is how many people assume everyone around them is

* stupider than they are
* thinks like them
* agrees with their every thought

The inherent contradiction of the first two points should be enough to dissuade anyone from starting with both of those assumptions, but it doesn't seem to be. The falseness of the third also seems self-evident--I know it can't be true, because Keith Urban sells a lot of albums and concert tickets--but I also know from experience that it escapes a lot of people.

Many years ago at a Sycamore Hill Writers' Conference, a very smart writer, one whose work I generally like and admire, commented about another writer's critique of a story of mine that the ideas of that other writer would indeed make for a great story but that "we are not in the presence of a writer capable of realizing that vision." The commenting writer had known me for less than a week. Though I'm willing to agree that it's possible he was right, he did not have enough data to make that declaration. Instead, he did so because he started with the wrong assumptions.

I think we'd all be better off if we changed the above three assumptions to a very different trio: When we meet a new person, we should assume that person

* is at least as smart as we are
* thinks in a unique way
* possesses many well-thought-out opinions that differ from ours

Of course, once a person proves any of these statements to be wrong, it's fair to replace that assumption with something more accurate, but as a starting point we'd all be better off with the second set than with the first.