Socrates Triple Filter Test
Have you heard any rumors or gossip recently? Bill Gates is gay, the brutal murder of a young mother in Athens was not an accident, or one of the volunteers in the clinical trials (choose any) of the vaccinations died! We may share these stories but what good do they do us? In fact, can they do us harm?
In the work place, stories spreading rumor and gossip are known as ‘workplace terrorism’ due to the fear they spread, and as you can guess, they are very bad for morale.
So how can we counter them?
Perhaps the best solution is to apply Socrates wonderful Triple filter test. This isn’t a way he made coffee (!), it’s a way to decide if information is worth spreading. The story goes like this;
In ancient Greece, Socrates was said to hold knowledge in high esteem. One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, "Do you know what I just heard about your friend?"
"Hold on a minute," Socrates replied. "Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be good idea to take a moment and filter what you’re going to say. That’s why I call it the triple filter test. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"
"Well, no," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and…"
"All right," said Socrates. "So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now, let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?"
"Umm, no, on the contrary…"
"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about my friend, but you’re not certain it’s true. You may still pass the test though, because there’s one filter left—the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?"
"No, not really."
"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither true, nor good, nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?"
Simple, right?
