Photography arguments don’t stall because people are uninformed. They stall because professionals, hobbyists, and spectators speak from different realities while using the same language. This text maps the fault lines that make most debates structurally impossible.
Scroll through the comments under almost any photography article, and the pattern is instantly familiar. It’s a recurring script: the film vs. digital divide, moral panic over AI, irritation around gear pricing, arguments about likes, effort, and authenticity. Different triggers, same outcome.
What looks like disagreement is something else. These discussions rarely fail because someone is wrong. They stall when the same words are used to describe different realities. Until those realities are named, photography debates remain locked inside the same validation loops.
Future vs. Present
Most arguments about the future of photography collapse before they begin. For a professional, the present is already the past. Decisions made today shape outcomes tomorrow, or sometimes much later. Analysis is not speculation. In professional practice, it is delayed consequence management.
The more years someone has invested in mastering a specific skill set, the harder it is to accept a future where that skill set matters less. What follows is rarely a discussion about tools. It turns into a defense of time already spent, of status already earned, of an identity built around that competence.
The professional isn’t fighting against a new sensor or an algorithm. They are reacting to the erosion of their specialized sovereignty, the quiet fear that what once guaranteed relevance may no longer do so. Forecasting is read as a personal threat. Market analysis feels intrusive. Emotional reassurance replaces prediction, and the argument shifts away from whether change is coming.
Price vs. Value
Few topics ignite comments faster than price. Cameras are too expensive. Subscriptions are unjustified. Certain brands are dismissed as luxury toys. On the surface, this looks like a debate about value. It isn’t.
A hobbyist evaluates equipment through purchase price. A professional evaluates it through cost of ownership and return on investment. For one, buying a camera is a personal expense, often a sacrifice pulled from a household budget. For the other, it is a business decision, frequently a tax deduction that either pays for itself or exits the workflow.
These are not two opinions about the same object. They belong to different economic realities. The argument is unresolvable by definition because the parties are answering different questions: one asks about the cost of a dream, the other about the efficiency of a tool. This is also why experienced professionals rarely complain that certain brands are overpriced. If a tool does not make sense in terms of reliability, ownership cost, and ROI, it simply isn’t used.
Price debates become emotional when business logic and personal spending are forced into the same conversation. It is a clash between the logic of investment and the logic of consumption.
Results vs. Metrics
A photograph in a book, on a screen, and on a wall exists in different realities. They are different objects, shaped not only by technical conditions but by how they are encountered. They exist in different perceptual regimes and follow different rules.
Screens operate on speed, contrast, and immediate legibility. Walls operate on scale, distance, physical presence, and duration. These conditions demand different authorial decisions, from composition to color to density. There will never be a perfect correspondence between screen and print. That gap is structural.
The conflict intensifies inside the attention economy. Likes, shares, and reach measure how efficiently an image moves through a feed. A like is a metric of recognition, not discovery. It confirms that the viewer saw something they already knew how to like. Search-driven work often produces images that feel unfamiliar at first, precisely because they lack a stable aesthetic category.
Both attention-based imagery and experience-based work are forced to coexist on the same platforms. When someone says, “I don’t care about likes,” they are often speaking from outside the attention economy. For others, metrics are tied directly to income and visibility. Problems arise when one mode of evaluation is used to judge work made for another.
Effort vs. Meaning
The film versus digital debate rarely concerns aesthetics. It is usually a dispute about effort. Complexity becomes moral capital.
Both workflows are demanding, just in different ways. Film concentrates complexity in capture and material processes. Digital relocates it into control: color management, calibration, printing, consistency across devices and viewing conditions. Once work leaves the monitor, digital photography is not a shortcut. It redistributes complexity.
The conflict begins when complexity is used as a substitute for meaning. This is where the “BTS culture” becomes a trap: resource-heavy processes turn into a production alibi. The implicit claim is simple: the work matters because it was difficult to produce. The viewer, however, does not experience the process. They experience the image.
Effort is a production issue. Meaning is a communicative one. Confusing the two is how process replaces intention.
Pleasure vs. Development
Not all photography serves the same purpose, yet discussions often pretend it does. At least three distinct modes coexist.
Photography as pleasure prioritizes experience and enjoyment. Photography as fact records presence and proof. Photography as search works differently. It does not promise comfort, clarity, or approval. It often produces uncertainty first and meaning later, sometimes much later. This is why it irritates so many discussions: search has no immediate payoff, no stable criteria, and no clear way to explain itself while it is still happening.
Most photography lives comfortably in the first two categories. Conflict emerges when work driven by search is evaluated using the logic of pleasure or documentation. When someone says, “It’s been done before,” they are usually applying the logic of novelty of form to a process of personal inquiry. For the person in search mode, the fact that something existed decades ago is irrelevant. They are not looking for a new trick. They are looking for clarity.
The problem is not that most people photograph for pleasure. The problem is expecting pleasure-based logic to explain search.
Conclusion
Photography discussions do not fail because people misunderstand each other. They stall because they are built on an ontological disagreement, a fundamental clash in what we believe photography is for.
Different realities use the same words as if they belonged to a shared frame. Comment sections do not exist to resolve these conflicts. They amplify them.
We spend years arguing across these fault lines, wondering why the other side seems blind, when the truth is simpler: We are not looking at the same map. Once it becomes clear where a statement is coming from, most arguments stop being interesting. Comment sections mix professionals, hobbyists, beginners, and spectators into the same space. They speak from different positions and with different stakes. What sounds like a debate about photography is often a way to defend past choices, justify effort, or protect status. Money, tools, and tradition become convenient stand-ins for that defense. In this environment, disagreement is not a failure of communication. It is the default outcome.
Understanding these fault lines does not make conversations nicer. It makes them shorter. In an industry that repeats the same disputes with every technological shift, recognizing when a discussion is structurally impossible is not just a skill—it is a requirement for professional survival.
26 Comments
I'm not sure that there's a clear dividing line between failure and success in a discussion. Is success dependent upon winning an argument, as if we can expect the other side to be convinced of our opinion and admit defeat? Or is it more like having a reasonable exchange of ideas, absent deterioration into a nasty brawl of insults?
I'm pretty sure of one thing: communication is hard. Ask anyone who's been married awhile or been in a serious relationship about how many pitfalls there are along the way. Sometimes it's simply better to ask a question and listen than to talk. To your point, we bring a lifetime of history into any comment that we make. And inevitably some comments will clash with another person's perspective.
But a gracious person will not allow history to preempt the future when it comes to a discussion. It's hard because being open to a different idea seems illogical. How can we even conceive of being wrong, or that another side of the argument exists? Indeed, so many comments begin by: "Let me tell you about me..." or "I started photography 60 years ago" or "I've been teaching photography for 30 years, so I know better..." Me, me, me... As if there is only one right answer and past credentials are used to prove a point.
So, yes, how we've gotten to the place we are now shapes a discussion. But it doesn't have to determine the outcome. The open and enlightening exchange of ideas as an outcome is rooted in humility and genuine interest in learning about the other side of the argument... not an all out assault launched from our own point of view, meant to bash and batter the opponent until he succumbs to our way of thinking. Success in a discussion is more psychology than proving a point. This isn't the Olympics. Fstoppers and social media discussions in general employ tactics and words that would fail miserably at home.
The people who are asking are usually jerks and they don't have the knowledge to correctly ask questions anyway.
a good summary of the mechanics and outward appearances of many forum's comment sections' "discussions" . Viewpoints based on levels of experiences and needs of commenters, and the reasons behind those viewpoints, are often mixed up and misunderstood in these discussions.
That’s precisely the point, thank you. The arguments collapse when different needs and levels of experience are forced into a single conversational frame.
You are definitely right about the dichotomy in values between the professional gear buyers and the hobbyists. In the photo/hybrid camera market, the distinction between professional and consumer gear is less clear-cut than in other areas of the imaging and AV equipment market.
Furthermore, the boundaries between consumer, prosumer, and professional are becoming increasingly blurred, even more so than the existing overlaps within the professional sphere. Many individuals today make a living using photo and video equipment, even if they don't fit traditional roles like photographer, DP, videographer, or other commercial image makers.
In this new commercial imaging landscape, there is a recognition that gear pricing, previously used to distinguish professionals from aspiring creators, is an artificial construct, a barrier that benefits only a few, a relic of a bygone era, a real hindrance to the photo and video economy, that exists despite the many crossover opportunities that manufacturers could be capitalizing on.
In today's digital world, it's difficult for equipment companies to justify limiting their products and crippling features to push customers towards higher-priced options, especially when these limitations are clearly software-based and unrelated to manufacturing or engineering costs. People are too cognizant of the underlying technologies to be easily fooled by artificial barriers.
Given their features, build, and competition with phones, it's clear that all stand alone cameras today are overpriced, and the outdated tiered market segments of the past 40 years contributes to this problem.
An iPhone or high end Samsung phone can do so much, and has so much compute power but costs under $1800, why should people pay $3000 for inferior technology and software that does so much less and has outdated interfaces and user experience?
Since the beginning of digital design/manufacturing in the 1980s, in the past 5 years design, prototyping, and manufacturing costs have decreased dramatically, by a factor of 50, but these savings have not been passed on to consumers, and whether hobbyists or professionals we are still paying more than 5x the post manufacturing price of these products. When people say the A7V or R6III is too expensive, this is actually what they're complaining about. How is it that even at inflation adjusted prices we are paying more for gear that costs less to make? I paid $1000 for 32MB of RAM in 1995 but even in the current ram shortage/price gouging, Ram prices are way lower than they were in 1996. Not so for cameras, in fact they have increased in prices dramatically versus their build costs.
In reality, mid-range cameras such as the R6/A7/H2S/S1 should be priced between $1500 and $2100, as Nikon has priced the Z6 and ZR, but these OEMs are trying to prevent these midrange models becoming the locust of their product lines, at a price point that they think would undercut their more powerful options. This is silly of course as they should be learning to target better and therefore offer product ranges that connect with all of today’s possible buyers, instead of the limited roles from 2 decades ago.
If a pro photo camera with all bells and whistles matching today’s high-end phone in ux and software ability comes to market with a traditional large sensor, for sure it should cost $3000 to $4500, but here is the thing: in terms of business ROI, it is very, very hard to justify the current $6000<$9000 for a “pro” photo camera.
Similarly, unless there are very specific business circumstances, it no longer makes business sense to invest in a $50,000 ENG video camera or a $100k cinema camera; when Oscar-nominated films are being shot with $3k cameras, with spectacular results. It just doesn’t make business sense.
That is the issue on the commercial imaging side.
Today the distribution medium that dominates commercial work is the phone screen… Not a movie theater or a high-resolution print magazine or even a TV set. Therefore, by not providing the right features and tools at the right price, for the current flood of creators out there, manufacturers are continuing to cripple the market needlessly, and shooting themselves in the foot by pushing users towards what they know—Phones.
The fear that consumers will ‘abuse’ the mid-tier “value prosumer camera”, is part of the same short-sighted, retrograde logic that initially shrunk the camera market 20 years ago. These OEMs fear that customers will think that if a $1700 A7 can do everything one needs, then there’s no need for an R5 or an A1 is not based on sound logic. This thinking distracts from what these companies should focus on: innovating and improving the user experience and feature sets of their tools to better meet real customers’ needs, creating more “versatile but powerful” cameras for more market reach and passing on savings to consumers to build trust and the scope of the market.
Like many incumbents before them, these companies will likely be surpassed by upstart competitors, such as DJI or another Chinese company, that actual research and study current snd future consumers rather than forcing customers into outdated sales silos.
DJI exemplifies an upstart that has surpassed a “market creator” GoPro in the action camera market, generating new markets such as in consumer drones and consumer gimbaled cameras, which traditional camera OEMs neglected, using these successes to fund the necessary new technologies and research that will enable them to target the strongholds of the incumbents.
It’s confusing that Sony, which was an upstart against the Canon/Nikon duopoly just 15 years ago, would fall into this trap.
P.S.: Leica is a jewelry/luxury goods company and should not be considered in these conversations. It’s like saying a Bugatti can be compared to a Corvette cause they are both sports cars…
"How is it that even at inflation adjusted prices we are paying more for gear that costs less to make?"
It is because of greed. Many of us customers are struggling to earn $16,000 to $35,000 UD dollars per year, living on this meagre income. Yet all of the executives at the camera companies are earning 5 to 20 times more than we are ...... and yet they are expecting us to pay the high prices that will support their bloated salaries and stock cash-outs.
If the cost of a product is based on the people at that company to make way way way way more than the people they are trying to sell the product to, then it is overpriced. This is true regardless of what type of product it is.
If ALL of the people at a company are all making the same level of income that I am making, then when they try to sell me something, I know that the price is reasonable because they are not sucking money out of the poor guy in order to amass even more wealth for themselves. In other words, any time someone becomes a millionaire by selling things to the lower and middle classes, then they have overpriced their products. Because if they were willing to earn the same income as their customers earn, then the products they sell would be reasonably priced.
Another question and answer from Google AI:
"Based on data for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025, the total compensation for Nikon's CEO (Toshikazu Umatate) is approximately ¥116 million (approx. $761,000 USD). Compared to Nikon's total operating expenses for the same period (roughly ¥309.5 billion or 309,545 million yen), the CEO's total compensation represents an extremely small fraction of overall costs, significantly less than 0.1% (approx. 0.037%)."
Frankly it surprises me that his salary is so low. Maybe there are stock options or other forms of compensation too. Okay, we're beating a dead horse here after having debated this point so often, and like the subject of the article itself, we're coming at it from different backgrounds and points of view. So there's virtually no chance of bridging the gap between opinions. But maybe we can have a conversation.
First of all, I share your opinion that there's too much disparity between very rich and poor. That sort of thing historically never works out well. I don't feel good about the fact that we live in one of the wealthiest countries on the planet, but have a huge segment of our population that can't afford a roof over their head, or goes hungry. But that doesn't entitle everyone to a $3000 Nikon camera. If you try to work and can't afford food and shelter, that's a societal problem. If you work hard and can't afford an expensive camera, that's your problem, not ours.
But really, other than raising awareness of the problem, what do you propose to do about it?
Do you really want the livelihood and future of all of Nikon's employees to be resting on the shoulders of somebody earning minimum wage? Just to demonstrate equality? If the executives who make the company's functional decisions are being paid a fraction of their pay now, what kind of qualified candidates do you think they'll attract? Engineers don't build these products with a sixth grade education. Masters and doctorate degrees in engineering are a huge investment in time and cost. You think after all that, they're gonna work for $30,000 a year just so you can feel better about economic disparity?
To be sure, I am thankful for having lived my life in this country where I've had the freedom to choose my occupational path. I've chosen to work in an industry that I felt was most interesting. I've made decisions to work a little harder, or less so at times, at my discretion. I've lived happily with the consequences. I certainly don't begrudge those people their rewards who have worked harder and smarter than me. Governments that force labor at a compensation level of their choice do not generally create a happy people. Content with survival, maybe, but probably not terribly excited about getting up and going to work. We have that opportunity in this country to determine our own destiny and nothing should ever restrict that. I'm sure that's why my grandfather crossed the Atlantic from eastern Europe in 1910 with no money and no English. But he didn't drag everyone down to his level after he got here. In 16 years, he became a part owner of a metal stamping business in Manhattan. I have no expectations about what someone else should or should not have. I only expect that if I desire to have something, that it's my responsibility to make it happen.
I would not say that it is due to greed. The YouTube channel "Photography Explained" did a very good synopsis of the costs associated with the manufacture of professional cameras. Here is a link, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7RXaItP7aI. They also have another video on the costs of lenses.
As someone who worked for years developing electro-optical systems, I can tell you that most people have no idea of the complexity (read cost) of sensor and readout technology. Add to that the fact that there is a lot of processing/algorithm technology packed into a camera body. I think we tend to fondly remember the $350 we paid for a Canon AE-1 back in "the good old days". But that body was basically a mechanical shutter mechanism with a relatively simple photometer for exposure. DSLR/MILC camera bodies today are way more on the cutting edge of today's current technology than SLR's were compared to the cutting edge technology of the time. And as pointed out in the video that I linked above, production quantity is one of the biggest drivers of relative costs of technology systems. PC's and smartphones sell orders of magnitude more units than digital cameras, which significantly reduces component prices. Of the systems I worked on, roughly 70-80% of the final cost of the system was due to component costs. Labor, G&A and 10% profit made up the rest. And these were very expensive systems. It was not greed.
A very good read. I recently left a photographic site I was on for years. I wasn't quite sure why. This explains it. I might stick around a bit.
Alvin Greis wrote:
"Photography as search works differently. It does not promise comfort, clarity, or approval. It often produces uncertainty first and meaning later, sometimes much later. This is why it irritates so many discussions: search has no immediate payoff, no stable criteria, and no clear way to explain itself while it is still happening."
"For the person in search mode, the fact that something existed decades ago is irrelevant. They are not looking for a new trick. They are looking for clarity."
Alvin,
I am still struggling mightily to understand what you mean by "search". I have read and re-read the paragraphs about search in this article. I have read and re-read the paragraphs about search in your other articles. And yet I am still completely stumped.
When a discussion or explanation lives in the realm of the theoretical, the abstract, I will probably not be able to grasp the concepts, no matter how many times they are reiterated.
If "search" was explained by giving tangible examples, then I would probably be able to understand exactly what you mean. Somehow, the way you write, the way you explain things, is just way over my head; it is in a stratosphere in which my brain does not go. Yet I really want to develop a thorough understanding of what it is that you are discussing in your articles.
If you would be able to explain "photography as search" in a layman's way, in very clear, tangible form, then I think it would really help me to understand what you are writing about. Actual examples are the most helpful. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a tangible example is worth at least a hundred.
I think a better word than "search" to describe the type of photography Alvin is referring to is "exploration." Pleasure-documentation-exploration. He tells us about two of three categories. Pleasure and documentary photography are the two easy ones to understand. Pleasure is purely for the fun of the experience; it captures a memory. A documentary picture of the Statue of Liberty is an image which is taken from the same angle and perspective as virtually all others. Any viewer understands the meaning and intent of the picture immediately with no additional thought or analysis.
The third category could potentially be defined even without a name or title. After all, what's left? The unknown, the mystery, the conceptual, the hard to understand, the vague meaning or intent of the photographer. Those are attributes which seem to define Alvin's use of the word "search" photography. These sort of images invite the viewer to search (explore) for meaning, rather than make it obvious. Consider Alvin's photography, because his images and essays are born out of the same mind. What do you see in his lead photo below the title? Not a documentary image. Probably not made just for fun. It's an abstract image inviting the viewer to search or explore for meaning and understanding. That's his style. And it's embedded in his writing as well. Asking Alvin for concrete examples is like asking him to shoot a postcard shot of the Eiffel Tower.
I do think the word "search" is a confusing term because, in the broader context, search driven photography is created for the purpose of being found. When I asked Google AI for the definition of search driven photography, its answer was....
"Search-driven photography is a technique where images are captured specifically to be easily found, identified, and ranked by AI-powered visual search engines and algorithms. It focuses on distance/angle matching—shooting from perspectives users are likely to search for (e.g., standard, clear angles) rather than purely artistic angles. This approach is increasingly used to ensure products, locations, and subjects rank higher in digital, visual search results."
I don't think that's at all what Alvin is describing by search photography. Ultimately, the article is about differences in the way we all approach photography that lead to failure in communication. Discussions break down when we all have different reasons for buying a camera, learning an editing technique, or how our images are presented to the public. Search photography was just one example. Some photographers purposely make images that are harder to understand, which leads to rejection from the pleasure and documentary photographers. Criticism follows. Discussions collapse. The same concept can be applied to writing technique and style. You expect it to be delivered in one style... the author delivers in another. Without some attempt to understand the other person's position, communication becomes a failure.
Was just thinking... Have you read any of Dan Brown's books? The DaVinci Code probably being the most well known. His current book "The Secret of Secrets" is a fascinating tale of metaphysical thought in the context of a life-or-death chase through the city of Prague. As in any mystery or suspense novel, the author could come right out and tell us who the murderer was and their motive, in which case it would be a short documentary instead of a thought-provoking novel. And sometimes I prefer that. I have all sorts of books which document the history and culture of a place. But art is often rendered in great mysteries, and has been for as long as artists have been making it and critics have been trying to understand it. And not just literature or fine art. Bob Dylan's lyrics are in many cases intentionally ambiguous and considered hard to interpret. But we don't say... Hey, Bob, give it to us straight in a manner that everyone can understand. That is the artist, author, or songwriter's prerogative to communicate and engage with the audience in a manner of their choosing.
I try to use these terms deliberately, at least to the extent my command of English allows, because they describe different working situations rather than stylistic preferences.
Search is the search for territory.
You don’t know what exactly you will find, or even whether the “land” exists at all. There is no map. The criteria of evaluation are not yet defined, because it is unclear what will need to be evaluated in the first place. That is why the historical argument “it was already there” does not work here. Columbus was doing a search: he was not looking for a new route to a known place, he was looking for the territory itself.
Exploration is movement across an already discovered territory.
The land exists. Its outlines are known. The goal is to traverse it, to understand its terrain, connections, possibilities, and limits. This is the work of settlers, cartographers, and second-stage pioneers. They do not question the existence of the territory, but clarify how it is structured and how one can move within it.
From what I recall in my history lessons, Columbus was indeed looking for a new route to Asia that had not been known at the time. The Europeans knew all about spices and gold that existed in the East Indies, but Columbus was certain there was a shorter and less hazardous way to get there. His purpose was not to discover a new continent but to bring home gold. It seems that when he died in 1506, he still thought the land they came across in the present day Caribbean was at the eastern edge of Asia.
I don't think of art and photography as searching for something that has never previously been known to exist. Art history, music, literature all evolve... something does not suddenly appear out of nothing. Your search sounds like something that happened out of the Big-Bang theory. I think of creativity as working from within the exploration process. My goal is to improve upon the images I've made in the past, using existing terrain as a path to new work. That's pretty much how education in general functions; using building blocks to get from one level of understanding to another. I can't understand how creativity would actually work otherwise.
That difference in how you describe your process is exactly the distinction I’m pointing to. What you’re describing is exploration within known terrain. My use of search refers to a different working state, one that precedes that stage. These modes don’t cancel each other out, but they don’t operate by the same logic either.
There is nothing that precedes exploration. If so, show me one image that was born out of the concept of the working state that you call search.
This is exactly the reason why many photographers describe their conversations with galleries as frustrating or opaque.
You’re asking for a finished image as proof. Galleries often ask for a position, a logic, or a trajectory long before images exist, for example, when a concept for an exhibition is approved two years in advance. These are different stages of work, spoken about as if they were the same.
When the request is always “show me the result,” any stage that precedes a stabilized result becomes unintelligible by default. That mismatch, not disagreement, is where most of the friction comes from.
Unless your name is Annie Leibovitz, I've never heard of a gallery committing to an exhibition years in advance based on ideas rather than finished images. But, yes, conversations with galleries are frustrating. Even if the images are complete, the resume and story of the artist take precedence. In my limited experience making an introduction to a gallery, they ask two things: show me what you've got, and tell me who you are. The latter being the difference between a $500 piece of art and a $5,000 price tag. And that's why I'm better at selling $500 prints.
That’s a familiar and realistic approach, and many photographers arrive at the same conclusion. I’ve chosen a different strategy for my own work.
I was actually surprised when a contemporary art museum asked me to outline an exhibition concept years in advance, without finished works, only a clear idea and references to earlier projects. For them, that was enough to reserve a slot for 2028–29.
Alvin, I am asking myself how you may have become a system thinker. I now read just a few lines at articles and I find myself checking who wrote it because I know right away who did.
Your comment interests me ..... I would like to know what a "system thinker" is, in your words. I am unfamiliar with the term.
Systems thinking is a non-linear mode of thought that prioritizes interactions, feedback, and constraints over isolated elements or linear causality.
It can be approached in two ways: pre-thought or post-thought. The most common, or standard, systems thinking is cortex-dominant, trained through experience and culture rather than self-taught. This requires time, practice, and a mind capable of holding complexity.
The less common, embodied systems thinking, engages the entire nervous system. It often emerges from a nervous system shaped early by high-intensity regulation that medical coding sometimes labels early adversity. Importantly, this doesn’t always involve trauma. The effect is hyper-vigilance, internal regulation, and autonomic self-sufficiency, producing a high capacity to perceive subtle cues and patterns.
Cortex-dominant thinkers pre-organize structure before expressing it. For example, writing chapters that may appear repetitive but reveal new angles on the same idea. Loops are visible intellectually, but often not to readers expecting linearity.
Embodied thinkers, by contrast, use a subtractive process. They act, regulate internally, and only afterward realize the emergent structure of what was done.
Bottom line, don’t overthink it. The only thing that matters is that everybody's nervous systems regulates differently. That's in part why we approach things differently, including photography.
Interesting. If I don't place problem solving into sequential steps, my brain can't function. The only way I've been able to learn applications such as Photoshop, and Filemaker database software for running my business, is to begin with one simple task, and build upon that with another, one consecutive step at a time. I suspect that's what you call linear thinking. They're called building blocks to me. Anything else just sounds like a foreign language. Which, by the way, might be a better example of what you're talking about as systems thinking, where immersion is more effective than working through a textbook a page at a time. But I'm not very good at learning a foreign language.
It’s actually quite simple. I spent nearly 25 years working in strategy and consulting, where systemic thinking isn’t a separate skill but a daily working mode. For me, it was never opposed to creative thinking. It’s just a way to hold complexity without reducing it to taste or opinion.
In my experience most 'discussions' (pointless arguments) usually end up with someone trying to dictate what is and what isn't and when I (or someone else) points out a different view, rather than having a healthy respect for different opinions (even if they disagree with that opinion), they just double down as if every other opinion is wrong and they are right. A lot of the time this viewpoint of theirs simply comes from a naive perspective, just their own experience and also an unwillingness to accept other people do things differently and have different priorities and preferences. The times I've seen arguments over sensor size or zoom vs prime for two utterly tedious examples where someone will claim their preference for zooms, for example means anyone preferring primes is wrong for not seeing the world as they see it.
Exactly. Once a personal preference is treated as a universal standard, discussion turns into enforcement rather than exchange. What’s often framed as disagreement is really a refusal to accept that different priorities produce different, equally valid decisions.