What is Harder to Win?: The Heart or the Mind?
What is Harder to Win, Heart or Mind?
(Note: This short article is humble effort to comply with the informal query of the SND, Secretary Voltaire Gazmin to his staff, including the then BGEN HERNANDO DC A IRIBERRI AFP, (SMA to SND) on what is harder to win, the heart or the mind, way back in 2010.)
In the context of its current military usage of “winning the hearts and minds of the people“, Hearts and minds should not be construed literally, neither separately. It is a metaphor which means total support of the people. Parallel interpretation holds true with the idiomatic expression of fighting war is the soldiers’ “bread and butter”; where, bread and butter should not be taken literally, nor separately; otherwise, we will lose the intended meaning.
But when we are specifically required to answer the question “What is harder to win, the Heart or the Mind?” We have no choice but to dissect the idiom “Hearts and Minds” into separate words.
When we attend to the mind, we are concerned with the thinking process and the intellectual understanding that derives from knowledge; which implies, analysis, integration of acquired data, comparison, logical thinking and use of reasons. When we talk about the mind, it is more akin to objective use of information available in order to arrive at an acceptable solution or decision. Hence, before you convince a person who is using his mind, you must deal with him using hard facts, clear data and logical arguments.
On the other hand, when we speak of the heart, we consider a person’s feelings and emotions. The heart deals with personal interests, preferences, moods, personal biases and subjective interpretation of the environment. Usually, a passionate person who is emotionally aroused, doesn’t listen to reasons nor believe in logic.
Now, what is harder to win? It depends on the audience or subjects. When the audience is composed of intellectuals, well schooled and people who used to adopt rational and logical thinking, winning the minds is easier because these people listen to reason and their hearts will simply follow their minds. However, if the audience is composed of people who are emotional and culturally biased, the easier approach is through the heart and winning the mind is harder because they don’t listen to reasons.
Therefore, in order to be holistic in our approach in winning the total support of the people for our ISO, we must address both the hearts and the minds because, most often than not, we are targeting a community composed of heterogeneous people with differing political, social, economical, ethical or religious persuasions.
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