strong discipline is required to avoid the easiest, most comfortable narrative, and to reconcile in my writing competing visions of the “good society.”
Only a quiet mind can remain intellectually humble. Intellectual humility involves recognizing the limits of ideas and drawing on multiple perspective. This can only be done if we turn off the noise and find ways to listen to ourselves.
To encourage better introspection, you can try the following:
- minimize social media use
- minimize screen time
- read mostly on print
- dedicate portions of your day to introspection and contemplation
Intellectual problems especially those that engage with social problems require constant updating of assumptions and beliefs. This updating can only be done through contemplation and engagement with different voices—not advocacy.
We need to resist the urge to quickly choose between two opposing stands. Quickly choosing between two perspectives is easy but not the best approach. A better approach is to:
- spend more time wrestling on the tensions and uncertainties of the opposing perspectives.
- look for something in both perspectives that offers something valuable
- Embrace uncertainty, because certainty breeds pride. When one is certain, one stops listening to others. When one is certain, one stops to doubt, stops to grow. Certainty is okay and understandable only if there was enough thinking done to evaluate ideas.
- aspire for moderation, pragmatism, and skepticism that is only possible through deep reading and contemplation
To really contemplate well, avoid spending hours looking and responding to other people’s thoughts.
Social media platforms AI are designed to feed us with content that simply reflects our existing biases rather than content that challenge them.
When a major event occurs, our first thought about it is not our own idea but the opinion of a popular commenter or group that appeals to our worse biases. Matthew Nisbet calls this the “social media outrage machine”. This, he said, is the reason why we can’t think independently and discuss productively with people who have a different opinion from ours.
Using fear can draw people’s attention to a particular issue, but it leaves them powerless and in denial, and so they don’t take real action.
Discourses among opposite views are often reduced into a Manichean storyline where good fights evil. This demonization of the other prevents what Nisbet hopes to happen—drawing best ideas from all factions (center-right, center-left, and left). This is particularly the tendency of progressives. Progressives see a problem as a battle to prevent disaster and transform the world into their version of an ideal society.
Normally, we should be able to rely on news organizations and journalists to scrutinize bad thinking and political maneuvering among opposing sides of an issue. This is increasingly impossible as media organizations and journalists take sides and even help a specific advocacy.
Activists, academics, and journalists protect their narratives vehemently that they discredit experts who question these narratives as deniers, delayers, contrarians, confusionists, lukewarmers, inactivists, and non-solutionists. (Source: https://issues.org/the-science-police/). The purpose of this strategy is to control who has the authority on a particular subject. The use of these labels cultivates a discourse culture where tribalism is more important than “constructive consideration of knowledge and evidence.”
Online immersion is the death of the moderate-minded intellectual. It disrupts our ability to think critically and empathize with others. Nicholas Carr argued that when screen-based text with images and video replaced linear printed books, concentration, disciplined thought, and deeper understanding was replaced by skimming, multitasking, superficial thinking, and short-term memory. Being used to the Internet made reading deeply more difficult.
Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World
Andrew Sullivan: My Distraction Sickness — and Yours
What can you do to minimize the time you spend online?
- Log on Twitter or Facebook only with a very specific intention and purpose.
- Pare down your list of friends.
- Social media is a battle we are all losing. Deleting your accounts in social media might be the best thing to do.
- Shift your reading back to print.
- Plan several hours of solitude.
- Write using pen and paper.
Matt’s process
- Reads and takes note.
- Takes a break to walk or practice yoga.
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We cannot come up with a picture of a “good society” without first describing what a “good individual” is.