Why intellectual humility, truth-seeking, and a willingness to engage those who disagree with us are essential to preserving civil discourse and protecting our fundamental liberties.
In George Orwell's 1984, it was not enough for Winston Smith to simply mouth the words "2 + 2 = 5" because the Party’s ultimate goal was not outward obedience, but total psychological control.
PS— Your essay (which is brilliant) will not reach “true believers”, and that is the crux of the problem today.
Coincidentally, Jeffrey Nall just posted a collection of excerpts from Spinoza’s Ethics and Fromm’s Escape from Freedom. This was a wonderful collection of ideas behind two of my favorite contemporary texts by Jon Haidt and Danny Kahneman:
“We tend to believe our decisions are guided by logic and reason. But in Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman argues that our choices are heavily influenced by ingrained mental shortcuts and emotional biases. This is a fundamental challenge to traditional economic models of human behavior.”
“In The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt explores the complex interplay between the unconscious and conscious aspects of the human mind. He illustrates this inner conflict through the metaphor of an elephant (emotional mind) and its rider (rational mind). Haidt provides insights from ancient wisdom and modern psychology on how to harmonize these contrasting elements.”
Taken together these four perspectives create a solid philosophical and psychological foundation for Professor George’s insightful observations and compelling argument.
Intellectual humility and civil discourse are indispensable, but ideas have consequences. Ideas don't remain inside a seminar room. They become policies, curricula, institutional practices, taxes, regulations, and spending priorities. Once that happens, those who dissent are often required not merely to tolerate ideas they believe are mistaken, but to live under them and finance them.
Education provides a particularly concrete example. A parent may conclude that the public schools have embraced educational or ideological practices that are harmful to his children. Yet he remains obligated to support that system through his taxes while potentially bearing the substantial additional cost of private education to avoid its effects.
That seems different in kind from simply finding oneself in the minority and accepting that one's neighbors disagree. The consequences of losing the political argument can be quite real and quite costly.
If human fallibility counsels humility in debate, shouldn't it also counsel restraint in how readily political majorities impose their convictions—and their costs—on dissenting minorities?
A beautiful, well articulated and much needed essay. Unfortunately it seems a lot of the world these days is about feelings. And more and more we are ruled by people with a lot of feeling who don't know anything.
Robbie, this is a fine essay, and a very important point about the search for T truth. Since your visit to Bratislava a few years ago, I’ve been following you on X (@TomGrey56) and continue to appreciate your thoughts.
To be Great, this essay would need to include a personal example of some truth you believed before, yet now think something else. For me for instance, I had been a Libertarian supporter of legalizing drugs, but now believe it’s unlikely to be net positive even with optimal implementation, and am certain the ways the states have done it are both sub-optimal and negative.
The fastest, and overall best way to get political diversity in our colleges is quotas for registered Republican professors, like 30%.
You’ve previously said quotas don’t work. You’re right & wrong, in that those wanting quotas usually want other things as well, for instance different policies. Many places have used quotas, like Harvard (& Princeton tho net yet sued), which have succeeded in limiting Asian students, or accepting Black students. Quotas DO work. Those quotas worked, tho the extra claim that the college would be better is likely to false. Similarly, a few EU countries have quotas for women in Parliament, and India has quotas for Dalits ( lowest caste).
One requirement for colleges to receive tax benefits is to be non-partisan. The elite colleges all claim to be so, yet they all lie. They are partisan. Tho there is as yet no quota for how many Republicans are needed in order to qualify as non-partisan, 30% seems an excellent minimum, along with 30% registered Democrats.
You’ve said you’re an R, are you registered as a Republican?
Thanks as always for your wisdom. If only civility prevailed to a greater extent than it does.
I'm a tenured faculty member myself, and just a few days ago a colleague--whom I have never had a conversation with--sent me an excoriating email because I signed the petition in support of Nathan Cofnas, the researcher who exposed Jason Arday, ccing both my department chair and the dean of my college.
She called my signing an "embarrassment" for the institution and wished to remind me that our university is explicitly an "anti-racist" institution, as if such a thing were possible. When I replied that if she were sincere in understanding my position she might simply have emailed me without ccing the chair and dean, she wrote that she was not interested in understanding my position because she already knew it.
Her stance is the inverse of the one you eloquently describe here.
That's a sad, but familiar, story, Professor. Your colleague seems not to grasp the critical importance of academic freedom. People holding a vast range of views on the topics on which Nathan Cofnas writes signed the petition supporting him. As that shows, the petition wasn't an endorsement of his views; it was a defense of his right to hold and express his views, whether others agree or disagree with them.
That was very much my view, Professor George, and I did my best to express it without rancor or recrimination toward her.
A favorable follow-up: My chair defended my right to sign the petition in an email to the dean and indicated he was disturbed by the apparent effort to have my speech policed.
In my bio to that article (and all my articles), I say, that I am "committed to restoring truthful, factual birth certificates and promoting civil discourse rather than suppression and silencing."
Let's continue to advocate for truth and civil discourse in any area where it has been compromised. Thank you.
In George Orwell's 1984, it was not enough for Winston Smith to simply mouth the words "2 + 2 = 5" because the Party’s ultimate goal was not outward obedience, but total psychological control.
PS— Your essay (which is brilliant) will not reach “true believers”, and that is the crux of the problem today.
Coincidentally, Jeffrey Nall just posted a collection of excerpts from Spinoza’s Ethics and Fromm’s Escape from Freedom. This was a wonderful collection of ideas behind two of my favorite contemporary texts by Jon Haidt and Danny Kahneman:
“We tend to believe our decisions are guided by logic and reason. But in Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman argues that our choices are heavily influenced by ingrained mental shortcuts and emotional biases. This is a fundamental challenge to traditional economic models of human behavior.”
“In The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt explores the complex interplay between the unconscious and conscious aspects of the human mind. He illustrates this inner conflict through the metaphor of an elephant (emotional mind) and its rider (rational mind). Haidt provides insights from ancient wisdom and modern psychology on how to harmonize these contrasting elements.”
Taken together these four perspectives create a solid philosophical and psychological foundation for Professor George’s insightful observations and compelling argument.
Intellectual humility and civil discourse are indispensable, but ideas have consequences. Ideas don't remain inside a seminar room. They become policies, curricula, institutional practices, taxes, regulations, and spending priorities. Once that happens, those who dissent are often required not merely to tolerate ideas they believe are mistaken, but to live under them and finance them.
Education provides a particularly concrete example. A parent may conclude that the public schools have embraced educational or ideological practices that are harmful to his children. Yet he remains obligated to support that system through his taxes while potentially bearing the substantial additional cost of private education to avoid its effects.
That seems different in kind from simply finding oneself in the minority and accepting that one's neighbors disagree. The consequences of losing the political argument can be quite real and quite costly.
If human fallibility counsels humility in debate, shouldn't it also counsel restraint in how readily political majorities impose their convictions—and their costs—on dissenting minorities?
A beautiful, well articulated and much needed essay. Unfortunately it seems a lot of the world these days is about feelings. And more and more we are ruled by people with a lot of feeling who don't know anything.
Love is wonderful, but hate is what truly motivates voters. Thus, hate.
As for truth, there's a Ministry somewhere to deal with that vexation.
Especially hating someone in the other group.
Robbie, this is a fine essay, and a very important point about the search for T truth. Since your visit to Bratislava a few years ago, I’ve been following you on X (@TomGrey56) and continue to appreciate your thoughts.
To be Great, this essay would need to include a personal example of some truth you believed before, yet now think something else. For me for instance, I had been a Libertarian supporter of legalizing drugs, but now believe it’s unlikely to be net positive even with optimal implementation, and am certain the ways the states have done it are both sub-optimal and negative.
The fastest, and overall best way to get political diversity in our colleges is quotas for registered Republican professors, like 30%.
You’ve previously said quotas don’t work. You’re right & wrong, in that those wanting quotas usually want other things as well, for instance different policies. Many places have used quotas, like Harvard (& Princeton tho net yet sued), which have succeeded in limiting Asian students, or accepting Black students. Quotas DO work. Those quotas worked, tho the extra claim that the college would be better is likely to false. Similarly, a few EU countries have quotas for women in Parliament, and India has quotas for Dalits ( lowest caste).
One requirement for colleges to receive tax benefits is to be non-partisan. The elite colleges all claim to be so, yet they all lie. They are partisan. Tho there is as yet no quota for how many Republicans are needed in order to qualify as non-partisan, 30% seems an excellent minimum, along with 30% registered Democrats.
You’ve said you’re an R, are you registered as a Republican?
Thanks as always for your wisdom. If only civility prevailed to a greater extent than it does.
I'm a tenured faculty member myself, and just a few days ago a colleague--whom I have never had a conversation with--sent me an excoriating email because I signed the petition in support of Nathan Cofnas, the researcher who exposed Jason Arday, ccing both my department chair and the dean of my college.
She called my signing an "embarrassment" for the institution and wished to remind me that our university is explicitly an "anti-racist" institution, as if such a thing were possible. When I replied that if she were sincere in understanding my position she might simply have emailed me without ccing the chair and dean, she wrote that she was not interested in understanding my position because she already knew it.
Her stance is the inverse of the one you eloquently describe here.
That's a sad, but familiar, story, Professor. Your colleague seems not to grasp the critical importance of academic freedom. People holding a vast range of views on the topics on which Nathan Cofnas writes signed the petition supporting him. As that shows, the petition wasn't an endorsement of his views; it was a defense of his right to hold and express his views, whether others agree or disagree with them.
That was very much my view, Professor George, and I did my best to express it without rancor or recrimination toward her.
A favorable follow-up: My chair defended my right to sign the petition in an email to the dean and indicated he was disturbed by the apparent effort to have my speech policed.
This.
Excellent article! I wrote about preserving and restoring truthful, factual birth certificates: https://eyesopenmom.substack.com/p/it-is-time-to-preserve-and-restore
In my bio to that article (and all my articles), I say, that I am "committed to restoring truthful, factual birth certificates and promoting civil discourse rather than suppression and silencing."
Let's continue to advocate for truth and civil discourse in any area where it has been compromised. Thank you.