“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
–MLK
Goddammit, MLK, stealing my points and saying them better than me.
I also argued politics as a teen and also encountered this take from a self-styled libertarian (who AFAIK grew up to be a reasonable businessman).
The world is full of beliefs sincerely held by absolute morons.
Probably yes.
What it comes down to is, I think people vastly overestimate the amount of bad faith arguing out there.
It depends upon what you mean by bad faith. Wiki, emphasis added:
Bad faith (Latin: mala fides) is a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another. It is associated with hypocrisy, breach of contract, affectation, and lip service. It may involve intentional deceit of others, or self-deception (Self-deception - Wikipedia).
Bad faith is everywhere and its distinguishing characteristic is lack of care about getting the argument right. A common and undue concern with sincerity just leads you down a rabbit hole. How the proponents feel is secondary to what they do, what they express.
Bad faith is one of the great issues because it’s imperfectly understood (also by myself). At what point does conventional delusion tip into bad faith, its more extreme variant? Conventional delusion is everywhere after all. Most of us think like soldiers too much of the time. When faced with an inconvenient fact or argument they ask themselves, “Must I accept this?”, and proceed to poke holes. Soldiers concern themselves with defending a position. Far better is to think like a scout, a person concerned with creating an accurate map. Recommended book, of which I’ve only read a couple of chapters:
Cultivating a scout mindset requires some work, which I personally have not put in.
The point: we’re probably wired to think like soldiers. Bad faith is ubiquitous. Politeness, persuasion, and simple diplomacy demand that we assume good faith, but that’s not an accurate depiction of the world so we should consider it a first approximation only, a very convenient and generally advisable fiction.
Good points.
This is an excellent tip!
The scout mindset emphasizes curiosity, unbiased truth-seeking, and facing reality, even if that reality is unexpected.
I read the whole book a while back, and I also recommend it.
The problem with being a scout is that soldiers usually beat them in a fight.
My old (and favorite) boss’s favorite saying was “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
mmm
Or they get fucked by scoutmasters…
I’ve only read the Wiki article, but if that is correct that Elon Musk is given as an example of the kind of mindset to emulate, the book is not getting my eyeballs
If you’re avoiding the book because it doesn’t confirm what you already believe, you’re precisely the kind of person who could benefit from reading the book.
Musk is used as an example in a chapter on thinking about risk. Supposedly, when Musk invested in SpaceX and Tesla, he did so not because he thought they would be successful (he gave them each about a 10% chance of success), but because the potential upside was so large that they were “bets worth taking.”
I’m certainly no fan of Elon Musk, and I’m not sure that Musk is as good an example, even just in this one area, as the author seems to think. But I do appreciate the point she’s trying to make.
Moderator Note
Let’s not have comments like this in ATMB, please.
No, I’m avoiding the book because of what it says about someone I do know a bit about.
Seconded! Julia Galef is a smart cookie.
This is a subject I’ve been interested in for a while and have been building a recommended as et of reading lists on critical thinking, discord, and — most relevant to the topic at hand — engagement.
Those look like some good lists. If you’re looking for more recommendations, I’ve liked Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz and How To Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds by Alan Jacobs, in somewhat the same vein.
Scouts dominate map-making battles.
The scout and soldier are archetypes of course. Graf tries to steelman her case. So she addresses lawyers, who are professional advocates. Should they think like solders? Graf:
Even jobs that don’t seem to depend on scout mindset usually do once you look closer. Most people associate being a lawyer with arguing for a side… But when a lawyer is choosing cases and preparing for a trial, they need to be able to form an accurate picture of the strengths and weaknesses of their case. Overestimate your own side and you’re setting yourself up for a rude awakening in the courtroom…
She cites a couple of studies:
…law students who are randomly assigned to one side of a moot court case become confident, after reading the case materials, that their side is morally and legally in the right. But that confidence doesn’t help them persuade the judge. On the contrary, law students who are more confident in the merits of their own side are significantly less likely to win the case-- perhaps because they fail to consider and prepare for the rebuttals to their arguments.
Cite:
Eigen and Listokin, “Do Lawyers Really Believe Their Onw Hype, and Should They? A Natural Experiment” 2012
There’s a similar effect with law school negotiation exercises. Randomly assigned students tend to believe their side deserves more money, but those who do so tend to fail to reach agreement and walk away with less money on average. Lowenstein et al “Self Serving Assessments of Fairness and Pre-trial Bargaining.” 1993.
Thank you for the recommendations. Being Wrong was already on my TBR list, but How to Think is new to me.
I think there is a certain honor in being wrong, because if you feel you are wrong, or you have doubt, it means you are honestly seeking the truth.
There are a lot of subjects, even ones I feel strongly about, where I have allowed myself the space to consider that maybe I don’t have all the facts.
I have a friend who is on the conservative Christian/libertarian side. We’ve always connected over our love of movies and the fact that we’re all in helping professions. One day we went over to his house and we all ended up talking about abortion. It was not a heated conversation, more of a congenial one. This despite the fact I have very strong reproductive rights leanings and my friend works for a clinic that counsels young mothers who are choosing life (not the shady kind.)
My husband said to me afterward, “It’s incredible how open-minded you are.”
I try, I really try. And I know not everyone considers that a virtue. But I like the idea that everyone posseses a little piece of the truth.
When my mind closes up it’s usually because someone is arguing in bad faith or just very rude and aggressive in their opinions. I can’t stand that even if I agree with the person. I’m not claiming to be perfect in this regard. But it means something to me that I try.