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DISSONANCE
To seek cognitive dissonance...
I watch the way most people
charge ahead with their own
train of thought, refusing to
consider possible counter-
arguments, refusing to see
anything that might contradict
their world view.
One thought: How can I get
through to people like this?
What's the right approach
to plant doubt in the mind
of a fanatic?
A second thought: What if I But be reasonable! I put so
am also a person like this? much energy into questioning
myself... it's so rare when
What can you do to check your someone else can challenge
own blind spots? me with a thought I haven't
had before.
One answer: pay
attention to the It's entirely possible
enemy. Take their that I spend too much
arguments seriously. Here's an time keeping myself honest.
Make sure you can assignment:
really refute them to read To really
your own satisfaction. Thurow's accomplish
"Zero-Sum anything
But this is *really* Solution". you have
hard work. It's so to take
much easier to learn Choosing such a stand,
something from sources assignments is try to
with prejudices that difficult. How defend a
agree with your own. do you judge the position.
The elements fit into value of a work
your own conceptual when your first
framework smoothly, impulse is to Whether or
without a lot of say it has none? not it's
reshuffling and an honest
reorganizing. position or
a correct
Much more efficient for position...
me to read Milton maybe that's
Friedman then, rather someone
than Lester Thurow. else's
MANIFESTO problem.
A perfect example:
H.G. Well's _The Outline You can rely on adversaries
of History_. to arise around you, without
creating them in your own
An overview of a subject head.
that I'm weaker in than I
should be, but written
from a point of view that
I'm in sympathy with.
Similar attitudes toward
human freedom
technical progress
SIZE And I didn't need
to read trendy stuff
repeatedly emphasizing things like:
I was pleased to see
that Wells is hardly The dark ages weren't so dark.
A similar a flaming socialist, Women were alive back then.
idea: to though of course he's Western culture isn't perfect.
learn no Von Mises. African cultures are cool, too.
about the
bible I The Outline also works
should as a historical document
track in it's own right: I can
down get a sense of what a
Asimov's prominent intellectual of
Guide, the time thought about
and read the shape of the world
about it between the World Wars.
from the
point of In the final section,
view of a he goes into the case
rational for a world government.
atheist.
LONG_VIEW
Asimov's understand-
ing is not likely to
be very deep, but
depth can be an Asimov's guide to Shakespere
impediment in the is interesting for the same
early stages of reasons. He tends to focus
learning about on the elementary history that
something. serious Shakespere scholars
regard as beneath them.
Maybe I should supply my
own "deep" interpretations And mostly he
without having to fight gives creative
the author's. interpretations
a rest.
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