The Warrior, The Scout and The Farmer
This is the final recommendation in my mini-series on Blindspots. You can read the first few recommendations here:
- The Hazards of Confidence — about cognitive bias
- Our Lying Eyes about the problems with eyewitness testimony,
- Confident idiots — about the Dunning Kruger Effect and
- Your Brain is primed to reach false conclusions. The link on that article was off — you can use this.
TODAY’S RECOMMENDATION:
Why you think you’re right — even if you’re wrong
Julia Galef TedTalk (11 minutes to watch)
SUMMARY:
This short talk explores the phenomenon of “motivated reasoning’, the unconscious tendency of individuals to fit their processing of information to conclusions that suit some end or goal.
This tendency exists in all of us. It is also known as confirmation bias. Once we have formed a view, we embrace information that confirms that view while ignoring, or rejecting, information that casts doubt on it.
Julia Galef explains this bias in two ways — by way of history, through the Dreyfus affair and by way of analogy. Her analogy is the military and she uses the image of the Warrior and the Scout. A Warrior has a cause and fights for it, defending against attackers and making attacks himself. A Scout, on the other hand is not looking for a fight. He is looking for new information.
I find this simple analogy incredibly helpful in thinking about politics, Covid policy, racism, religion, or any other controversial topic. It can be a diagnostic tool; When are you being a Warrior? When are you being a Scout?
Some people, by nature go on the war path frequently. They have a soapbox and they yell from it. Warriors often win themselves seats on cable news channels.
Scouts make headlines less often because they are less strident and controversial in their approach. They try to see both sides of the issue to seek real knowledge. That is valuable, but it doesn’t make for great TV.
I believe sometimes you have to be the Warrior. Sometimes you have to fight for what you believe is right. But you can overplay that role. We’ve overplayed it at a society-wide level and now struggle just to talk to each other. We just yell past each other.
What we lack is enough Scouts. Where are the people who want to learn more than they want to lecture? Where are the people who will approach issues without an agenda? Where are the people who aren’t afraid of having their minds changed? Where are the people who are comfortable enough in their own skill to hold an opinion while simultaneously truly considering whether they might be wrong?
I think there are a lot of Scouts on this email list. Most of you who write me don’t have a Warrior’s axe to grind. You have questions. You may have opinions, but you are curious. I love that. I find it inspiring.
Occasionally, some of you will write me and your inner Warrior has gotten ahold of your keyboard. That’s okay. I get it. It happens to me sometimes too. If it happens all the time, it’s not a good look. But sometimes you gotta say what’s really on your mind. And on your heart.
The problem, I have found, is when you are acting like a Warrior, you are more likely to encounter other Warriors. Your aggressiveness and defensiveness can prompt others to pick up their swords and shields too. It’s a matter of survival. They sense a threat from you so they gear up for a fight. Or they run. Neither of which will help you convince them that they are right.
On the other hand, when a Scout encounters someone, they rarely provoke that person into acting like a Warrior. People usually don’t feel threatened by someone who is asking honest questions (not leading questions, honest questions). Sometimes when a Scout encounters a Warrior, if the situation is just right and they are both lucky, the Warrior maybe willing to disarm and join the Scout on a shared mission of fact-finding.
Let me make this practical, in case I’m hovering too long in the abstract. We’ve been talking about racism, the police, and Black Lives Matter the past several weeks. Not just The Weekend Reader, but the entire country. Let’s apply this framework to the issue at hand.
I know for a fact from the emails I receive that this newsletter’s readership includes a whole spectrum of viewpoints on these topics. I’d like to describe the spectrum of views but I’m not sure if “right” and “left” is the best way.
On the one side are those who lean towards Social Justice Advocacy, who are more convinced of the need to reform the police, who see systemic racism as a real threat to blacks and to our society. We’ll call them Social Justice Advocates. They are concerned that George Floyd’s death is more than an isolated incident. It represents the widespread plight of the black community. Most of them don’t support violence or looting, though some say ‘how else can we get your attention?’
On the other side are those who see racism as bad but as an individualistic behavior of bad people rather than a holistic system we are all a part of. They are more likely to be concerned about law and order. They fear “soft-totalitarianism” where it isn’t okay to have a view that differs from the Social Justice Activist party line. They were saddened and angry about George Floyd’s death but were just as (more?) concerned about the looting, rioting and tearing down of statues. They feel for the small business owners who lost their shops in the fires. We’ll call this group the Traditionalists.
These are not actual groups. And they aren’t binary. There are a thousand points people stand along the spectrum. I’m simplifying to two camps for sake of this argument.
I have talked with Traditionalists who are Warriors. They are angry about being called racist. They argue to me that “Black Lives Matter” is a phrase that cloaks a lot of anti-white, anti-institutional, harmful-to-society baggage. They think ‘Woke Folk’ are not only tearing down statues but are tearing down the institutions that make America great. They have no interest in listening to self-righteous, politically correct, entitled Social Justice Advocates.
I have also talked with Traditionalists who are Scouts. They are concerned about law and order and fear the political correctness police are taking over to the harm of individual liberty. But they also see the the Floyd video and the demonstrations and are asking what they have been blind to and how they might need to open themselves to understanding something new about the sins of our past and present and about how we may need to change.
I have talked with Social Justice Advocates who are Warriors. They are quick to call people racist and accuse others of “white privilege” and “centering” and use other new terms that if you don’t know what the term means they use that as proof that you are out of touch and exhibiting that systemic racism and privilege. There is no room for disagreement with them. You are either all in — admitting your personal guilt or you are the problem. They have no interest in listening to privileged self-centered heartless Traditionalists.
I have also talked with Social Justice Advocates who are Scouts. They still see and feel and believe in the painful and disturbing reality of racism. But they don’t see every cop as an enemy. They have mercy on Traditionalists who aren’t yet convinced. They avoid name calling and jargon. They are patient with those who disagree. And they are willing to admit when others who believe what they do have gone too far in their advocacy.
We talk a lot about polarization in this country. The problem isn’t that people disagree. The problem is that too many of us too much of the time act like Warriors instead of Scouts.
I want to add one other archetype to this imaginary ideological realm we’re describing: the Farmer. Throughout history when armies march across land, they cross the land of bystander farmers. The Farmer isn’t in the middle of the fight. He may not have even formed an opinion of which side should win. He just wants to tend to his crops and not be bothered and hopefully the battle never comes to him.
Farmers can be valuable to Scouts — they know things and have information to share. Farmers can also be valuable to Warriors. They can passively support them as the warriors carry their torches and the sometimes can be recruited by Warriors to pick up their own pitchforks and fight.
Farmers in a war are not agents of change because they haven’t mustered the energy or interest to get involved. Farmers are why things stay status quo. Farmers can provide information because they know things and they can be influenced because they haven’t aren’t in a position of defending their views. But Farmers mostly don’t make a difference because of they are apathetic.
Most people are Farmers most of the time. Their little lives are busy and it’s too inconvenient to get involved. That’s okay — it’s a big world with too many issues and problems to try to learn about all of it for fight for every cause that deserves it. But the Farmers are who Martin Luther King Jr. wrote to in his Letter form a Birmingham Jail. They were the white moderates who were not overtly racist but couldn’t be troubled to do anything about the Jim Crow laws in the country. Only by having peacefully protests violently put down by the police on national TV was the conscience of the nation of farmers changed enough to pass civil rights reform.
My point in all this talk about Warriors and Scouts and Farmers is that these are different approaches we each take to issues. And your default approach might not be the right one for the moment.
The truth is we can choose how we act at any time and on any issue. We can be farmers and keep our heads down, focused only on our little plot of land. We can be Warriors, trying to smote our enemies, bookmarking evidence that agrees with our view and disregarding evidence that doesn’t. Or we can more like Scouts, who have a view but are constantly surveilling the landscape not just for information that agrees with what they believe but they are on the lookout for what is actually true.
The choice is ours.
Read widely. Read wisely.
Max
