How to Think Read online

  To explore this contrast further, we’ll continue using C. S. Lewis as our guide, because these are matters that he thought about very often and very well. Lewis is of course best known as a Christian thinker and storyteller, but I believe his ideas about our social formation—how we end up inside some groups and outside others—don’t owe much to the Christian beliefs he settled on when he was around thirty. Rather, they reach back into his early adolescence, at a time when he had no religious beliefs at all. His understanding of these matters was formed by his experience at a boarding school, where he found himself, as a solitary and bookish child, thrown into a rigidly stratified, hierarchical, and competitive world of boys, in which he was expected to find and maintain a place. He hated every minute of it, and seeing what the survival-of-the-obsequious world did to his peers was surely the origin of his ideas about the Inner Ring.

  Only in small ways and on rare occasions was he able to discern some alternative to Inner-Ringery, and years later to write about it, in an address he gave under the title “Membership.” The address was given to a meeting of Christians, and its most immediate applications are to the life of the Christian church, but its implications are far, far broader.

  Lewis thinks that the modern Western world tends to give us a choice between solitude—not always easy to choose—and “inclusion in a collective,” a collective for Lewis being an environment in which we all have more or less the same status and identity: as, for instance, part of the audience at a concert, or the crowd at a football game. What tends to get lost in our world is membership, which is neither solitary nor anonymous. Lewis explains:

  How true membership in a body differs from inclusion in a collective may be seen in the structure of a family. The grandfather, the parents, the grown-up son, the child, the dog, and the cat are true members (in the organic sense), precisely because they are not members or units of a homogeneous class. They are not interchangeable. Each person is almost a species in himself. . . . If you subtract any one member, you have not simply reduced the family in number; you have inflicted an injury on its structure.

  But, Lewis goes on to say, genuine membership can happen in less formal and generally recognized ways—for instance, in a group of friends. He cites as a paradigmatic example the quartet of Rat, Mole, Badger, and Toad from The Wind in the Willows (one of his favorite books). They are all so different from one another, made of such dramatically varying stuff, yet taken together they are far greater than the sum of their parts. Each requires the others to be complete. Badger’s friends draw him out of his gruff solitude; Toad needs the others to ... well, to get him out of the trouble he’s constantly getting himself into. Without Ratty, Mole would never have learned the pure joy of “messing about in boats.”

  What is perhaps most important about this quartet is that none of them makes any effort to make another conform to some preestablished mold. No one wants even Toad to change fundamentally, only to exercise a bit more self-restraint. Each is accepted for his own distinctive contribution to the group: if it were less distinctive it would be less valuable. This is also, I might add, the key point about the friendship of Harry, Hermione, and Ron in the Harry Potter books: there is not a great deal of overlap in their personalities and inclinations except that, being Gryffindors, they are all brave. (It’s curious that the examples that come to my mind of this kind of informal membership, sustained by affection and an easy acceptance of idiosyncrasy, tend to be from children’s books—perhaps most adults no longer dare to hope for connections like these.)

  But for people of all ages, some form of genuine membership is absolutely necessary for thinking. We have already seen that it is not possible to “think for yourself” in the sense of thinking independently of others; and we have likewise seen how the pressures imposed on us by Inner Rings make genuine thinking almost impossible by making belonging contingent on conformity. The only real remedy for the dangers of false belonging is the true belonging to, true membership in, a fellowship of people who are not so much like-minded as like-hearted.

  I had been on Twitter for about seven years when I decided that the environment was just too poisoned by snark and mockery and bitterness and (sometimes) sheer hatred for me to be able to tolerate it any longer. And yet I did not want to abandon the genuine, valuable connections I had forged there. So I decided to create a private Twitter account and ask the people whom I most valued to follow me there. I knew I wanted to keep the circle small—fewer than a hundred people—and to confine the group almost completely to people I’ve met in person, but beyond those two commitments I didn’t have any principles of selection in mind. As it turned out, some were Christians, some Jews, some atheists; some academics, some distrustful of the academy; some socialists, some paleoconservatives. Only when I started writing this section of this book did I realize that I had worked from a “principle of selection” after all: I had chosen to interact with people who had very little in common except that I knew—from experience—that they wouldn’t write me out of their own personal Books of Life if I said something they strongly disagreed with. That is, I am confident that I am a member (in the organic sense) of a curious little online body, and that has been a real encouragement to me. Sometimes I even try out writing ideas on them—typically only a few are able to answer (they have lives), but when they do answer I know it’ll emerge from genuine thought, not merely emotional or visceral reaction. These people, again, are not necessarily like-minded, but they are temperamentally disposed to openness and have habits of listening—and in that sense are wonderfully like-hearted.

  It’s easy to underestimate the value of such connections. Again Eric Hoffer helps. He comments that “the capacity to resist coercion stems partly from the individual’s identification with a group. The people who stood up best in the Nazi concentration camps were those who felt themselves members of a compact party (the Communists), of a church (priests and ministers), or of a close-knit national group.” For a twenty-first-century person with a smartphone as well as for the prehistoric hunter-gatherer on the savanna, isolation is deadly, while genuine solidarity is life-giving. The problem that arises for us, as opposed to our hunter-gatherer forebears, is the need to distinguish between “genuine solidarity” and participation in an Inner Ring.

  ASSESSING YOUR INVESTMENTS (AND YOUR LEVELS OF OPTIMISM)

  In trying to make such a distinction, the first thing that’s required, as Socrates told us long ago, is a bit of self-knowledge. And the variety of self-knowledge that’s especially valuable here is knowledge of your own personal investments.

  A couple of years ago I started corresponding with Christopher Beha, an editor at that venerable American institution Harper’s Magazine, about whether I might write an article on the decline of the Christian intellectual in America. This possibility was profoundly attractive to me: Harper’s is, after all, one of the most prestigious of American periodicals, and not one where I’d expect to see a long and detailed reflection on Christianity in America, written by a Christian. So I made every effort to present my ideas in a way that would be attractive and convincing to Chris, and to the other editors there.

  But I also thought, Don’t sell yourself out. I didn’t think I would actually lie about what I think to get into the pages of Harper’s, but there are ways to be dishonest that fall short of actual lying. You can stress certain points more than you believe, in your heart of hearts, they really deserve; you can gently steer your mind away from genuine convictions that might prove too controversial. Now, I could tell myself that I was simply striving to match my writing to my audience, which is a necessary and a good thing, yes? Yes. But every good thing can be taken too far. And where is the line that separates (a) matching my writing to my audience from (b) telling people what they want to hear so that I can get into the pages of an influential magazine? I didn’t know where the line was—I still don’t know where the line is—but I know it exists.

  In the end, the article appeared, and I feel pret
ty good about it; but when I think about it, I can hear a little voice piping from the deep recesses of my skull: Did you speak your heart’s truth? Or did you merely seek to please? Self-knowledge is hard.

  Self-knowledge, though vital, is only part of this story about membership and Inner Rings. If Roger Scruton is right in his book The Uses of Pessimism, then one of the impediments to genuine membership is what he calls “unscrupulous optimism.” This attitude—it’s one of the modes of Hoffer’s True Believing—is based on the belief that “the difficulties and disorders of humankind can be overcome by some large-scale adjustment: it suffices to devise a new arrangement, a new system, and people will be released from their temporary prison into a realm of success.” (Scruton calls it “unscrupulous” because it lacks scruples, hesitations, self-critical inquiry. It runs headlong.)

  Optimistic attempts to promote what is Clearly Right will be presented as a pursuit of the common good, but Scruton believes that the attitude underlying them is always “I”-based: it’s for the good of me and people whose views are generally indistinguishable from mine. To this “I” attitude Scruton contrasts the “we” attitude—not the most felicitous phrasing, I think, but the contrast is valuable. The genuine “we”

  recognizes limits and constraints, boundaries that we cannot transgress and that create the frame that gives meaning to our lives. Moreover, it stands back from the goals of the “I,” is prepared to renounce its purposes, however precious, for the sake of the long-term benefits of love and friendship. It takes a negotiating posture towards the other and seeks to share not goals but constraints. It is finite in ambition and easily deflected; and it is prepared to trade increases in power and scope for the more rewarding goods of social affection.*

  What I find especially fascinating about this passage is the way it links a preference for “love and friendship” with “a negotiating posture towards the other.” Scruton believes that if we’re less concerned with ruling the world than with having a secure place to enjoy the “goods of social affection,” then we’ll be more likely to treat generously others who want to enjoy those same goods, even if those people are very different from us in both belief and practice.

  Now, Scruton is a very traditionalist sort of conservative—he is a longtime defender of fox hunting, for instance—and it must be acknowledged that the argument he makes here can easily be used to prop up an unjust social order. After all, if you’re a member of the ruling class, it’s very much in your interests to say, “Now, now, let’s put aside your selfish interest in having your own way and just enjoy one another’s company. Let’s take a negotiating posture toward one another, shall we?” Such counsel leaves the world as it is, and disarms demands for justice. So for those who speak on behalf of the oppressed or marginalized, strong solidarity is far more important than “keeping an open mind” or “trying to understand the other side” or even being generous to people who are unlike you.

  Let’s agree with them. Let’s place solidarity above open-mindedness, and agree that our deepest convictions need not be always open to scrutiny. (We will see later on that keeping an open mind is only sometimes a good thing.) Even so, there are still many questions that might arise, and should arise, if people were to give a higher priority than they commonly do to thinking.

  SOLIDARITY, FRIEND AND FOE

  As an example of what I mean, let me reflect on the controversy in 2014 over Ta-Nehisi Coates’s ambitious and detailed article for The Atlantic “The Case for Reparations.” Soon after the article came out, I was discussing it with some friends. We all agreed that it is a very powerful portrayal of a grossly unjust social order, but I commented that as moving as the essay was, I didn’t think Coates had actually made a case for reparations, in spite of the title. To this statement some of my friends replied: “How could you read that article and not think that those people deserve reparations?”

  I answered it wasn’t a matter of what they deserve: Lord knows they deserve more and better than they’re ever going to get. I tried to make a distinction between diagnosis and treatment: someone might be accurately diagnosed with cancer, but chemotherapy might not be the best treatment for him, and if I questioned the appropriateness of chemotherapy in a particular case, it would make no sense to accuse me of saying that the patient didn’t deserve treatment. Similarly, I could think that black Americans are suffering unjustly from legal and social afflictions whose roots are hundreds of years deep and still not be sure that reparations are the correct remedy. Before I could be sure about that, I needed to have answers to three questions: Who gives? Who receives? Who decides?

  I don’t think my friends accepted the validity of my argument. But whether I was right or wrong, I think the whole situation raises a vital question involving ends and means. As I understand the way the conversation unfolded, my friends allowed their unreserved, passionate, and wholly justified endorsement of the ends of Coates’s essay—its hope of breaking racism’s apparent death grip on the economic and social prospects of black Americans—to shunt aside serious reflection on the means of addressing this seemingly permanent affliction at the heart of American life.

  They were moved, I think, by a heartfelt commitment to solidarity, and again, at times solidarity should trump what I have called “critical reflection.” When your friend has just fallen and broken her arm, it is time to comfort her and get her care, not to offer a lecture on the dangers of skateboarding. That should come later, and perhaps shouldn’t come from you at all (depending on what your relationship is). But when Coates makes a “case for reparations,” that’s a matter of national public policy, which means that, though solidarity with the victims of injustice is an indispensable driver of meaningful political action, solidarity is not enough: it must be supplemented by a colder-eyed look at what particular strategies and tactics are most likely to realize the desired end.

  But it’s hard to see things that way when you are something of an optimist, in Scruton’s sense: a questioning of your preferred means can look like indifference toward your most treasured ends. We all fall into this trap from time to time. But the distinction between the two is absolutely vital, and must always be kept in the forefront of our minds in any public debate. If we are willing to grant, at the outset, that the people we’re debating agree about ends—that they want a healthy and prosperous society in which all people can flourish—then we can converse with them, we can see ourselves as genuine members of a community. And even if at the end of the day we have to conclude that we all do not want the same goods (which can, alas, happen), it is better that we learn it at the end of the day than decide it before sunrise. Along that path we can learn from one another in a great many ways—and we have a chance of discovering unexpected opportunities for membership: for there can be more genuine fellowship among those who share the same disposition than among those who share the same beliefs, especially if that disposition is toward kindness and generosity.

  Such networks of affiliation are complicated, and discerning their presence requires what the ancients called “prudence,” a virtue that, like many virtues, is cultivated largely by avoiding certain vices: the kind of optimism that Scruton calls “unscrupulous” and its accompanying rushes to judgment, its reluctance to question its preferred means. Prudence doesn’t mean being uncertain about what’s right; it means being scrupulous about finding the best means to get there, and it leads us to seek allies, however imperfect, in preference to making enemies. And all this matters if we want to think well. As the Bible says, “The simple inherit folly: but the prudent are crowned with knowledge.”

  * * *

  * The best starting point for Libresco’s story is this interview with America magazine: http://americamagazine.org/content/all-things/my-journey-atheist-catholic-11-questions-leah-libresco. It contains links to her posts on the experiences I describe in this chapter. Libresco has recently married and is now known as Leah Libresco Sargeant.

  * C. S. Lewis, “The Inner Ring,” in The
Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (HarperOne, 2001), pp. 141–57.

  * In a 2016 article in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, “Going to Extremes for One’s Group: The Role of Prototypicality and Group Acceptance” (46:9, September 2016, pp. 544– 53), Liran Goldman and Michael A. Hogg demonstrate that people who are uncertain of their place within a group will, more frequently than those who are at the group’s center, “go to extremes” to prove their fidelity. We might say that when the cup is so near their lips, they cannot bear to be thrust back again into the cold outer world.

  * From a post on his personal blog: http://apenwarr.ca/log/?m=201407#01. Pennarun in the same post makes this telling comment: “What I have learned, working here, is that smart, successful people are cursed. The curse is confidence. It’s confidence that comes from a lifetime of success after real success, an objectively great job, working at an objectively great company, making a measurably great salary, building products that get millions of users. You must be smart. In fact, you are smart. You can prove it.”

  * Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Harper Perennial, 1951), pp. 124–27.

  * Roger Scruton, The Uses of Pessimism (Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 17.

  three

  REPULSIONS

  Why you’re probably not as tolerant of others as you think

  A couple of years ago, Scott Alexander, one of the most consistently thoughtful bloggers active today, and one I read precisely because he helps me think, wrote a post titled “I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup.” In it he set out to answer a question: How is it that straight white men (for example) can be gracious and kind to lesbian black women (for example) while being unremittingly bitter toward other straight white men? What has happened here to the old distinction between ingroups and outgroups? Alexander’s answer is that “outgroups may be the people who look exactly like you, and scary foreigner types can become the ingroup on a moment’s notice when it seems convenient.”*