An epidemic has arisen out of isolation and narcissism stoked via the unholy trinity of devices, social media, and COVID quarantine: we prioritize our gut impressions, flip assumptions, and baseless conjecture above all else.
As Tom Nichols wrote, we no longer respect expertise. But it's more than just that. We're uninterested in truth. In fact, we have a light to moderate disdain toward it.
Truth rubs the wrong way, disenchanting us and unraveling our sacred notions of who we are and how we behave and who the good guys are. And so a superficial read of my posting might make people think I'm urging everyone to trust their visceral assumptions even more.
The world is not complex or subtle or surprising. You're fully on top of it, standing triumphantly astride the landscape, so stand confident, eschew subtlety, and go with your gut!No. None of that. There is a vast difference between 1. Cursory dismissal of subtlety and surprise while brutishly elevating flip assumptions, and 2. Canny, sensitive pruning of irrelevant choices in order to escape a state of confusion.
But even so, I realize that the brutish will read my essay and holler "EXACTLY!"
No comments:
Post a Comment