This episode is a bit “meta”: it’s about what it means to keep an open mind, how to trust your conscience, why we should all avoid groupthink, and the phenomenon of “self silencing” — keeping your views to yourself when you’re afraid it might be too costly to say them out loud.
But of course, this being Wisdom of Crowds, we link these meta-topics to the politics of the day.
Jenara Nerenberg is a journalist, producer, speaker, and founder of the Neurodiversity Project, which hosts bestselling authors in the arts and sciences who push for “innovation in research and media.” In her work, Jenara applies insights from psychology and public health to question of free speech and the exchange of ideas. Her new book is titled, Trust Your Mind: Embracing Nuance in a World of Self Silencing. You can see why we are excited to have her on Wisdom of Crowds.
“I don’t think that self silencing is inherently bad,” Jenara says, “but I think that we want everyone to be empowered to know that many people are conditioned to fall into self silencing and they’re not doing it consciously.” The goal is to help people become free thinkers. Instead, groupthink and ideology are the default for many people, because “people who are high in self uncertainty are drawn into something with clear boundaries and sense of belonging.” But if you want to think freely, you have to do the work.
Shadi Hamid brings up politics. Where we wrong to focus so much on cancel culture on the Left, given the recent suppression of free speech on the Right? “Right has no respect for free speech, they were pretending,” Shadi says. “It was a pretext, they used the language of free speech as a cudgel.” Samuel Kimbriel agrees that the Right is using “the power of the sword” to suppress speech.
Apart from the necessary political protection of speech, however, Jenara argues that free speech requires a particular disposition of personal character: “My book and my thinking are really about how do we see each other as human again? And that’s where we went wrong with this sort of excessive focus on labels and categories and check boxes.”
In our bonus section for paid subscribers, Jenara talks about whether it’s possible to be emotionally attached to the principle of freedom of free speech and open inquiry (as opposed to a particular point of view); Sam discusses “infinite proceduralism” and why we need to accept the truth once it’s been identified; Jenara talks about growing up in a very unique San Francisco “bubble”; Shadi ponders when it is appropriate to cut people off whose opinions disturb you; and Jenara discusses gendered conversations and people-pleasing.
Required Reading:
* Jenara’s book, Trust Your Mind: Embracing Nuance in a World of Self-Silencing (Amazon).
* Jenara’s initiative, the Neurodiversity Project (divergentlit).
* “A Letter for Justice and Open Debate” (Harper’s).
* “ ‘Have the courage to use your own understanding,’ is therefore the motto of the Enlightenment.” Immanuel Kant, “What is Enlightenment?” (Columbia).
* Agnes Callard on keeping an open mind (New York Times).
* Voltaire on free speech (The Guardian).
* Ross Barkan, “How Anti-Woke Went Intellectually Bankrupt” (New York).
* About Darryl Davis: “How One Man Convinced 200 Ku Klux Klan Members To Give Up Their Robes” (NPR).
This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.
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