Ask yourself what are the relevant topics you have yet to read good pieces on, and then try to find them and read them. Over time, your broader opinions will then evolve in better directions than if you focus on having an immediate emotional reaction to the events right before your eyes. The more tempted you are to judge, the higher the return from trying to read something factual and substantive instead.
Tyler Cowen on finding saner, more productive ways to relate to the news (if you must).
In general, I am suspicious when someone dismisses a view for being “radical” or “extreme.” There is usually sloppy thinking behind that designation. Why not just say what is wrong with the view? How for instance are we supposed to feel about “radical Christianity”? Good or bad? Does it mean Origen or Ted Cruz or something altogether different? Can’t we just debate the question itself?
The same is true in politics. Let’s say someone favors free trade and the First Amendment. Is that “radical”? Or is it mainstream and thus non-radical? Does labeling it radical further the debate on whether or not those are the correct positions?
Count higher than two. Of all the mental habits that encourage polarization, the most dangerous is probably binary thinking – the tendency to divide everything into two mutually antagonistic categories.
Part of maturing, I think, is realizing that charges of acting in bad faith are often themselves made in bad faith, an attempt to explain away gaps in understanding between two people rather than trying to bridge them, or even make peace with them.
We make ourselves lists in order to know if we think what we think.
There is no finality in a list, just a promise that we will argue about everything listed, adjust our thoughts, and watch our feelings change over time.
Not having an opinion means not having an obligation. And not being obligated is one of the sweetest of life’s riches.
One of my general rules is, if you’re on the fence about a movie/TV show/etc and you mull it over for a week, you liked it.
Echoes of The Antidote and that recent Carolyn Hax quote. Life is messy.
In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
It seems to me that if a work has something remarkable to say, then someone who wants to whistle it will find something in it to whistle.
Elliott Carter. RIP. Cf. Will Oldham:
It seems to me that the ears that are listening make more difference than the way the music sounds.
It seems to me that the ears that are listening make more difference than the way the music sounds.
Your beliefs will be the light by which you see, but they will not be what you see and they will not be a substitute for seeing.
KNOWLEDGE + TASTE = MEANINGFUL JUDGMENT.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson. (via). Cf. Victor Hugo:
Let’s not bring flame where light is enough.
And Jay-Z:
It’s hard to beat the entertainment value of people who deliberately misunderstand the world, people dying to be insulted, running around looking for a bullet to get in front of.
Forms, styles, structures–whatever word you prefer–should change like skirt lengths. They have to; otherwise we make a rule, a religion of one form; we say, “This form here, this is what reality is like,” and it pleases us to say that (…) because it means we don’t have to read anymore, or think, or feel.
What good are touchstones in an era where consensus seems to actively annoy people?
All any of us want on our graves is “HERE LIES THE PERSON WITH THE UNIQUEST OPINIONS.”
Feelings have great predictive value, but opinions don’t.
The Times Herald – A room so quiet no one can stand it for more than 45 minutes
A good rule of thumb is that diversity of opinion is essential anytime you don’t know anything about something important.
Mark Larson 