Excerpts from the 2018 book, well worth as read for its clarity of purpose and practical actions. I wonder if many of these trends are cyclical and a result of tremendous progress we have made as a human society. But that has perhaps made us forget how tough we really are, and what really matters. Unfortunately, we have a war in Europe to remind us of those things.
This is a book about three Great Untruths that seem to have spread widely in recent years
- The Untruth of Fragility: What doesn't kill you makes you weaker
- The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: Always trust your feelings
- The Untruth of Us vs Them: Life is a battle between good people and evil people
- It contradicts ancient wisdom (ideas found widely in wisdom literatures in many cultures)
- It contradicts modern psychological research on well-being
- It harms individuals and communities who embrace it
- rising political polarization and cross-party animosity
- rising levels of teen anxiety and depression
- changes in parenting practice
- loss of free play and unsupervised risk taking
- growth of campus bureaucracy and expansion of protective mission
- increasing passion for justice
- Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child
- Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded
- The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being
- Help schools to oppose the great untruths
- Limit and refine device time
- Support a new national norm: service or work before college
I don't want you to be safe ideologically. I don't want you to be safe emotionally. I want you to be strong. That's different. I'm not going to pave the jungle for you. Put on some boots, and learn how to deal with adversity. I'm not going to take all the weights out of the gym; that's the whole point of the gym. This is the gym.
Jones understands antifragility. Jones wants progressive college students to see themselves not as fragile candles but as fires, welcoming the wind by seeking out ideologically different speakers and ideas." (p.97 Intimidation and Violence)
"A key concept from developmental biology is "experience-expectant development". Human beings have only about 22,000 genes, but our brains have approximately 100 billion neurons, with hundreds of trillions of synaptic connections. Our genes could never offer a codebook or blueprint for building anything so complex ... Experience is so essential for wiring a large brain that the "first draft" of the brain includes a strong motivation to practice behaviors that will give the brain the right kind of feedback to optimize itself for success in the environment that happens to surround it. That's why young mammals are so keen to play, despite the risks." (p.182 The decline of play)
"Encourage your children to engage in productive disagreements .. learning how to give and take criticism without being hurt is an essential life skill" (p.241 Wiser kids)
"Practice the virtue of 'intellectual humility'... the recognition that our reasoning is so flawed, so prone to bias, that we can rarely be certain that we are right. 'On being wrong'.." (p.245 Wiser kids)
"Here's a powerful antidote to pessimism - a quote that was first brought to our attention by science writer Matt Ridley in his 2010 book, The Rational Optimist:
We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. But so said all who came before us, and with just as much apparent reason...On what principle is it that, when we see nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?
Those words were written in 1830 by Thomas Babington Macauley, a British historian and member of Parliament....
Pinker and Ridley base their optimism in part on a simple observation: The more serious a problem gets, the more inducements there are for people, companies and governments to find innovative solutions, whether driven by personal commitment, market forces, or political pressures."
I found myself thinking in the twenty teens that life for society seemed to be a little too easy, and that we had perhaps the luxury to find new topics for disagreement and difference. Then came covid, Ukraine and a return of inflation. While we always strive for a healthier, peaceful and more stable society, a certain amount of innocent death, destruction and uncertainty perhaps focuses our collective minds on what is most important. Time will tell.
Comments