Member Discussion for “Think Again” — August 2022

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  1. Sjwilling

    I’m a bit behind but now mostly finished with this work. I’ve done a lot of reading in cognitive science and and I’m a bit of a neuroscientist myself, with 40 years clinical experience and a new book out on Pride & Humility.

    Adam Grant has some interesting things to say and I appreciated some of the conversational techniques he prescribed for breaching divides, but as is common with these writers, they often fail to take their own medicine. Agree with the complaints expressed here by others.

    His silly practice of capitalizing “black” but not “white” is an exceptionally juvenile affectation, and Ibram Kendi is not a reliable source for anything worth saying. These sacrifices to the woke brigades seriously compromise his credibility.

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  2. John A

    This is just a book of common and banal opinions by an author who doesn’t have more insight than your own friends and family. He spends needless chapters just to explain we should have an open and active mind. Really?

    He violates his own conclusions. He says we should be aware of things we don’t know. Yet repeatedly he cites a news or 3rd persons account of events of which we don’t know all the facts. He then assumes everything in that one account is true and further infers and conjectures ( guesses) other facts that stem from those facts to prove a point he is trying to make. He then ironically ends up not being aware that he doesn’t know the truth of the thing he is saying.

    He also espouses the importance of humility but yet throughout the book he lectures the reader to think like he does because has superior thinking ability ( he doesn’t, his thinking methodology is average and not outstanding ). He states how he is able to arrive at truth better than others because he is more open minded than others

    The book is just an attempt at telling people how to arrive at the truth by telling the reader they need to keep studying and evaluating, but he just wraps it language and concepts that attempt to sound profound.

    I found the book to not be a good use of my time. There are far better books on techniques to come to a conclusion.

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    Merrijane

    About desirability bias affecting predictions: I wonder if part of the reason we do it is not just because desirable choices make us blind to likely outcomes, but because we buy into the notion of mind over matter. Maybe we hold onto the hope that if we say the thing we want to happen is likely to happen, it will affect the outcome. Unfortunately you can’t affect the outcome if you can’t accept reality for what it is.

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  4. Cavaliere.John

    Got this as an anniversary gift from my non-member spouse who did some digging and discovered the book club. Great book. Please ask when Adam Grant will release a special edition mark-up version of the whole book in the style of the epilogue.

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  5. Michael J

    Finished last night and am glad to have read this book. Found it very stimulating. The key takeaway for me was to remember just how complicated life is for all of us, even those whom I disagree. This read has me rereading Hoffer’s The True Believer (last read in early 60s). Look forward to the interview. Sarah - I have enjoyed and benefited from all 3 books and hope the Book Club continues into 2023!

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    Becky Taylor

    I finished a few days ago and very much enjoyed it. It's the first book of the type that I've read so unlike others, I don't have similar books to make a comparison.

    I did use some of the ideas in my classroom to start school. My students' first assignment was to describe a time they were wrong about something and explain what they learned from the experience.

    The goal was to set the tone that being wrong provides opportunities to learn. I wanted to cultivate a learning environment. The responses were varied and enlightening.

    I will be looking for more opportunities to create a psychological safe space for my students to grow as we move forward.

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    Martin Hernandez

    Just finished today and I can see how some could have a tough time reading this book. It is challenging to question our pre-conceived notions and beliefs, or to let our emotions take over during a debate or discussion. I am sure that's why some of the feedback seems to be negative.

    That being said, the author lost me a bit (and ticked me off) around the end of the "Charged Conversations" portion, pages 181-183. The Amy Cooper story is a perfect example (a story I had a rethinking experience of my own with) of an opportunity to "think again" that I feel Mr. Grant doesn't take himself. This story must have been too fresh around the time of writing the book because recent work by Kmele Foster and Bari Weiss prove their own rethinking of this story may not exonerate Amy Cooper but it certainly puts a new light on Christian Cooper's own actions. This "birder" had previous altercations with other dog walkers at Central Park when NYC decided to close off dog parks due to the pandemic. Mr. Cooper seemed to act more of the role of the "Karen" than Amy, by instigating a fight over leashing rules. It also irritated me that the author left out Mr. Cooper's weird/creepy comments about doing something to her dog even before she made her unfortunate comment. I also have to vehemently disagree with including the I.X. Kendi quote about fixed identities. Humans definitely don't come in binaries, but when it comes to racism, its only non-binary if we change the meaning of racism to include a host of missteps unrelated to race altogether (Kahneman's fast vs slow thinking comes to mind).

    I could have left it alone but then the author proceeded to lose me with the "It shouldn't be up to the victim to inject complexity into a difficult conversation" pander. A man who seemed to take pleasure in making other people uncomfortable if they didn't play in the park by his rules (who will now be a TV celebrity) is a victim...meanwhile Ms. Cooper, who lost her dog, her job and had to resettle in a new location and search for anonymity is an offender? I say Mr. Grant should take his own advice and rethink his chapter because by failing to understand the nuance of this charged situation he isn't taking responsibility for reevaluating his own beliefs and behaviors.

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  8. Laura P

    I have a neighbor who is on the edge of falling into conspiracy theories, so I paid very close attention to the section on talking to people you disagree with. The vaccine whisperer who ended his conversation by saying, “Whatever you decide to do about vaccinating your children, I respect you and your decision” made a big impression on me. (Not a verbatim quote — I listened to the book, rather than reading it, and can’t find that section again.)

    I can imagine how effective that respectful attitude would be, so that his listener could think calmly, not defensively, about the issue. And, lesson learned, I hope to emulate that tone.

    But honestly it’s hard! First of all, my neighbor is so ANGRY. She doesn’t want to talk, she wants to yell. And she makes it so personal: “YOU AND EVERYONE LIKE YOU do X, Y, Z.”

    And secondly, I don’t know how to honestly feel respect for loony-tune ideas. I’m distressed for her, I’m sorry she is caught up in anger and fear, I’ve always gotten on well with her before, but it’s hard to feel respect for the way she’s losing/not using her mind.

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    1. Melissa Feagins

      You don't have to respect her "Looney Tunes ideas." You should however, respect that she has a different point of view and personal history than you do and that she is a human being.
      I suspect that you wouldn't be distressed for her if you couldn't do that.
      How would she respond if you said, "Which other people do you believe I am like? And why?" That question alone would probably break her cycle of parroting someone else's opinion because she's going to have to have specific examples about you.

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      1. Laura P

        Insightful approach, Melissa, to start with something personal and well-known to the two of us, instead of the wider world of issues neither of us has personal knowledge of. Basically, her reproach to me personally boils down to the fact that I read the New York Times (as well as the Wall Street Journal).

        She is convinced that the NYT lies and conceals the truth. But she can’t usually pinpoint her sources, can’t remember specific examples. The one time she could, she told me that the NYT was concealing the fact that the WHO had serious doubts about the safety of the vaccines. Her “source” was the Falun Gong outlet, Epoch Times. I showed her the language from the WHO website: they were not saying the vaccines were ineffective; they were saying only that, given the worldwide shortage of vaccines, people in wealthier countries should perhaps defer getting second boosters until everyone else had gotten the first shots. Not a safety issue at all, only a supply issue.

        She never brought up that particular example again. But it’s much harder to respond to the angry, unspecific, “Everyone KNOWS that the NYT lies.”

        Otherwise, she likes me and trusts my judgment on other things closer to him, like rescue dogs and irritating neighbors!

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    Scott Stefanski

    This is the first of the Book Club books I finished. I still plan on going back to revisit the others, but I am not there yet. I found this book both fascinating and frustrating. The core ideas he presents about rethinking are excellent, and many of the examples he uses are spot on.

    And yet... many of the examples he uses are not so spot on. He mentions "Steel-manning" as opposed to strawmaning others arguments, but on occasion he'd raise a counterintuitive proposal, defend it, and yet ignore some of the most obvious flaws in his own arguments - far from steel-manning objections to his point. There were times I recalled his perceptive comment about regretting being too casual with regard to the potential issues in studies in order to have a narrative as he was ignoring the potential issues in studies, in order (seemingly) to have a narrative.

    Also, the author's recounting of the infamous Birdwatcher/Dog Owner interaction in Central Park certainly felt more along the Preacher mode than the Scientist mode. I am not saying his conclusions were wrong; I'm saying the way he approached recounting the events (and approaches being distinct from outcomes is key to many of his arguments in the book overall) was not in the mode he advocated for earlier in the book. He indicated that readers might experience discomfort with the story, but did not seem to look into whether or not that discomfort might in part have a correlation to his approach.

    In fairness to the author, he admits up front that he is open to revision and reappraisal of his points of view, which is fair and more than many similar authors are capable of. But in a relatively short book, seemingly ignoring your recommendations just a few short chapters later undercut the effectiveness of those arguments for me, even when I largely agreed with them.

    I think I've never wanted to give a book both 2 and 5 stars at the same time as I do this book. It was very perceptive and thought-provoking in parts, and in others seemed somewhat oblivious to blind spots, which is odd in a book about being aware of just said blind spots.

    All of this may sound like I am more down on the book than I am; I really am glad I read it and am glad it was this month's choice for the Book Club. It is unfortunate that the negatives stick out in my mind more than the positives, but also the positives might be too numerous to easily list. I found it to be an excellent, if flawed, book. But I'll take an excellent flawed book over a mediocre one any day.

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      Martin Hernandez

      Scott, so glad you brought this up. I just went on a rant about that "Birder" story and just have to agree that it got preachy for me too. I was reading it going: "wait, this whole book is about rethinking issues that have nuance, why are you quoting Kendi?" Let's just say my reading pace slowed after page 183 because I really had to nitpick everything from there on.

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        Scott Stefanski

        Glad I wasn't the only one. There are ways to argue the position he argued but in a less preachy way, and in a more scientist way. The fact he did not in a book about this topic is ironic. Though we are all fallible and all have our blind spots, of course.

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  10. Cavaliere.John

    Almost done…Sarah, what is the deadline for questions before you record?

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