Writing in the Substack pages of PERSUASION, British professor Dan Williams argues that excessive cynicism is dangerous. Williams begins with a reference to a comedy bit by Norm MacDonald:
.
MacDonald’s words may be absurd but they have Professor Williams thinking seriously:
If you have strong beliefs, you must think those you disagree with are wrong. But if they can be totally wrong, why can’t you?
It’s alarming to contemplate this possibility. We organize much of our lives around our beliefs. We identify with them. We stake our reputations on them. It would be devastating to wake up and discover you had been wrong about everything. Going to the rope store might seem appropriate.
That’s probably one reason why most people don’t spend much time contemplating the possibility of radical error.
As an individual writing sometimes about arcane subjects where sources of information are concealed by bafflegab, I have first-hand experience of being wrong. Long ago, I was supposed to study James Joyce but preferred other activities. However, one line by Joyce has stayed with me. He wrote, “A man’s mistakes are his portals of discovery.” This week, a quickly drawn conclusion was shown to be wrong by someone I respect. It was a useful reminder to take more care when forming opinions.
Dr. Williams reminds us that everyone is biased. We usually choose opinions that fit the reality we have created for ourselves. We pay most attention to information that supports our existing beliefs, and we undervalue views that contradict our present thinking. Confirmation bias may give us an inaccurate view of the world and it hinders our ability to communicate with others.
The professor says that reality is inherently difficult to understand, and our access to it is typically indirect. He says naive realism isn’t just mistaken; it’s harmful and breeds intellectual complacency and arrogance. Williams concludes:
It’s possible to focus excessively on the universality of bias in ways that are also intellectually and socially harmful. This is to succumb to the “everyone is biased” bias.
Williams is accurate in what he wrote but he argues that something else is distorting what many people know:
Everyone—including highly-educated professionals who “believe in science” and “trust experts” and read broadsheet newspapers and go to farmers’ markets and so on—is biased, but “bias” doesn’t begin to describe somebody like Elon Musk.
Almost everything that Musk communicates or amplifies on X—and he posts and reposts a staggering quantity of content to a vast audience—is an outright lie, half-truth, or flagrant propaganda. And, of course, the only reason he can do this is that he inhabits a right-wing ecosystem in America which has wholly abandoned even the pretense of caring about truth, reality, or objectivity.
…Musk is the most prolific source of misinformation on his own platform.
When confronted with this behavior, the observation that everyone is biased obscures more than it illuminates.
PS: I know I’m old when university professors start looking like youngsters and leave me feeling intellectually inadequate.
Categories: Bias, Uncategorized
in-sights.ca 
I recall being on a teacher bargaining team back in the 1980s, a time when individual teachers’ union locals bargained their wages and benefits with locally-elected board members.
The two sides were seated around a big table, with one of the board members noticeably having wires dangling from under his shirt.
At the first break, our side gathered in private and a member spoke out what many others were thinking: “O____ is wired for sound!”
People were fuming and preparing for a big dust-up when we got back to the table.
But — thankfully — I had valuable insider information I had heard at church. “It’s probably a heart monitor,” I said. “He had surgery last week.”
“Oh…”
🙂
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At 78 years + I have seen , heard and experienced my share mix-formation.
In my early years I walked passed many older persons muttering to themselves; they were at the time considered “crazy”.
Truth is many were suffering from shell shock( not this PTDS bullshit).
It’s normal to have a bias.
The ability to reason and make change , particularly for the better, is more important.
Dyed in the wool influential people are the ones to worry about.
In this age of Ai truth and reality are becoming rare commodities.
TB
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Are your solutions inclusive or exclusive?
Are your truths personal or universal?
Is it for only your tribe or all tribes and all earthlings and the planet?
If you can’t help at least don’t hurt.
Look long into the future ,
Take no more than can replenish itself.
Err on the cautious side.
Recognise the equality and necessity of all things.
Find balance
See the folly of the finite chasing the infinite
Practise compassion
Walk gently in beauty
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The Crazy part of Democratic Politics?
In 2018 the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law warned the public about Donald Trump. The report was strongly criticized by academics for not being sufficiently objective. Besides which only 27 professionals had signed on.
https://jaapl.org/content/46/2/267
The study was ignored.
In 2021 Mr. Trump’s niece, PhD Mary Trump, created a family history in book form. It was called…
“Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man”
This too was ignored.
In 2024 233 “specialists” produced their warning.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/233-mental-health-professionals-spell-out-dangers-of-donald-trump-in-chilling-letter/ar-AA1sUhzO
“Clinicians have had years to observe Donald Trump, and his behavior has long been indicative of malignant narcissism,” clinical psychologist John Gartner, the lead signatory of letter, said in a statement sent to HuffPost.”
“We have a duty to warn the public about the grave danger posed by returning this man to power,” Gartner added. “Trump’s conduct recalls that of some of history’s most brutal dictators, and he has already demonstrated his willingness to wield state power to hurt his enemies without remorse. Let this be a warning.”
Mr. Trump was reelected.
Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnson offered consolation…
“Half of Americans (54%) read and comprehend at a 6th grade level.”
“1 in 5 Americans (20%) at a 3rd grade level.”
“They don’t have the capacity to understand what is happening.”
A century ago H. L Mencken wrote the following
“The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.”
“The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
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