Life-changing ideas and insights from some of the world's greatest thinkers.
What really frightens and dismays us is not the external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance.
If you want to understand another group, follow the sacredness. As a first step, think about the six moral foundations, and try to figure out which one or two are carrying the most weight in a particular controversy. And if you really want to open your mind, open your heart first. If you can have at least one friendly interaction with a member of the 'other’ group, you’ll find it far easier to listen to what they’re saying, and maybe even see a controversial issue in a new light. You may not agree, but you’ll probably shift from Manichaean disagreement to a more respectful and constructive yin-yang disagreement.
Some of the parents may think that making sure their children do whatever it takes to succeed in advanced courses helps their children develop ‘grit.’ But ‘grit is often misunderstood as perseverance without passion,’ and that’s tragic,’ psychology professor Angela Duckworth, author of the book Grit, told us. ‘Perseverance without passion is mere drudgery.’ She wants people to ‘devote themselves to pursuits that are intrinsically fulfilling.’
We agree with former Northwestern University professor Alice Dreger, who urges activist students and professors to ‘Carpe datum’ (‘Seize the data’). In her book Galileo’s Middle Finger, she contends that good scholarship must ‘put the search for the truth first and the quest for social justice second.’
Aristotle often evaluated a thing with respect to its ‘telos’—its purpose, end, or goal. The telos of a knife is to cut. A knife that does not cut well is not a good knife. The telos of a physician is health or healing. A physician who cannot heal is not a good physician. What is the telos of a university? The most obvious answer is ‘truth.’
Teach children the basics of CBT. CBT stands for ‘cognitive behavioral therapy,’ but in many ways it’s really just ‘cognitive behavioral techniques,’ because the intellectual habits it teaches are good for everyone.
Depressed people often stick pins into their own life rafts. The conscious mind can intervene. One is not helpless.
As Marcus Aurelius advised, ‘Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been.’ The more ways your identity can be threatened by casual daily interactions, the more valuable it will be to cultivate the Stoic (and Buddhist, and CBT) ability to not be emotionally reactive, to not let others control your mind and your cortisol levels.
But discomfort is not danger. Students, professors, and administrators should understand the concept of antifragility and keep in mind Hanna Holborn Gray’s principle: ‘Education should not be intended to make people feel comfortable; it is meant to make them think.’
A culture that allows the concept of ‘safety’ to creep so far that it equates emotional discomfort with physical danger is a culture that encourages people to systemically protect one another from the very experiences embedded in daily life that they need in order to become strong and healthy.