So You Read the Paper... So What?

I rarely read the paper. Perhaps over coffee on a Sunday but other than that, I can't think of the last time I picked up a physical newspaper. For breaking news, I'll watch TV or check the internet. For timely analysis, I'll read the Economist. If I want to make a deper cut, I'll read the Atlantic Monthly and Harper's. I just don't have much use for a physical newspaper. Having said that, I'm consistently blown away by folks who are obviously diligent consumers of the various news sources and how they tend to consider themselves savvy foreign policy hands. I don't blame them though. Perhaps they are better than those who do not pay attention at all, but that begs the question, "Is it better to possess faulty understanding than no understanding at all?"

The problem starts with the fact that the human mind cannot understand things without context. Facts, ipso facto, mean nothing (to the human mind) without a reference point. This truth bears itself out in our inability to determine the actual speed while in an airplane to our dependence on clocks to accurately tell time. This leads me to my archnemesis, Rene Descartes. Most educated people fall victim to the Cartesian system of belief where the mind commits two very separate and deliberate acts when faced with a new idea. (1) Understanding. (2) Assessment. This sounds nice but it's just not true.

Okay, I have to admit that I'm biased here. I love Spinoza's work. Tractus Politicus changed my life as much as the Republic and The History of Pelopenessian War. I don't say that lightly. These books changed my life because each gave me a new lens with which to view the world. The Spinozan system posits that comprehension and belief is the same act. In order for us to truly understand something, we have to believe it as true at first. Only then, with some work and through directed effort, do we assess it validity." Okay, that's nice Mr. Kahuna, but what's that got to do with anything?" you may ask.

Why are freshly graduated college students fundamentally useless? Because they haven't acquired the experience to test the validity of any of their beliefs. Now ask yourself the next time you encounter a self-appointed pundit what are the chances that they are parroting the framework that was presented as accurate in college? This is also an instrinsic failing of Western modes of thought which tend to be linear- one path and one path alone to the Truth. The Eastern path has been described in comparison as many spokes leading to the hub. When presented with new data, the vast majority of us view that data through the same lens, fundamentally unchanged, since college or whatever seminal event shaped our thinking.

The late Kirk Varnedoe, whom I was blessed beyond words to have briefly as a friend and mentor, said once that Western Civilization's greatest gift was the idea of hypothesize and criticize. Hypothesize and criticize over and over. It's only through that process we can hope to arrive at beliefs that are truly defendable. That's why I'm a voracious consumer of books. I read everything I can because I'm in search of those ideas that can give me a new lens or at least refine the ones I already use. You can't get that from a newspaper, magazine or TV. You need the heft of a book. And I do my best to test these ideas in reality as strenuously as I can because what works is always more important than a clever argument.

The beliefs that we hold most sacred are the very ones we must most vigorously test.