Free Press - here's a short version of an essay I'd write for you on this topic.
I have a framework that can clear up the confusion here. While I agree with many of the comments on this post the mistake is getting stuck with the explicit content (debating facts) versus implicit content (underlying psychology/meaning). I believe the cultur…
Free Press - here's a short version of an essay I'd write for you on this topic.
I have a framework that can clear up the confusion here. While I agree with many of the comments on this post the mistake is getting stuck with the explicit content (debating facts) versus implicit content (underlying psychology/meaning). I believe the cultural rift emerging in our time is about a fundamental, existential decision about how we want to relate to the world: through comfortable delusions or through reality (which is discomforting to some). The challenge is that there is a kind of truth in both sides. Let me explain.
Steel man: This discomfort with growth and change is a fundamental human problem within all of us. When we are challenged to grow, to integrate a new fact or experience about the world (including what we disagree with), it can be painful because we prefer the familiar (even if the familiar is ultimately a worse option). As a psychotherapist this is the thing I’m always working with, though it takes many forms. So the truth of the TED side of things is that these people probably genuinely do feel overwhelmed with the information Coleman is presenting. I can imagine that if one builds one's identity and career around social divisions based on race that Coleman's brilliant insights would be very threatening to them. I see in the comments many references to children. These are correctly based on the intuition that developmentally children do indeed need protection from the world. But, the question becomes when does the responsibility for processing the world shift from the outside (the protective function of parents) to the inside (an individual adult)? So what is slippery about claims of being “harmed” is that they may very well be upset, but the mistake comes in how we as a culture relate to them and their subsequent demands.
So much of this has to do with an individual’s relationship to growth and change. A good analogy is running. After a meeting I once had a conversation with a woman about running. I was excited to hear she did a thing I loved too but she surprised me: “I hate running”. I asked her why. She said because she has to breathe hard, get sweaty, her muscles get tired and it takes her time to recover. I said “Hum, that’s interesting - those are exactly the reasons why I love running so much!”
There is a certain kind of taste one can develop for personal growth/truth like learning to like whiskey or olives. The growing pains are sometimes hard for me, too, but there is an inherent meaning and existential satisfaction when I arrive at a more aligned truth. More specifically, I can stop resisting life so much by embracing how things are, and every single time this is the pivot point where I can get unstuck and actually start to address real problems and move my life forward.
So what we are really talking about between these two sides, I believe, is an existential preference about our fundamental relationship to Truth. One is for an existential state which is small, familiar and comfortable, but (if one pays attention) has a twinge of falsity to it (and arguably many downstream effects from living in delusion), and another way which is larger, can be difficult to arrive at, is often more complex and unpredictable, but inherently satisfying as a gateway for real change.
We underestimate things like the Copernican Revolution. This was a revolution of what? I’d argue that it wasn’t about simply seeing a few scientific facts differently but about a fundamental pivot from old power-based delusions as enforced by the Catholic church to a taste for being in reality. This is when the surrender of faith shifted from what’s familiar/comfortable (baseless claims about physics made by the Pope) to what’s experientially true/demonstrable. While it takes many forms, this is an inherent challenge that confronts us again and again as humans. Our freedom is in our choice of how we relate to it.
To be concrete, I'd like to see a long-form moderated debate between the best representatives of both “sides”, the one that says “We’d rather not research gender differences, seriously question people’s claims about identity, or challenge leftist race orthodoxy because some people don’t have the emotional capacity for these conversations” versus “There is something inherently valuable in knowing Truth, whatever it is. As individual adults, people’s emotional reactions regarding facts about the world are their responsibility. The world works better, and there is ultimately less overall suffering, when we dismantle the delusions that would otherwise lead to one unanticipated crisis after another. Some will be upset by this - always have and always will”. The purpose of this debate would not be to change the minds of the vocal minority that will have meltdowns every time the world isn't exactly as they'd like, but rather for the 95% (like TED organizers, university administrators, etc) that need a deeper understanding so they can better navigate the inherently difficult confrontation with another human's unhinged rage and projections.
Free Press - here's a short version of an essay I'd write for you on this topic.
I have a framework that can clear up the confusion here. While I agree with many of the comments on this post the mistake is getting stuck with the explicit content (debating facts) versus implicit content (underlying psychology/meaning). I believe the cultural rift emerging in our time is about a fundamental, existential decision about how we want to relate to the world: through comfortable delusions or through reality (which is discomforting to some). The challenge is that there is a kind of truth in both sides. Let me explain.
Steel man: This discomfort with growth and change is a fundamental human problem within all of us. When we are challenged to grow, to integrate a new fact or experience about the world (including what we disagree with), it can be painful because we prefer the familiar (even if the familiar is ultimately a worse option). As a psychotherapist this is the thing I’m always working with, though it takes many forms. So the truth of the TED side of things is that these people probably genuinely do feel overwhelmed with the information Coleman is presenting. I can imagine that if one builds one's identity and career around social divisions based on race that Coleman's brilliant insights would be very threatening to them. I see in the comments many references to children. These are correctly based on the intuition that developmentally children do indeed need protection from the world. But, the question becomes when does the responsibility for processing the world shift from the outside (the protective function of parents) to the inside (an individual adult)? So what is slippery about claims of being “harmed” is that they may very well be upset, but the mistake comes in how we as a culture relate to them and their subsequent demands.
So much of this has to do with an individual’s relationship to growth and change. A good analogy is running. After a meeting I once had a conversation with a woman about running. I was excited to hear she did a thing I loved too but she surprised me: “I hate running”. I asked her why. She said because she has to breathe hard, get sweaty, her muscles get tired and it takes her time to recover. I said “Hum, that’s interesting - those are exactly the reasons why I love running so much!”
There is a certain kind of taste one can develop for personal growth/truth like learning to like whiskey or olives. The growing pains are sometimes hard for me, too, but there is an inherent meaning and existential satisfaction when I arrive at a more aligned truth. More specifically, I can stop resisting life so much by embracing how things are, and every single time this is the pivot point where I can get unstuck and actually start to address real problems and move my life forward.
So what we are really talking about between these two sides, I believe, is an existential preference about our fundamental relationship to Truth. One is for an existential state which is small, familiar and comfortable, but (if one pays attention) has a twinge of falsity to it (and arguably many downstream effects from living in delusion), and another way which is larger, can be difficult to arrive at, is often more complex and unpredictable, but inherently satisfying as a gateway for real change.
We underestimate things like the Copernican Revolution. This was a revolution of what? I’d argue that it wasn’t about simply seeing a few scientific facts differently but about a fundamental pivot from old power-based delusions as enforced by the Catholic church to a taste for being in reality. This is when the surrender of faith shifted from what’s familiar/comfortable (baseless claims about physics made by the Pope) to what’s experientially true/demonstrable. While it takes many forms, this is an inherent challenge that confronts us again and again as humans. Our freedom is in our choice of how we relate to it.
To be concrete, I'd like to see a long-form moderated debate between the best representatives of both “sides”, the one that says “We’d rather not research gender differences, seriously question people’s claims about identity, or challenge leftist race orthodoxy because some people don’t have the emotional capacity for these conversations” versus “There is something inherently valuable in knowing Truth, whatever it is. As individual adults, people’s emotional reactions regarding facts about the world are their responsibility. The world works better, and there is ultimately less overall suffering, when we dismantle the delusions that would otherwise lead to one unanticipated crisis after another. Some will be upset by this - always have and always will”. The purpose of this debate would not be to change the minds of the vocal minority that will have meltdowns every time the world isn't exactly as they'd like, but rather for the 95% (like TED organizers, university administrators, etc) that need a deeper understanding so they can better navigate the inherently difficult confrontation with another human's unhinged rage and projections.