Many thanks as ever, Karl, for your interesting & intelligent comments! It’s been a bit of a long day at work today & I have little brain to spare, but I’ll think about this & get back to you tomorrow.
Fascinating column. It is really interesting to think about how our ancestors thought about the world. One point this makes beautifully and that I often used to try to make as a teacher is that people efforts to explain things are limited to what they can make recourse to. That is, if you do not know microorganisms exist, you cannot use microorganisms to explain something that happens.
One of my favorite books ever is the meaning of fossils which seeks to elucidate how people throughout history have understood fossils (if a fossil is not a dead animal, and mountains have always been where and how they are -- how is it possible that you find fish like fossils on mountain tops?).
You also make really great points about what Shermer has called "agenticity" or the propensity to give agency to things that do not really have agency.
I loved this detour away from the crime psychology topic; as you suggest, this who-not-why business remains popular in the modern era. It may be a leap on my part, but I wonder if modern people across the political spectrum indulge in this kind of thinking because it’s more basic to human behavior than a serious commitment to scientific thinking? And a complete commitment to rational thinking is hard for humans, even if they like to pay lip service to science.
I can feel these concepts already affecting my amateur sociological theories.
It would appear to be a contributing factor to trends like the social media popularity of dark triad framings, as well as what I’d call the moral provincialism of American progressives seeing Israel as an out-and-out villain, rather than a participant in a complex but very human conflict where there’s ample guilt on both sides.
Thanks for your thoughts, Karl. Indeed, I think that everyone indulges in this kind of thinking to some extent. In my wilder moments, I suspect that teleological reasoning may be the most basic kind. Very young children do it a lot: they punch or kick furniture that has 'hurt' them, for instance. Cognitive maturity is partly a function of leaving that kind of thing behind, although, as I mentioned in the article, we all tend to resort to it when we are under pressure of one sort or another.
A complete commitment to rational thinking is just about impossible. The world is very complex and our brains are just not powerful enough to cope. That's why we have to rely on shortcuts. For sure, it's much easier to see one country as a villain and another as a hero, (or, in the postmodern parlance, victimiser and victim) than to understand that the world is much more complex than that and surely always has been... Have you encountered Daniel Kahneman's book about this, called Thinking, Fast and Slow? If you haven't, I very much recommend it.
This is so good. Great research and delivery. It taught me so much, thank you.
Thank you very much, Jon! I'm glad you liked it. Stick around- there is more to come...
I ain’t going anywhere, looking forward to it.
Many thanks as ever, Karl, for your interesting & intelligent comments! It’s been a bit of a long day at work today & I have little brain to spare, but I’ll think about this & get back to you tomorrow.
Fascinating column. It is really interesting to think about how our ancestors thought about the world. One point this makes beautifully and that I often used to try to make as a teacher is that people efforts to explain things are limited to what they can make recourse to. That is, if you do not know microorganisms exist, you cannot use microorganisms to explain something that happens.
One of my favorite books ever is the meaning of fossils which seeks to elucidate how people throughout history have understood fossils (if a fossil is not a dead animal, and mountains have always been where and how they are -- how is it possible that you find fish like fossils on mountain tops?).
You also make really great points about what Shermer has called "agenticity" or the propensity to give agency to things that do not really have agency.
I loved this detour away from the crime psychology topic; as you suggest, this who-not-why business remains popular in the modern era. It may be a leap on my part, but I wonder if modern people across the political spectrum indulge in this kind of thinking because it’s more basic to human behavior than a serious commitment to scientific thinking? And a complete commitment to rational thinking is hard for humans, even if they like to pay lip service to science.
I can feel these concepts already affecting my amateur sociological theories.
It would appear to be a contributing factor to trends like the social media popularity of dark triad framings, as well as what I’d call the moral provincialism of American progressives seeing Israel as an out-and-out villain, rather than a participant in a complex but very human conflict where there’s ample guilt on both sides.
Thanks for your thoughts, Karl. Indeed, I think that everyone indulges in this kind of thinking to some extent. In my wilder moments, I suspect that teleological reasoning may be the most basic kind. Very young children do it a lot: they punch or kick furniture that has 'hurt' them, for instance. Cognitive maturity is partly a function of leaving that kind of thing behind, although, as I mentioned in the article, we all tend to resort to it when we are under pressure of one sort or another.
A complete commitment to rational thinking is just about impossible. The world is very complex and our brains are just not powerful enough to cope. That's why we have to rely on shortcuts. For sure, it's much easier to see one country as a villain and another as a hero, (or, in the postmodern parlance, victimiser and victim) than to understand that the world is much more complex than that and surely always has been... Have you encountered Daniel Kahneman's book about this, called Thinking, Fast and Slow? If you haven't, I very much recommend it.
I have! As usual, I skimmed it— but it did get under my skin and I should go back and read some more of it.
And we also see things like MJT claiming the eclipse was a message from God telling us we need to repent.